Shamkir Chess

Shamkir Chess is a chess supertournament played in Shamkir, Azerbaijan in memory of Vugar Gashimov (1986–2014).

The Gashimov Memorial 2014 took place in the Haydar Aliev Centre in Shamkir City from 16 April to 30 April 2014, consisting of two tournaments, with invited players Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Sergey Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and Teimour Radjabov making up the A Tournament. The Elo average for the tournament was 2780, making it a Category 22 event and one of the highest rated tournaments of all time.

The A Tournament was held as a double round robin, with each player facing the other with both colours, while the B Tournament was held as a single round robin.

The total prize fund for the A tournament was €100,000, while the prize fund for the B tournament was €30,000.

In the A Tournament, in spite of losing consecutive games early on,Magnus Carlsen won after a last round White win over Fabiano Caruana who finished second.

In the B Tournament, Pavel Eljanov won two and drew one of his last three games to take first place.

The second edition of Shamkir Chess took place 16-25 April 2015.

World champion Magnus Carlsen, former world champion Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik competed in the tournament in Azerbaijan, as well as Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Michael Adams, and the Azerbaijan Champion Rauf Mamedov.

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