With already more than 1600 participants, the event committee has stopped accepting applications for the Moscow Open 2013 RSSU Cup.

The RSSU Cup will have one additional day this year. First, on February 1st behind the boards will be the participants of the MCF Cup for school champions. The following day the adult tournaments will begin.

The 2010 European Champion Ian Nepomniachtchi is the favorite for the 2013 Moscow Open’s Russian Cup A division. The second and third highest-rated players in the tournament’s lineup are also Russian grandmasters: Ernesto Inariev (2688) and Vladimir Potkin (2665).

The first name on the women’s lineup is Anastasia Bodnaruk (2430) Saint Petersburg followed by Nino Batsiashvili (2407) from Georgia and Baira Kovanova (2387) from Saratov.

The contestants of the 2013 Moscow Open round-robin tournaments, the RSSU cup events for student grandmasters, have been decided.

In the men’s tournament: Aleksandr Shimanov (RUS, 2630), Robert Hovhannisyan (ARM, 2610), Manuel Leon Hoyos (MEX, 2599), Vladimir Belous (RUS, 2554), Jan Krejci (CZE, 2529), S.P. Sethuraman (IND, 2520), Mikhail Mozharov (RUS, 2515), Alexey Reshetnikov (RUS, 2508), Andrey Stukopin (RUS, 2492), Burak Firat (TUR, 2406).

Attention Festival Participants:

As information regarding payments made to the Moscow Chess Federation by Moscow Open 2013 participants will be available to the event committee no earlier than January 9th, status updates for participants who have registered will take place beginning January 10th.

Hotel reservation requests made by December 28, 2012 have been processed. The remaining requests are being processed currently. The list will be updated January 11, 2013.

On Friday, at the Russian State Social University (RGSU) the working meeting took place of the organising committee of the 9th Мoscow Open 2013 international chess festival. The meeting dealt with all technical problems, connected with running one of the strongest, not only chess events, but sporting events in the capital.

On Wednesday 7 November, before the start of the King's Tournament in Bucharest, FIDE Treasurer and Executive Director Nigel Freeman, European Chess Union President, Silvio Danailov, President of the International Schools Union Alexander Kosyev, Vice-President of the Rumanian Chess Federation Ion Dobroneatu, together with famous Rumanian WGM Elzabeta Polihroniade (she has the honour to be the organiser of the prestigious King's Tournament series) made a visit to the Minister of Education and Sport in Rumania, Emilia Togala. They discussed questions relating to the further development of chess as a sport in Rumania, and specifically spent time on schools chess.

On 4 October, at RGSU, during a meeting between the President of the Moscow Chess Federation, Vladimir Moronovich Palikhata and the Honorary President of the RCF, Vasily Ivanovich Zhukov, an agreement was reached, regarding the running of the International Cup RGSU - Moscow Open-2013 festival at the university, from 31 January – 11 February 2013.

The rector of RGSU, Professor Lidia Vasilievna Fedyakina, underlined the readiness of RGSU to host the festival for the 9th time. The prize fund of the event will be maintained at the same level as last year, and will amount to 3 500 000 roubles.