Mamedyarov withdraws from Aeroflot
Top seed Mamedyarov withdrew from the Aeroflot Chess tournament after accusing his opponent Igor Kurnosov of cheating. Mamedyarov was leading the tournament with +3 at the end of the fifth round and slid back while Kurnosov is in the lead after 6 rounds. What rattled Mamedyarov is probably a combination of things. Imagine a 2602 player refusing an early draw from a 2724 giant! Kurnosov did exactly that. The arbiters though, did not agree. They felt that the moves could be found by a strong GM. Some facts related to this story. -- Some witnesses claim that Kurnosov never went to the bathroom. He was mostly in the smoking area . -- Mamedyarov has slid down to number 21 in the live ratings. He used to be in the top 10 in the recent past -- Kurnosov has been in top form in the last few months, winning Hastings in December comprehensively with 7.5/9 -- Mamedyarov had resigned in an apparently equal game against Magnus Carlsen at Corus 2008, which created a buzz at the time on different foru...