The Aeroflot Open is the annual Moscow open held under the sponsorship of the Russian airline Aeroflot. The 2026 edition was held from February 22 to March 3 in Moscow, with a Masters section A field of approximately 200 grandmasters and international masters across 9 rounds of classical Swiss-pairing.
Founded in 2002, the Aeroflot Open quickly became one of the strongest annual opens in chess. The combination of a substantial prize fund ($120,000 in 2026), a famously deep grandmaster field, and the Aeroflot- provided travel reimbursements made it a fixture in the elite-grandmaster tournament calendar for the better part of two decades.
Historical winners include Levon Aronian, Wang Hao, Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxim Matlakov, Vladislav Artemiev, and Daniil Dubov. Many of the world top-twenty grandmasters of the 2010s played the Aeroflot Open at some point in their development.
The tournament was paused for several years following Russia’s 2022 exclusion from FIDE team events but resumed in modified form in 2024. International participation in the 2026 edition was reduced compared to the pre-2022 era, with most invited players drawn from former Soviet states, the Middle East, and developing Asian chess federations.
For the Russian Chess Federation’s tournament page and final standings, see the right column.