The Russian Grandmaster Alexander Grischuk won the tie breaks over his compatriot and friend Vladimir Potkin.

— It was a hard match, wasn’t it?

Of course! It is always hard to win back after you lose the first game. The tie breaks were also very tense. In the first game I got a perspective position though very complicated. Then I got confused and if Volodya did everything correctly, who knows what would happen.  In the second game I played a novelty on d5 but to my surprise Volodya knew how to play, perhaps he studied this move. We received a very complicated position with an advantage for White. Though it was much easier to play for Black.  My opponent missed the tactics at one point and later on Black got a brilliant position. I entered a pawn endgame considering that even it is a drawish endgame, it would be hard for White to find the only right move having only two minutes.

— So, you were not a hundred percent sure of your victory?

Of course not. Vladimir did not take into account that when pawns move to h4 and h5, Black is able to change pawn e4 to pawn b4. Here thanks to the outflanking Black wins.

— In one of the previous days we witnessed the following: you played a game against Vladimir, then took a car and went to the hotel, discussing something with him. Your friendship does not suffer from the rivalry?

At one point I was cursing myself that was giving some advises to Volodya. It did not concern any concrete positions, in general about the game. When I lost in my first game I right away remembered the words of my many-years coach Anatoly Bykhovsky. He always tell me: «Not a single deed goes scotfree!»