Andorra, Najdorf Memorial, Politiken Cup and Villarobledo rapid
There are so many chess tournaments taking place during summer that it's hardly possible to keep track. In this post we'll have a look of four that finished recently. Romain won in Andorra, Wojtaszek was the strongest at the Najdorf memorial, Negi & Avrukh tied for first at the Politiken Cup and Naiditsch won the very strong rapid tournament in Villarobledo.
Andorra
French grandmaster Edouard Romain was the only player to finish on 7.5/9 in a field of 14 GM and 12 IMs, including Kevin Spraggett, Mihail Marin and Csaba Balogh. 
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Najdorf Memorial
22-year-old Polish grandmaster Radoslaw Wojtaszek won the 2009 Najdorf Memorial with a score of 6/9. In this single round-robin, held 18-26 July in Warsaw, veteran Eduardas Rozentalis finished undefeated as well, and on a fine second place with 5.5 points. Krishnan Sasikiran and Bartosz Socko underperformed a bit.
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Politiken Cup
The Politiken Cup, named after the Danish daily newspaper, is always one of the stronger opens in the summer calendar, and also one of the longer, running 10 instead of 9 rounds. This year it was held in Helsingor, about 40 km north of Copenhagen, from July 18th to 26th. Former prodigy Parimarjan Negi from India scored a new success, finishing on 8.5/10, together with Israeli grandmaster Boris Avrukh.
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Villarobledo rapid
This annual rapid tournament, held for the 24th time already this weekend in the Spanish town of Villarrobledo, seems to be getting stronger every year. For Arkadij Naiditsch it meant excellent preparation for Mainz, where he'll face Anand, Aronian and Nepomniachtchi this week. The German grandmaster took clear first place with 7.5/9 after he won his first six games! After a quick draw with Grischuk in round 7 he then lost to Milov, but with another win against Ponomariov Naiditsch secured his € 3,000 Euros weekend jackpot anyway. Hou Yifan and Ljubomir Ljubojevic, both participants in the NH Chess Tournament in a few weeks, both scored a decent 6/9.
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Game selection
The games of the strongest players in Andorra and at the Politiken Cup, all games of Wojtaszek at the Najdorf Memorial and all games of the Villarobledo rapid tournament can be replayed here: Game viewer by ChessTempo
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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