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Parimarjan's Politiken: Negi Convincing Winner in Elsingore

Parimarjan's Politiken: Negi Convincing Winner in Elsingore

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| 5 | Chess Event Coverage

On Sunday Parimarjan Negi won the strong Politiken Cup in Elsinore, Denmark. The 20-year-old Indian grandmaster achieved a superb score of 9 points out of 10 games (a 2794 performance, which is very difficult to reach in an open tournament!) and finished a full point ahead of a group of seven grandmasters: Ivan Cheparinov (Bulgaria), Romain Edouard (France), Sebastien Maze (France), Sune Berg Hansen (Denmark), Jan Timman (Netherlands), Sabino Brunello (Italy) and Robin van Kampen (Netherlands).

Despite the word 'Copenhagen' in the logo of the tournament website, this annual Danish summer open was held in Elsingore, the city of Hamlet. The first half (actually a bit more than that) was dominated by the 27-year-old Bulgarian grandmaster Ivan Cheparinov. Still mostly known as the former second of Veselin Topalov, Cheparinov is a very strong grandmaster himself, who started with 6/6. In the sixth round he nicely outplayed one of Levon Aronian's part-time seconds, Hrant Melkumyan of Armenia.

Ivan Cheparinov

In the next round, Cheparinov dropped his first half point to Parimarjan Negi of India. This was quite a nice game as well:

With three rounds to go (they played 10 rounds instead of the usual 9), Cheparinov was half a point ahead of Negi and also last-minute entry David Smerdon of Australia, Dutch chess legend Jan Timman, Romain Edouard of France (currenly Veselin Topalov's second!), Sebastien Maze of France, Jonny Hector of Sweden and Sabino Brunello of Italy.

The playing hall for the top boards

The Bulgarian player drew again, with Edouard, and two players caught him in first place: Brunello, who beat Smerdon, and Negi, who beat Maze.

Sabino Brunello

Both Brunello and Negi won their games in the penultimate round as well. On board one, Cheparinov had apparently used up too much energy.

Negi won a long and tough ending against Melkumyan:

And so the tournament had the dream pairing in round 10, with the two leaders facing each other at the board! Unlike Adams and Kramnik in Dortmund, these two GMs fought out a good fight, and it ended in the Indian's favour.

Parimarjan Negi: 9 out of 10 in Elsingore

The names of two true chess legends cannot remain unmentioned. Both Jan Timman (61) and Lajos Portisch (76) were among the very best players of the world in their heydays, both of them don't play very much anymore but both participated.

Timman's last tournament was the B group of the Tata Steel tournament, in January in Wijk aan Zee. There he won five games, drew four and lost four (a very decent 2651 performance). At the Politiken Cup it didn't go bad either: the Dutchman finished among the group of players with 8/10, staying undefeated and scoring a 2619 performance. 

Jan Timman

Portisch hadn't played a serious tournament since October last year. The Hungarian legend scored 6.5/10 and a 2301 performance.

Lajos Portisch

The Politiken Cup took place July 27th-August 4th, 2013 at the Konventum Helsingør in Elsinore, Denmark. It was a 10-round Swiss; the rate of play was 90 minutes for 40 moves + 30 min for the rest of the game + 30 seconds increment for every move played starting from the first move. The dates for next year's edition have been announced already: 21th-29th July, 2014.

Politiken Cup 2013 | Final standings (top 40)

# Player Rating Pts MiBu SoBer
1 GM Parimarjan Negi 2634 9 55 59,75
2 GM Ivan Cheparinov 2678 8 59 57
3 GM Romain Edouard 2662 8 57,5 55,25
4 GM Sebastien Maze 2547 8 54,5 52,5
5 GM Sune Berg Hansen 2549 8 54,5 52,25
6 GM Jan H. Timman 2584 8 53 51,75
7 GM Sabino Brunello 2593 8 52,5 51
8 GM Robin Van Kampen 2595 8 49 47
9 GM Sergey Erenburg 2615 55 48,5
10 GM Hrant Melkumyan 2632 55 48,25
11 IM Simon Bekker-Jensen 2414 50,5 46,25
12 GM Krzysztof Bulski 2534 50,5 43,25
13 FM Bjørn Møller Ochsner 2343 49 42,75
14 GM David Smerdon 2521 7 55 45
15 GM Jonny Hector 2509 7 55 44,5
16 IM Jakob Vang Glud 2520 7 54 44
17 GM Lars Schandorff 2522 7 53,5 44,5
18 GM Stelios Halkias 2565 7 53 45
19 GM Nils Grandelius 2573 7 52,5 44,5
20 GM Henrik Danielsen 2510 7 52,5 41
21 GM Vitaly Kunin 2502 7 52 40,5
22 FM Jakob Aabling-Thomsen 2370 7 51,5 43,25
23 IM Jonathan Carlstedt 2387 7 51,5 43
24 IM Mads Andersen 2477 7 51 42,5
25 GM Allan Stig Rasmussen 2502 7 51 41,75
26 IM Rasmus Svane 2427 7 50,5 41,25
27 FM Aryan Tari 2383 7 49,5 39,5
28 IM Petter Haugli 2287 7 47 39
29 Thibault Louis 2222 7 47 37,5
30 IM John Arni Nilssen 2353 7 47 36
31 FM Benjamin Arvola 2347 7 46,5 36
32 FM Karsten Larsen 2270 7 45,5 38
33 Tom Rydström 2172 7 44,5 33,5
34 GM Jens Kristiansen 2396 51,5 39,25
35 Sandi Stojanovski 2270 51,5 39,25
36 GM Lajos Portisch 2479 50,5 39,25
37 IM Iñigo Argandoña Riveiro 2388 50,5 39
38 Fabian Englert 2282 50,5 37,25
39 FM Igor Teplyi 2409 50 37,75
40 FM Jacob Carstensen 2384 50 37,5

Full final standings here

Photos courtesy of the official website, games via TWIC.

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