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Oleg Romanishin has won he 13th Cultural Village Chess Tournament. The Ukrainian veteran finished on 6.5/9, ahead of Vyacheslav Ikonnikov and Deepan Chakkravarthy. By winning, Romanishin qualified for Corus Grandmaster group C.The 13th Cultural Village Chess Tournament, formerly known as Sonnevanck Chess Tournament, took place 18-27 November in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. Wijk aan?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ wait a minute?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ Yes, that famous sea town where a certain tournament is being held every year in January. But besides a ?¢‚Ǩ?ìJanuary tradition?¢‚Ǩ? there's also a ?¢‚Ǩ?ìNovember tradition?¢‚Ǩ?.Every year in November a small round-robin is held there to give Dutch talents a possibility to score an IM or GM norm. Besides, there's an additional prize for the winner: direct qualification for Corus Grandmaster group C. Two years ago IM Thomas Willemze managed to do this, last year the lucky one was GM Dimitri Reinderman and yesterday he was succeeded by 55-year-old GM Oleg Romanishin from the Ukraine. Romanishin will return to Wijk aan Zee 24 years after his participation in what was still called "Hoogovens Tournament" in 1985, where he finished on a shared 6th place with Lobron, Kortchnoi and Ree (the
invitation group was won by Timman). Here's a victory with Black from that tournament:
Back to 2008. After eight rounds, Romanishin shared first place in this year's Cultural Village tournament with GMs Ikonnikov and Deepan Chakkravarthy, but in the final round they had to settle for draws against Dutch IMs Spoelman and Swinkels respectively, while Romanishin easily defeated Den Heeten.
[TABLE=516]Last month Venezuelan GM Eduardo Iturrizaga qualified for Corus Grandmaster group C by
winning the ICC satellite qualifier. Besides Iturrizaga and Romanishin, two other participants have already confirmed their participation in Group C: IMs Manuel Bosboom and IM Frank Holzke, who both qualified by winning the two highest Amateur groups last year. The Corus organizers are planning to publish the full list of participants of groups B and C somewhere next week.
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