Rowson wins 2nd Capo d'Orso

The tournament in Sardinia has ended. Rowson kept his lead till the end and so he became the winner of the 2nd Chess Festival Capo d'Orso. We have a video with impressions of this in many ways beautiful event.

Before we say more, first the video - which actually says enough. ;-)





Here's the crucial game from round 8. Korneev was a point behind Rowson and so he had to win. The tournament leader chose a very old line in the Closed Ruy Lopez with Black, which is treated in the book A Spanish Repertoire for Black by Mihail Marin, who was playing a few boards further down!




It was a heroic fight in which Korneev took many risks but eventually had to accept Rowson's draw offer. Then the Scotchman clinched the title easily with a quick draw against Naumkin in the last round.



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GM Jonathan Rowson at the board...

...and with the cup!

For everyone who hasn't had enough of Rowson yet, I gladly refer to a lecture he gave last year at an international congress about thinking, held in Norkkoping, Sweden. It's called What is it like to be a chess grandmaster?

GM Oleg Korneev at the board... ...the very friendly Russian grandmaster finished second

And here we have IM Bruno Fabio, who finished third and scored his second GM norm! British Champion GM Jacob Aagaard didn't have his best result ever, but hey, what else can you do than smile when you came to Sardinia with your wife and your lovely four-months-old baby-girl?

GM Michele Godena

GM Stefan Djuric

GM Stewart Haslinger

GM Mihail Marin

GM Tiger Hillarp Persson - his great lecture will be published later this week!

Links:

• Tournament website
• Games round 1-8 in PGN