Some tournament news
Daniel Fridman is champion of Germany, Tomasz Markowski grabs the title at the first Pfalz Open, Peter Svidler wins a weekender (!) in Ireland... Some tournament news.The 79th Individual Championship of Germany wasn't the strongest ever, but still several GM were participating. The event was held 15-23 February and top seed Daniel Fridman (2627) won the title a point clear, with 7.5 out of 9. Tournament website.[TABLE=172]We'll stay in Germany for the next one. The country already has a good tradition of strong opens, e.g. Neckar, Bad Wiessee and Bad W?ɬ?rishofen, and a new one can be added to the list, held last week: the first Pfalz Open. Strong players such as Tiviakov (2649), Korneev (2645), Postny (2627) and Berelovich (2606) had traveled to Neustadt an der Weinstra?É??e (between Mainz and Karlsruhe), but eventually the Polish player Tomasz Markowski (2585) won with 7.5 out of 9. Tournament website.[TABLE=173]18-24 February, a big chess festival was held in Nancy, France. No less than 14 round-robin tournaments took place and the French GM Christian Bauer won the main event. The Canadian IM Thomas Roussel-Roozmon, whom I met last year at the First Saturday tournament in Budapest, had to win his last-round game to score a GM norm. Agains Bauer he was a a pawn up in a rook ending, but unfortunately couldn't convert it. Tournament website.[TABLE=174]The organizers of the Bunratty Chess Festival (an Irish weekender, held close to Limerick) had a very special top seed in their tables: Russian top GM Peter Svidler. As can be read on the tournament website, this small tourney tries to contract one strong GM every year who gets the 'role of honour'. Svidler accepted for the 2008 edition, and did what he had to do: he won the tournament allowing only one draw, against Chess Today editor Alexander Baburin.[TABLE=175]And to end this short survey of tournament news, we return to Morelia once more. During the Morelia/Linares super tournament, another event is being held: the 2nd Ibero American Championship (something like "the championship for those who speak Spanish"). In the Mexican part, the preliminaries were played in four different groups. The two best players of every group qualified for the final phase, which is to be held in Linares at the same dates as the big brother (28 February - 8 March). The qualified players are also divided in two groups:
Group A Group B 1. GM Giovanni Vescovi 2617 BRA 1. Juan Carlos Gonz?ɬ°lez 2556 MEX 2. GM Lazaro Bruz?ɬ?n 2607 CUB 2. Diego Flores 2558 ARG 3. IM Eduardo Iturrizaga 2470 VEN 3. Julio Granda Zuniga 2588 PER 4. GM Alex Bachmann 2505 PAR 4. Holden Hern?ɬ°ndez 2590 CUB
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.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
Company Contact and News Accreditation:
Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: 877 E 1200 S #970397, Orem, UT 84097
