The Third internationnal open of Ajaccio (31.11.2006)
"The 2600 are not the boss !" .
Opening ceremony with the President of the “Collectivité Territoriale Corse” Camille de Rocca Serra,
the President of the Ajaccian Chess Club Marie-Pierre Bartoli
and the President of the Corsican Chess League Léo Battesti.
After the first day, two players are far ahead : German Naiditsch 2676 and the Moldavian Bologan 2659, with 5pts out of 5. They are followed by the Indian Sasikiran, the former Fide World Champion Kasimdzhanov, Bareev, Nikolic, Almasi, Youssoupov, Motylev, Van Wely, Tregubov.
Only Kasimdzhanov will manage to be qualified.
One have to stress on the fantastic course of the talented German player Elisabeth Paetz.
The ex Junior Female Champion of the World also finishes with 7.5 and unfortunatelly 9th with the tie break (Bukholz minus 2).
She finishes of course first female of the tournament.
The tournament was very raised this year, among the 20 Grand-Masters rated more than 2600 elo, only two were qualified for the quarterfinals! Exit Bareev, Smirin, Naiditsch, vanWely and Gurevich!
First of the tournament qualifier: Rustam Kasimdzhanov , born 5 in 1979, from Uzbekistan.
World Champion in 2004, during a very discussed competition : organized in Tripoli in Libya, the Israeli players could not take part in it. In this tournament, Kasimdzhanov nevertheless successively eliminated the four best players of this World Championship, among whom Veselin Topalov, world n°5 in semi-final and Michael Adams, world n°8 in final. Kasimdzhanov should have played against Kasparov in Dubaï(United Arab Emirates) in January 2005.
The match was deferred without new date for organisating reasons, thus compromising the reunification of the titles of World Champion, initially planed in 2005. He lost his title in October 2005 in favour of Veselin Topalov, which gained the World Championship in San Luis (Argentina).
He lost in Ajaccio in semi-final against the Ukrainian Drozdovskij.
The tournament remains however enticing and surprising with the following matches:
1/4 Final |
1/2 Final |
Final |
 The Ukranian Malaniuk Vladimir |
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Kasimdzhanov 2-0 Horvath |
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Kasimdzhanov 0-2 Drozdovskij |
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Drozdovskij 3-2 Sedlak |
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Malaniuk 1,5-0,5 Drozdovskij |
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Golod 0,5-1,5 Gritsak |
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Malaniuk 2-0 Gritsak |
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Milov 0.5-1.5 Malaniuk |
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The 311 players of the tournament attended the finale.
They could follow the moves of the two players thanks to the comments given in the infra-red ear-phones.
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Finals of the preceding editions :
2005 - Sasikiran, Krishnan (India) 3-2 Bacrot, Etienne (France)
2004 - Topalov, Veselin (Bulgaria) 1,5-0,5 Milov Vadim (Swiss)
