Vachier-Lagrave wins Paris Ch

The summer is finally there. After performing a bit too modestly in many European countries the sun now does its job big time, which meant a sudden change of the weather into really hot summer days. Those days you normally don't play chess. Or do you?

Of course everywhere many, many tournaments are being played at this very moment or very soon. The weather description I just gave took place in many European cities and also in the French capital, where last week I played in the Championship of Paris. Luckily the really hot days coincided only with the last two rounds, which therefore reminded me of last year's ACT tournament. (Because my opponent didn't show up in round 8 I only had to suffer for one round, and I could spend my Saturday celebrating Quatorze Juillet, although it wasn't as special as I expected it to be. Nothing beats our Queen's Day I guess.)

A not too well-known tournament (it wasn't on Harmen Jonkman's chess calendar for example) but still quite big and strong. Four different groups played in the Stadium de Coubertin, in the 16th arrondissement which is known to be quite poshy, with terras prices like 4,5 euros for a beer. The main group was for players above 2200 and here the GMs David, Fressinet, Fedorchuk, Dizdar, Vachier-Lagrave, Schekachev and Tregubov played for the prizes. The latter started strongly with five wins, but then the fun was over. He finished with four draws, surviving several lost positions. This way both first-seed Fressinet and the French top talent Vachier-Lagrave could come by. Because of his great start Tregubov would be declared the winner in almost every tournament but the French always do things a bit differently, and this includes their tiebreak system. It has something to do with leaving out the worst results of the opponents ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú don't ask me for the details ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú but Vachier-Lagrave may call himself champion of Paris. Like with all talents of these days, his fans call him a 'tactisch beast'.

Top final standings:

 1 g  VACHIER-LAGRAVE Maxime 2595  7  44,5 2719 
 2 g  TREGUBOV Pavel V.      2599  7  43,5 2728 
 3 g  FRESSINET Laurent      2646  7  43   2686 
 4 g  MORADIABADI Elshan     2540 6,5 40,5 2563 
 5 g  DAVID Alberto          2529 6,5 40   2548 
 6 g  RENET Olivier          2498  6  45,5 2639 
 7 g  FEDORCHUK Sergey A.    2618  6  45   2617 
 8 g  SHCHEKACHEV Andrei     2541  6  38   2476 
 9 m  BERNARD Christophe     2354  6  38   2455 
10 m  VAN DELFT Merijn       2408  6  37,5 2450 
11 g  DIZDAR Goran           2553 5,5 40,5 2507 
12    FAYARD Alain           2305 5,5 39,5 2506 
13    DOURERASSOU Jonathan   2346 5,5 38,5 2483 
14 m  BROCHET Philippe       2396 5,5 37   2422 
15    PILE Richard           2277 5,5 36,5 2452 
16 m  ONKOUD Abdelaziz       2396 5,5 36   2429 
17    CARLHAMMAR Magnus      2331 5,5 33   2377 
18 m  GOVCIYAN Pavel         2430 5,5 31   2343

Full final standings here. The games of the top boards can be found here for download. I can recommend the game of ChessVibes-editor Merijn van Delft with White against Laurent Fressinet. The puzzle to solve is: on which two moments could White make a draw?

The venue?¢‚Ǩ¬¶

?¢‚Ǩ¬¶very close to Porte St. Cloud square

Inside the stadium, one hour before the tournament

Ready to play?

GM Alberto David

GM Goran Dizdar

GM Sergey Fedorchuk

GM Laurent Fressinet

GM Andrei Schekachev, second of Alexander Grischuk in Mexico

GM Pavel Tregubov

GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

GM Olivier Renet

IM Merijn van Delft, who took the 10th prize (500 euros)

The arbiters

Top boards, last round

Beamer + screen showing the top boards

An interesting ending: Van Delft-Fressinet (round 2)

Fressinet & Dizdar analysing their last round game (1-0) together with David

Playing chess possible throughout the year in Parque Luxembourg