ACP Golden: Clash of the titans

The ACP Golden Classic International Chess Tournament is being held in Bergamo, Italy, from 12 to 20 July 2014, as the main event for 2014 in the agenda of the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP). The tournament is a seven-player round robin. The rate of play is 150 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 60 minutes for the next 16 moves, followed by 15 minutes to finish the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move in the last period. The ACP Golden Classic brings back the long forgotten tradition of adjourned games. If a game is not finished at the end of the first playing session (five hours), the arbiter will ask the player whose turn it is to move to adjourn the game and ‘seal’ his move. This does not apply to the last round.

Round six

This sixth round was opened by the local authorities of Bergamo, including sports councils and
university rectors, who made the inaugural moves on the three boards 

After five rounds at the ACP Golden Classic, two players headed the standings of the tournament. The Phillipine Wesley So had scored 3.0/4 and was the sole leader. He was trailed by Jobava Baadur, who had 2.5/4, including a winning adjourned position against Zoltan Almasi. In the sixth round they faced each other and both were acutely aware that the result of this game will almost certainly decide the tournament.

The start of the game of the tournament

Wesley So points out a move in the post-mortem with Baadur

Wesley So comments on his win against Jobava Baadur in round six 

Vocaturo has not been playing the star tournament of his career, and round six further evidenced that.

Daniele Vocaturo made a mistake at the decisive moment and lost his against Sutovsky. "The
position should be slightly better for Black but from the practical point of view I had some chances".

Emil Sutovsky moved into second place after his win, and Baadur's loss

The game between Zoltan Almasi and Sabino Brunello was adjourned. In a Berlin, Almasi sucessfully anticipated Brunello's preparation and sidestepped it with the quiet 4.d3. Almasi: "I tried to survive. I think Sabino could improve before move 40, but I am clearly worse anyway. I hope to survive."

Sabino Brunello has been the best of the Italians

Replay all games of the round

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Standings after six rounds

NB: Please note that due to rest days and adjourned games, the players have not all played the same number of games.

Information provided by David Kaufmann,
photos by Lennart Ootes, Antonio Milesi, and David Kaufman for the official tournament site

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.