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The traditional Politiken Cup 2008 was held in Lo-Skolen College near Helsingør, Denmark. It lasted from Saturday 19. July 2008 to Sunday 27.July 2008. The tournament was a ten-round Swiss, open to all players. Rate of play: 100 min for 40 moves + 30 min for the rest of the game + 30 sec increment for every move played starting from the first move. Prizes (in DKK): 15,000, 12,000, 10,000, 8,000, 6,000, 5, 000, etc. with special rating prizes of DKK 3,000 and 2,000. The Krone is worth 0.13 € or US $0.21, so that the first prize of 15,000 DKK equals 2,000 Euro or US $3,153.
| # | Sd. | Player | Rtng | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 |
| 1 | 5 | GM Sergey Tiviakov | 2645 | 8.0 | 56.0 | 52.75 |
| 2 | 2 | GM Vladimir Malakhov | 2689 | 8.0 | 55.5 | 52.75 |
| 3 | 12 | GM Yurij Kuzubov | 2578 | 8.0 | 55.0 | 52.5 |
| 4 | 4 | GM Peter Heine Nielsen | 2652 | 8.0 | 54.0 | 51.5 |
| 5 | 13 | GM Boris Savchenko | 2578 | 8.0 | 53.5 | 50.0 |
| 6 | 19 | GM Jonny Hector | 2537 | 8.0 | 50.0 | 48.25 |
| 7 | 3 | GM Michael Roiz | 2680 | 7.5 | 55.5 | 50.25 |
| 8 | 9 | GM Mikheil Mchedlishvili | 2604 | 7.5 | 55.0 | 48.75 |
| 9 | 1 | GM Pavel Eljanov | 2716 | 7.5 | 53.0 | 46.75 |
| 10 | 8 | GM Konstantin Landa | 2615 | 7.5 | 52.0 | 46.75 |
| 11 | 16 | GM Alexei Iljushin | 2546 | 7.5 | 52.0 | 46.0 |
| 12 | 10 | GM Emanuel Berg | 2592 | 7.5 | 51.5 | 46.5 |
| 13 | 33 | IM Oliver Kurmann | 2394 | 7.5 | 51.5 | 44.5 |
| 14 | 41 | IM Christian Jepson | 2358 | 7.5 | 48.0 | 42.75 |
| 15 | 18 | GM Lars Schandorff | 2537 | 7.5 | 45.5 | 41.75 |
| 16 | 11 | GM Vitali Golod | 2578 | 7.0 | 54.0 | 45.25 |
| 17 | 20 | GM Jacob Aagaard | 2531 | 7.0 | 54.0 | 44.5 |
| 18 | 7 | GM Bartosz Socko | 2628 | 7.0 | 53.5 | 43.5 |
| 19 | 15 | GM Alexander Evdokimov | 2555 | 7.0 | 52.5 | 41.25 |
| 20 | 14 | GM Artur Kogan | 2569 | 7.0 | 51.0 | 41.75 |
| 21 | 22 | IM Viktorija Cmilyte | 2508 | 7.0 | 50.0 | 41.25 |
| 22 | 35 | FM Krzysztof Bulski | 2388 | 7.0 | 48.0 | 39.5 |
| 23 | 39 | IM Thomas Engqvist | 2363 | 7.0 | 48.0 | 39 |
| 24 | 28 | IM Jens Kristiansen | 2441 | 7.0 | 45.5 | 34.5 |
| 25 | 32 | IM Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen | 2423 | 7.0 | 41.0 | 34.5 |
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Four winners: Yurij Kuzubov, Vladimir Malakhov, Sergey Tiviakov and Boris Savchenko
The top Russian speaking players (on the right Vitali Golod and Konstantin Landa)
Top players – this time including Pavel Eljanov and Michal Krasenkow
A chess tournament is not just boards and pieces, with players bent over them. They look all the same, whether in Dortmund, Linares, Mexico or Beijing. It is dramatically different when you step out of the playing hall and take a look around, at the country and the culture in which you are immersed. Thankfully our roving reporter takes great interest in these things, and has an excellent eye for photographically recording them.
What it feels like to play and win a tournament while providing pictures
and stories for a ChessBase report
The first station of our GM tour of Helsingør is Kronborg Castle (Danish: Kronborg Slot), located on the extreme tip of Zealand at the narrowest point of the Oresund, the sound between Denmark and Sweden.
In this part, the sound is only four km wide, hence the strategic importance of maintaining a fortress at this location. The two aerial pictures here were not taken by GM Tiviakov, who is not that intrepid, but provided by the mind-blowing service of Google Earth. Information on Kronsborg Castle was taken from another service that is the equally revolutionary, from the point of view of civilisation in general: Wikipedia.
Kronborg Castle has for centuries been one of the most important Renaissance castles in Northern Europe and was added to UNESCO's World Heritage Sites list on November 30, 2000.
The castle's story dates back to a fortress, Krogen, built in the 1420s by the Danish king, Eric of Pomerania. The king insisted on the payment of sound dues by all ships wishing to enter or leave the Baltic Sea. To help enforce his demands, he built a powerful fortress controlling the sound. It then consisted of a number of buildings inside a surrounding wall.
Kronborg is known by many also as "Elsinore," the setting for much of William Shakespeare's famous tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Hamlet was performed in the actual castle for the first time to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, with a cast consisting of soldiers from the castle garrison. The stage was in the telegraph tower in the southwest corner of the castle.
To be or not to be – that, for Boris Savchenko, who after round six was leading with a perfect score, but then faltered, is the question. Here the young Krasnodar grandmaster ponders whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.
To swim or not to swim – GM Mikheil Mchedlishvili is confronted with
a different question
Methinks it is too far – Mchedlishvili and his colleagues decide that
'tis nobler in the
mind to hire bicycles and take a ferry across to Helsingborg.
Thank heavens there are regular ferries that make it possible to take arms against
a sea of troubles
Soon the four are on Swedish soil: GM Alexander Evdokimov, Russia, 2555;
GM Sergey Tiviakov, Krasnodar/Holland, 2645; GM Boris Savchenko, Krasnodar,
2578, GM Mikheil Mchedlishvili, Georgia, 2604.
Boris Savchenko, the kid from Krasnodar, becomes Joe Cool with yellow shades
He also decides to go for bronze shoes (they are fixed to the pavement,
Boris!)...
... in order to, perchance, join these frolicking Swedes in bronze?
Helsingborg Fort and the famous stairs leading up to it
Alexander, Mikheil and Boris in front of the Kärnan
Kärnan is a medieval tower in Helsingborg, Scania, in southern Sweden. It is the only part remaining of a larger Danish fortress which, along with the fortress Kronborg on the opposite side of the Øresund, controlled the entranceway to the Baltic Sea.The fortress returned to Swedish control by the Treaty of Lund in 1679. Charles XI of Sweden ordered most of it demolished, fearing that it was too exposed to a sneak attack from Denmark.
The Krasnodar Kings enjoy Swedish beer and wine (actually JP Chenet is a
French sparkling) on the ferry back to Denmark and the Politiken Cup.
