Loiseau wins the 6th Lucopen in Lille

Loiseau wins the 6th Lucopen in Lille

Report from France by Sagar Shah

In 1878, Charles Rameau, who was the president of Lille Corporation of horticulture, bequeathed 300,000 francs to the city of Lille in France on the condition that a building be designed and constructed to host exhibitions of flowers, fruit, art exhibitions and music festivals.

The Palais Rameau is classified as one of the historic monuments of France

On 4th of May 2015, when I arrived in Lille to play in the 6th Lucopen tournament, little did I know that it would take place inside a heritage structure. I must confess that there is something really wonderful about playing chess inside a building that is spacious and has a height of 25 metres. It gives a free hand to your imagination and creativity. Maybe that’s the reason why chess tournaments are increasingly being held in art galleries and museum.

The gigantic tournament hall

The sixth Lucopen International tournament was held from the 4th to 10th of May 2015. The tournament consisted of 150 players, including the participation of eleven grandmasters and nine International Masters. The top seed was the strong French GM Tigran Gharamian (2647). It was a nine-round Swiss event with a time control of one hour and 30 minutes, with 30 minutes added after 40 moves, and a 30 second increment from move one. The total prize fund was €10,000 with the first prize of €1500.

As the last round began on the 10th of May, and as many as 13 players had a chance of finishing first at the event. The following was the pairing of the final round:

The top board was a pretty sedate affair as the two leaders Demuth and Chatalbashev made a quick draw to end up on seven points. This left the field all the other players on six to win their games and join them at the top. The last round was so bloody that no less than five games ended decisively from the next six boards.

Fighting last rounds are always a treat for spectators

Top seeded Tigran Gharmanian got the better of IM Kevin Terrieux after a marathon five hour struggle. Andrey Zhigalko was able to overcome Karpatchev while Burmakin got the better of his country mate Igor Naumkin. IM Pavel Martynov was lucky as in a technically lost position his opponent Pierre Bailet blundered an entire rook. IM Quentin Loiseau played a beautiful game to win against Marius Manolache, while yours truly (Sagar Shah) drew his game against Nikita Maiorov.

This meant that seven players tied for the first place with seven points. The unpredictable Buchholz would decide the champion of the event. In the end it was IM Quentin Loiseau (2415) who was the deserving winner of the sixth Lucopen tournament. GM Tigran Gharamian finished second and IM Adrien Demuth had to settle for the third spot.

Though players from 15 countries participated in this event, it was the Frenchmen who had
the last laugh! GM Tigran Gharamian (2nd), IM Quentin Loiseau (1st) and IM Adrien Demuth (3rd)

Final standings (after nine rounds)

The 20-year-old Quentin Loiseau had the tournament of his life

Starting out as the fifteenth seed and coming from the French Junior Championships, where he performed badly, not much was expected of Quentin. But the French IM surpassed all expectations, scoring 7.0/9 and remaining unbeaten in the event. He scored wins over strong players like GM Marius Manolache, GM Igor Naumkin and IM Jorden van Foreest. With a performance of 2644 he not only made his maiden GM norm but also gained 26 Elo points from tournament. Maybe the most defining moment of the event came for Quentin in the last round, when a draw was sufficient for him to get his GM norm but a win would have helped him to fight for the top spot. He was up against the Romanian GM Marius Manolache and this is what he has to say about the crucial encounter in his annotations below:

At the begining of the game I planned to offer a draw on move 20 (the limit fixed by the tournament rules), whatever happened, in order to secure my GM norm if he accepted. But here I changed my mind because the two leaders had drawn their game on board one. I had about 20 minutes against five and, last but not least, my position was absolutely great, without any risk to play on.

Of course, this was a courageous decision from the youngster and he was amply rewarded for this bravery. The crucial last round battle has been annotated in great depth by Loiseau, who shares with our readers not only some excellent analysis, but also tells us what was going on in his head during the game.

The local boy and tournament favourite, Tigran Gharamian

Top seeded, Tigran Gharamian, was definitely the strongest player in the event. He outrated the second seed by a hefty 60 points margin. Orginially from Armenia, Gharamian has been living in Lille for more than ten years now. He was the local favourite and his games would attract a lot of spectators. He didn’t have the smoothest of tournaments as he drew four games against much lower rated opponents. But when his preparations fell in place, he was simply unstoppable. Take for example his game against IM Le Quang Long, where the French GM showed the importance of staying updated with the latest games at the highest level. He used a fresh idea that had been tried by Leko in the World Team Championships in April 2015 against Ding Liren. Here is the game with excellent annotations by the 2647 player himself.

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The man who nearly ran away with the event: Adrian Demuth

Adrien Demuth, who recently received his GM title at the FIDE congress held in Chengdu, led the tournament from start to end. He raced to a lead of 5.0/5 and in the end drew his remaining four games. A victory in any of the last four rounds would have sealed the tournament in his favour. However, in the end he had to settle for the third spot. When we asked for him to send his favourite game to us he replied, “I decided to send you my fourth round game against Marius Manolache, a turning point in my tournament. It’s clearly not my best, but it’s how I fight when my position is a mess!”

It was highly creditable that GM Boris Chatalbashev of Bulgaria finished fourth,
finished fourth in spite of losing the third round against IM Le Quang Long

Fifth: Andrey Zhigalko (2586) of Belarus. He is the elder brother of GM Sergey Zhigalko (2654).
With an average rating of 2620 between them they might well be the strongest siblings in the world.

Sixth: the experienced Vladimir Burmakin from Russia

Seventh: FM Pavel Martynov of Russia

Eighth: The author of this report had a great tournament and made his second GM norm

For me this event turned out to be a very fruitful one, as I scored 6.5/9, remaining unbeaten. Not only that, I was lucky enough to play all the top four seeds of the tournament, Gharamian, Zhigalko, Burmakin and Maiorov, and score +1 against them. In Part II of the article, I share with you one of my favourite games from the event, as well as few of the secrets that helped me achieve a 2600+ rating performance.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN (scanned by Pandatabase) You can use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.