Markus Ragger wins Politiken Cup

by Johannes Fischer
8/7/2015 – The Politiken Cup in Helsingor, Denmark, was a strong open. Very strong. 431 players started, among them a number of grandmasters. The decision was close: after ten rounds ten grandmasters shared first place with a score of 8.0/10 each. Markus Ragger, Austria's number one, had the best tie-break of this group and became official tournament winner.
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Winner on tie-break: Markus Ragger

Ragger started the tournament with 5.0/5 but then slowed down and conceded his first draw in round six. After this draw followed a win against Jan Timman in round seven and three draws in the last three rounds. That was enough for shared first prize and best tie-break.

Final standings after ten 10 rounds

Rg.   Name Land Elo Pkt.  Wtg1   Wtg2 
1 GM Ragger Markus AUT 2688 8.0 58.5 55.75
2 GM Nisipeanu Liviu-Dieter GER 2654 8.0 56.5 54.00
3 GM Hammer Jon Ludvig NOR 2677 8.0 55.5 52.50
4 GM Fressinet Laurent FRA 2707 8.0 54.0 51.75
5 GM Hillarp Persson Tiger SWE 2563 8.0 53.5 50.50
6 GM Shankland Samuel L USA 2656 8.0 53.0 52.25
7 GM Maze Sebastien FRA 2575 8.0 52.5 50.75
8 GM Marin Mihail ROU 2579 8.0 51.0 50.25
9 GM Hansen Sune Berg DEN 2571 8.0 50.0 48.50
10 GM Kunin Vitaly GER 2576 8.0 49.0 48.25
11 IM Schroeder Jan-Christian GER 2461 7.5 57.5 51.50
12 GM Rakhmanov Aleksandr RUS 2626 7.5 55.5 48.00
13 GM Naroditsky Daniel USA 2622 7.5 55.0 49.50
14 GM Timman Jan H NED 2566 7.5 52.5 46.00
15 GM Grigoriants Sergey RUS 2594 7.5 51.0 46.75
16 GM Aagaard Jacob DEN 2506 7.5 50.0 46.25
17 GM Hector Jonny SWE 2485 7.5 48.5 43.75
18 IM Fernandez Daniel Howard ENG 2472 7.5 48.5 43.25
19 GM Jones Gawain C B ENG 2647 7.5 48.0 42.75
20 IM Delorme Axel FRA 2484 7.0 53.0 43.25
21 GM Schandorff Lars DEN 2520 7.0 53.0 42.75
22 GM Glud Jakob Vang DEN 2531 7.0 53.0 42.00
23 GM Brunello Sabino ITA 2539 7.0 52.5 43.50
24 IM Smith Axel SWE 2449 7.0 52.5 41.50
25 GM Hoi Carsten DEN 2383 7.0 51.0 42.50
26 IM Jepson Christian SWE 2428 7.0 51.0 41.75
27   Risting Eivind Olav NOR 2190 7.0 51.0 40.25
28   Kollars Dmitrij GER 2437 7.0 50.5 41.75
29 IM Sjodahl Pontus SWE 2425 7.0 50.5 41.50
30 GM Tarjan James E USA 2490 7.0 50.0 41.75
31   Haria Ravi ENG 2261 7.0 50.0 41.50
32 IM Tan Justin AUS 2417 7.0 50.0 40.50
33 FM Buchal Stephan GER 2267 7.0 49.0 40.00
34 GM Chabanon Jean-Luc FRA 2493 7.0 48.5 41.25
35   Thorsbro Peter DEN 2216 7.0 47.5 39.25
36 GM Rasmussen Allan Stig DEN 2507 7.0 47.0 41.50
37 IM Zude Erik Dr. GER 2398 7.0 47.0 38.50
38 IM Vuilleumier Alexandre SUI 2357 7.0 46.5 39.75
39   Eriksson Christian DEN 2175 7.0 46.0 39.25
40   Thuesen Mogens DEN 2158 7.0 46.0 37.50

...431 participants

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The best non-GM was the young German IM Jan-Christian Schröder. He won against grandmasters Laurent Fressinet and Mihail Marin and with a nice win against Julian Kramer in the final round Schröder secured a GM-norm.

 
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1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.0-0 0-0 9.Re1 Be6 10.Bf3 Qc7 11.a4 Rc8 12.Be3 Nbd7 13.a5 b5 14.axb6 Nxb6 15.Na5 Nc4 16.Nxc4 Bxc4 17.Ra4 Qb7 18.Qa1 Bd8 19.Bg5 Rc6 20.Be2 Be6 21.Bd3 Rb8 22.b3 a5 23.Bxf6 gxf6 24.Nd5 f5 25.Qd1 fxe4 26.Bxe4 f5 27.Nf4 Bf7 28.Bxc6 Qxc6 29.Ne2 f4 30.c4 Qb6 31.Nc1 Bg6 32.Qd5+ Bf7 33.Qf3 Kh8 34.Ra2 Bc7 35.Rd2 Rg8 36.Ne2 Rb8 37.Nc1 Be8 38.Qd5 Qb4 39.Red1 Bh5 40.f3 Rg8 41.Kh1 Be8 42.Qe6 a4 43.bxa4 Bxa4 44.Nd3 Qc3 45.Qf6+ Rg7 46.Nxf4 Bxd1 47.Qf8+ Rg8 48.Ng6+ 1–0
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Schroeder,J2461Kramer,J23121–02015B92Politiken Cup 201510.18

The brilliancy-prize went to Norwegian GM Jon Ludvig Hammer:

 
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1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Bb4 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bf4 Ne4 7.Rc1 Nc6 8.g3 Bf5 9.Qb3?! After this queen excursion Black seizes the initiative. Better was the simple development move 9.Bg2 with equality. a5! 10.a3 a4 11.Qa2 Bxc3+ 12.bxc3 Na5 The opening went very well for Black. In the further course of the game Hammer keeps the advantage by playing against White's weak pawns on a3, c3, and e2, and against White's weak squares on b3 and c4. 13.Nd2 Nxd2 14.Bxd2 Nb3 15.Rd1 0-0 16.Bg2 Re8 17.Bf4 Ra6 18.0-0 Rae6 19.Rfe1 b5 20.f3 c6 21.h4 h6 22.h5 Na5 23.e4!? White is tired of having to defend passively. With this pawn-break he wants to liberate himself and change the course of the game. dxe4 24.d5 cxd5 25.Rxd5 Qb6+ 26.Be3?! Giving Black the chance to show his tactical skills. The engine wants to play 26.Qf2 Qxf2+ 27.Kxf2 exf3 28.Rxe6 fxe6 29.Rxb5 fxg2 30.Rxa5 and in this position White is a pawn down but because of the opposite colored bishops he can still dream of a draw. 26...exf3 27.Bxb6 Rxe1+ 28.Kf2 After 28.Bf1 R8e2 29.Rd2 Black wins with Bd3 and after 28.Kh2 Black wins with R8e2 28...fxg2 29.Kxg2 Bb1! An important "zwischenzug". Less precise is 29...R8e2+ 30.Qxe2 Rxe2+ 31.Kf3 Re6 32.Rd8+ Kh7 33.Bxa5 and White can still fight. 30.Qd2 Nb3 0–1
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Glud,J2531Hammer,J26770–12015D38Politiken Cup 20156.3

With 8.0/10 Hammer was part of the leading ten and finished third on tie-break.

The Swedish IM Axel Smith also scored a GM-norm.

Axel Smith

GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu became second.

Nisipeanu became second in Helsingor but in the rating list from August 2015 Nisipeanu is Germany's new number one. Since April 2014 the grandmaster, who has a German mother and a Romanian father, plays for Germany. In July 2015 Arkadij Naiditsch, for a long time Germany's number one, decided to change federations and play for Azerbaijan. Germany now no longer has a +2700 player and Nisipeanu, who in 1999 made it to the semifinals of the FIDE World Championships in Las Vegas and became European Champion in 2005, is the new number one.

French GM Laurent Fressinet finished fourth.

ChessBase-Autor Mihail Marin scored 8.0/10 and finished equal first.

With 7.5/10 GM Gawain Jones had only half a point less than the leaders but 19th on tie-break.

Photos: Calle Erlandsson

Links:

Official tournament page...

Lars Grahn's blog...

Danish Chess Federation...

The facebook page of the Danish Chess Federation...

Chess-results...

Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".

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