Top-12 finishes with few surprises

The Top-12, the nickname for the finals of the French Club Championship Finals, is one of the strongest league tournaments in the World. Only the German Bundesliga and the Russian Team Championship can boast of having a stronger league than France, and the tournament is reaching its climax.

The Top-12 is nicknamed such because it is the last portion of a large process. From October until April thousands of players compete in different leagues all over France, with teams varying in size and compositions. The winners of the different regional events qualify for the Top-12.

Final Round

The top-12 finished today with some expected results. First Bischwiller, which had already clinched their championship, beat Montpellier 3-0 with victories by Bacrot, Ragger and Le Roux. Clichy had some problems against Mulhouse Phillidor. With draws on the top boards the match was really settled in the lower four. Lagarde and Van Wely (Clichy) lost to Degraeve and Riff, respectively, but Clichy came back with wins on the last three boards! Tregubov, Delorme and Skripchenko (who had a fantastic tournament) turned around the score and Clichy won 3-2.

Bois-Colombes had no problems at all against Poitiers, a very clean 6-0 win. Both Metz Fischer and Grasse were trying to escape the red zone. Both teams drew their matches. Grasse split the point with Evry which featured the following pretty game on the top board:

The top players per board were:

Of special notice is the player Paul Velten. He made a grandmaster norm! But that is not what makes it so special: he played nine games with Black! Perhaps cruel from his team, perhaps he wanted it as a lucky series once he was doing so well with the black pieces, but he did play all nine games of his grandmaster norm with black.

Matlakov-Wojtaszek ended in a draw (the match ended 3-2 for Clichy)

Some teams came in uniform for the last round

The dust was settled before the last round, but people still had games to fight

Wesley So drops a few rating points, but retains his 10th position in the World

Metz Fischer and Vandouvre finished with a 3-3 tie

Final Standings

Note: Teams receive 3 points for winning, 2 for drawing and 1 for losing a match.

Replay Games

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Photos from the official website

Schedule

Links Official tournament site The games will be 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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.