The festival started with an Open tournament where the top twelve players qualified to the Corsica Masters event that had four players directly seeded.
These twelve players qualified from the Open to the Corsica Masters
These twelve were then joined by Vishy Anand, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hou Yifan and Teimour Radjabov in the main event.
The tournament was a sixteen-player Knockout. Each rubber had two games of 15 minutes + 3 seconds time-control. A blitz playoff would occur if the match were tied.
The early knockout stage already saw some funny instances such as this one. Anand is winning a piece, but he decided to forgive Black, then proceeding to demolish him anyway.
Anand-Leenhouts
White to play and win
Anand-Leenhouts (annotated by IM Sagar Shah)
But something even more dramatic occurred in the game between GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac and Teimour Radjabov. The first two games ended in draws, and the first game of the tiebreaker also ended in a deadlock. Then it happened. Enjoy the video below:
The quarterfinals in progress — Yifan, Korobov, Onsichuk, MVL, Gharamian, Anand, Moiseenko and Radjabov qualified to the quarterfinals
Anton Korobov (2687) finished at the top of the heap in the Open and proceeded to eliminate Hou Yifan in the Quarters
Radjabov had to rely on the tiebreakers to reach the Semifinals
Meanwhile, MVL and Anand qualified to the Semifinals without many difficulties. In the end, it came down to MVL-Korobov, where MVL won with ease, and…
…Anand-Radjabov, where Anand dismantled the Azerbaijani grandmaster without much trouble.
This makes the Sunday clash between MVL and Anand a battle to look forward to!
The event was a fantastic opportunity for the Corsican chess fans to match wits with the strongest of players
The kids’ tournament had prizes ranging from Playstations to laptops!
The main event was held in a theater were the audience were treated to high-class chess by the grandmasters
The tournament was a grand success in the press as well
