30th Cappelle-la-Grande under way

by Alejandro Ramirez
3/3/2014 – One of the most traditional opens in Europe has begun. Despite the heavy competition in this busy March, with the European Chess Championship starting and the Reykjavik Open only a couple a day away, Cappelle-la-Grande, a minute city in France, keeps attracting hordes of grandmasters and amateurs to its playing hall. Standings after round three.
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The 30th edition of the Cappelle-La-Grande Open is underway from March 1st to March 8th at the Palais des Arts et Loisirs (Palace of Arts and Leisure) in Cappelle-La-Grande, France. It is a nine-round Swiss open played at the rate of 40 moves in 90 minutes plus 30 seconds per move, followed by 30 minutes plus 30 seconds per move for the rest of the game. The tournament has a 30 thousand Euro prize fund, with 1st - 3000 Euros, 2nd - 2000 Euros, 3rd - 1500 Euros, etc. and many prizes by category and age.

Everything ready for the start!

The playing hall looks crowded but it's not hard to navigate through it

The tournament is very attractive for top players because of the excellent conditions provided by the organizers, who have been able to secure many top players including a 2700 to participate in the event despite the competition in the schedule. The Reykjavik open will start tomorrow while the European Chess Championship, a qualifier for the World Cup, is just playing its first round in Yerevan.

The top boards are in their own stage, and getting up here is a task in itself for any player

After three only three rounds there are only seven players with a perfect 3.0/3. The top seed, Ding Liren from China, was dinged half a point by Papin, a strong grandmaster himself, on the third round.

Lagarde is one of France's top cards in this tournament. On the right, Ding Liren against Papin

The event is absolutely massive at nearly 600 players all in the same section. The tournament is not a consistent fight of grandmasters vs. amateurs because if their use of accelerated pairings, although it is sometimes hard to predict parings because of this.

Standings

Bd.   White   Res. Black    
1 [3] FIER Alexandr 2595   GUPTA Abhijeet 2630 [3]
2 [3] JOVANIC Ognjen 2526   GANGULY Surya Shekhar 2623 [3]
3 [3] MARTYNOV Pavel 2352   VOVK Andrey 2605 [3]
4 [3] MAIOROV Nikita 2520   DING Liren 2717 [2,5]
5 [2,5] TIMOSHENKO Georgy 2531   ITURRIZAGA Eduardo 2645 [2,5]
6 [2,5] SUMETS Andrey 2628   KVEINYS Aloyzas 2530 [2,5]
7 [2,5] DANIN Alexandre 2606   ULIBIN Mikhail 2491 [2,5]
8 [2,5] GUREVICH Mikhail 2574   HASANGATIN Ramil 2494 [2,5]
9 [2,5] ROMBALDONI Axel 2518   KOVACEVIC Aleksandar 2572 [2,5]
10 [2,5] PIORUN Kacper 2570   BAILET Pierre 2477 [2,5]
11 [2,5] PAPIN Vasily 2515   BURMAKIN Vladimir 2568 [2,5]
12 [2,5] CHERNYSHOV Konstantin 2504   PETKOV Vladimir 2566 [2,5]
13 [2,5] VISHNU PRASANNA. V 2462   SPRAGGETT Kevin 2557 [2,5]
14 [2,5] DRASKO Milan 2460   BRODSKY Michail 2554 [2,5]
15 [2,5] KHARITONOV Alexandr 2554   BARBOSA Evandro Amorim 2459 [2,5]
16 [2,5] DUMITRACHE Dragos-Nicolae 2453   MAZE Sebastien 2545 [2,5]
17 [2,5] HEBERLA Bartlomiej 2544   HAUB Thorsten Michael 2449 [2,5]

Replay select games from the top boards

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Photos by Alexandre Feryn

Links

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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.
Grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez has been playing tournament chess since 1998. His accomplishments include qualifying for the 2004 and 2013 World Cups as well as playing for Costa Rica in the 2002, 2004 and 2008 Olympiads. He currently has a rating of 2583 and is author of a number of popular and critically acclaimed ChessBase-DVDs.

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