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The 15th edition of the Corsican Circuit was staged on an island that breaks the world record per capita chess players (5375 active members in a population of 300,000). In a difficult economic environment the organisers managed to maintain the same level of prizes (95,000 €), having mobilised a total of 124 sponsors! Hundreds of young people participated in the festive event, which this year welcomed over 800 friends from the five continents.
The Open tournament consisted of nine rounds and finished with the following top results:
| Pl | Ti | Player | Rtng |
Fed |
Pts |
Tr. |
Bu. |
Perf |
| 1 | g | Sasikiran Krishnan | 2689 |
IND |
7.5 |
44.5 |
55.5 |
2792 |
| 2 | g | Jones Gawain C B | 2624 |
ENG |
7.0 |
45 |
56.5 |
2692 |
| 3 | g | Melkumyan Hrant | 2619 |
ARM |
6.5 |
46.5 |
57.5 |
2647 |
| 4 | g | Fressinet Laurent | 2696 |
FRA |
6.5 |
45.5 |
55.5 |
2664 |
| 5 | g | Durarbeyli Vasif | 2526 |
AZE |
6.5 |
45 |
54 |
2542 |
| 6 | g | Baron Tal | 2505 |
ISR |
6.5 |
44.5 |
54.5 |
2559 |
| 7 | g | Cheparinov Ivan | 2650 |
BUL |
6.5 |
44 |
54.5 |
2597 |
| 8 | m | Arnold Marc T | 2505 |
USA |
6.5 |
44 |
54 |
2629 |
| 9 | m | Battaglini Gabriel | 2452 |
FRA |
6.5 |
43 |
53 |
2455 |
| 10 | g | Grigoryan Avetik | 2614 |
ARM |
6.5 |
43 |
52.5 |
2588 |
| 11 | g | Mamedov Rauf | 2660 |
AZE |
6.5 |
42.5 |
53 |
2599 |
| 12 | m | Mullon Jean-Baptiste | 2379 |
FRA |
6.5 |
42.5 |
51.5 |
2464 |
| 13 | g | Tregubov Pavel V. | 2602 |
RUS |
6.5 |
41.5 |
51 |
2554 |
| 14 | f | Massoni Michael | 2304 |
FRA |
6.5 |
40.5 |
49.5 |
2387 |
| 15 | f | Berthelot Yannick | 2286 |
FRA |
6.5 |
39.5 |
49 |
2421 |
| 16 | Baghdasaryan Vahe | 2362 |
ARM |
6 |
42.5 |
52.5 |
2427 |
|
| 17 | Inants Aghasi | 2288 |
ARM |
6 |
42.5 |
50.5 |
2360 |
|
| 18 | m | Bedouin Xavier | 2406 |
FRA |
6 |
41.5 |
50.5 |
2344 |
| 19 | g | Flear Glenn C | 2471 |
ENG |
6 |
41 |
51 |
2435 |
| 20 | g | Sulava Nenad | 2540 |
CRO |
6 |
41 |
51 |
2394 |
| 21 | f | Coleman Teddy | 2312 |
USA |
6 |
41 |
49 |
2366 |
| 22 | m | Debray Christopher | 2402 |
FRA |
6 |
40.5 |
50.5 |
2354 |
| 23 | Ivanov Stojan Emilov | 2221 |
BUL |
6 |
40.5 |
47.5 |
2339 |
|
| 24 | m | Dimitrov Radoslav | 2424 |
BUL |
6 |
39.5 |
49 |
2343 |
| 25 | gf | Mamedjarova Turkan | 2277 |
AZE |
6 |
39 |
47.5 |
2310 |
| 26 | Egozi Nadav | 2173 |
ISR |
6 |
38 |
47.5 |
2225 |
|
| 27 | Humeau Cyril | 2261 |
FRA |
6 |
36.5 |
44.5 |
2165 |
Now came the final phase: the top fourteen players were joined by two seeded world class grandmasters for a sixteen-player knockout competition, with two games per match, played at a rate of fifteen minutes for all moves plus three seconds increment per move from the start. Turned out that the "two seeded world class grandmasters" were in a league of their own, since both went through to the final, which was played on Monday. Here is a table with the pairings and results:
The great success of Corsica Circuit apparently caught the organisers unprepared: the official web site (given in the link below) crashed and there was no information available. Luckily we had been following the games on Playchess, and the super-reliable Mark Crowther of TWIC soon had them up as well. And one of the Playchess visitors provided us with light commentary: GM Elshan Moradiabadi of Iran (picture right) submitted them a few hours after the games had finished. As soon as we receive visuals from Corsica we will add them to this page, but until then we give you Elshan's thoughts on the final for your enjoyment and as a special treat. We have also tagged on an endgame lesson sent in by GM Karsten Müller, which examines a missed opportunity from an earlier round. |
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Let's Check
evaluation profile of the first game
Let's Check
evaluation profile of the second game
Winner of the Corsica Masters Knockout: World Champion Viswanathan Anand
In addition to the GM commentary of Elshan Moradiabadi we bring you analysis by our resident GM Karsten Müller, who looks at a critical game from the first round. French GM Laurent Fressinet had contrived to lose his first game, with the white pieces, against his compatriot IM Gabriel Battaglini, rated 244 points lower than him on the rating scale. In their second game Fressinet had a chance to equalise (and force tiebreak games) in an endgame that saw the fight of bishop against knight zugzwang, where dominance often plays a crucial role:
Links
The games are being 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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs. |
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