European Championship: Jakovenko is champion with last round victory
4/1/2012 – It’s never over until it’s over, and the last round of the embattled European Championship merely reiterated this truism. Laurent Fressinet was the clear favorite as he held a half-point lead over the rest, but Dmitry Jakovenko crowned his final sprint to the top with a decisive victory taking the title. Fressinet came second, and Vladimir Malakhov third. Final report with GM commentary.
The 13th European Individual Championship is taking place in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, from March 20th to 31st, 2012. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves, plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. The total prize fund is 100,000 Euros, with the top three taking 14,000, 11,000 and 9,000 Euros respectively.
Round ten – Fressinet takes the lead
French GM Laurent Fressinet (above) became the sole leader, one round before the final, after winning on board three against Vladimir Akopian (2684, ARM). None of the other seven leaders managed to take a full point home. On top board Vladimir Malakhov (2705, RUS) and Dmitry Andreikin (2689, RUS) played rock solid and without taking any extra risks drew in 41 moves.
Dmitry Jakovenko (2729, RUS), who was lagging half a point behind the leaders, beat Mikhail Kobalia (2666, RUS) on board four and reentered the chasing pack. With one round to go Laurent Fressinet (2693, FRA) was leading on 8.0/10, half a point ahead of the main group of nine players on 7.5/10: Dmitry Jakovenko, Vladimir Malakhov, Dmitry Andreikin, Ernesto Inarkiev, Maxim Matlakov, Viktor Bologan, Francisco Vallejo Pons, Sergei Azarov and Andrei Volokitin. Behind them 24 players jad 7.0 points.
Round ten was generally full of dramatic fights, as tension goes high towards the end of the Championship. Not a single game lasted for less than an hour, while only three were drawn within the second hour on move 40.
Round eleven – Jakovenko takes the title
Laurent Fressinet took Silver after a superb tournament
It’s never over until it’s over, and the last round of the embattled European Championship merely reiterated this truism. Laurent Fressinet was the clear favorite as he held a half-point lead over the rivals nipping at his ankles, but as several players poised to become world champion can attest: sometimes that last step can be the hardest.
It was a brilliant last round win that allowed Dmitry Jakovenko to grab the gold
Dmitry Jakovenko was the only player capable of challenging for the crown, since he faced Fressinet, and without a win on his part, no other could even dream of an ineffable tiebreak victory. The opening did not go as planned for the Frenchman, and he emerged with a small but clear minus. In spite of energetic positional play by the Russian, the leader held on, if with difficulty, but a mistake on move 33 was all it took to decisively end resistance, after which it was merely a matter of when, not if.
Vladimir Malakhov took bronze with a 2787 performance
Jakovenko was always in the running, if never actually on board one, and his final sprint of 5.0/6 and three straight wins in the final rounds clinched the title for him, also taking him to world number 13 in the live ratings list. For Fressinet it will have been a bittersweet moment, since he obviously cannot be happy with silver even if it is a superb result in itself. Thirteen players in all shared the score of 8.0/13 and bronze was also decided by tiebreak was Russian Vladimir Malakhov.
Here's the key game from round eleven that decided the championship.
The intrepid hero of the first half, Englishman Gawain Jones, finished in 15th, the best with 7.5/13, with a last round win, and a 2760 performance. He may not have ended with a medal, but he certainly drew notice to himself and will be a name to watch out for in the future. He also garnered 19 Elo for the next rating list.
Top-seed Fabiano Caruana entered as favorite, but with 98 players rated 2600 and more, and eleven rounds to go, nothing was less clear than a win. His engine never seemed to get into fourth, much less fifth, and a slew of draws, unable to quite clinch a potential win, left him constantly in the trailing pack. The most probable cause is simply fatigue as the young player has been playing almost non-stop and had little chance to rest and recover between his events.
Fabiano Caruana has played almost non-stop these last weeks
A few other players stood out for their extraordinary performances relative to their expected ones. Of the non-GMs, the much talked about Georgian IM Shota Azaladze was the highest performance in spite of one loss and a win by forfeit. His final performance of 2714 was 300 above his rating and was good for 35 Elo. His colleague the untitled Davit Lomsadze (2338) also had an extraordinary result of 2612, facing ten grandmasters (he was one of the infamous Georgian forfeits), also good for 35 Elo. Both scored GM norms.
Still, they were not the greatest Elo winners. The grand prize goes to 14-year-old Israeli FM Avital Boruchovsky (2333), who garnered a GM norm with a whopping 2650 performance, including a last-round win over GM Savchenko (2580). He might seem very far from actually getting the title considering his rating, but this event was good for 65 Elo nonetheless. The other grand Elo winner was 15-year-old Russian FM Kirill Alekseenko (2367) who also achieved a GM norm, and finished with an even higher 2687 performance. He possibly only failed to earn as much rating due to his tenth round forfeit win, though he had already completed a nine-round norm by then. He earned 60 Elo for his efforts.
Top final rankings (after round eleven)
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