French Team Ch: three dominate

The French Chess Leagues are underway, and much like many top leagues such as the Bundesliga, the Russian Team championships, or the Chinese Chess League to name but a few, a wide assortment of top players can be found. Where it distinguishes itself from the others is that contrary to its colleagues that spread the competition out over a period of four to twelve months, the French 'Top 12' will play out all eleven rounds from May 24 to June 3 on successive days.

Eleven teams are playing eleven rounds, and will compete every day except on the day they have a Bye. Theoretically there would be twelve teams, hence the title 'Top 12', but Marseille declared forfeit and thus only eleven teams will play. The club Tours de Haute-Picardie in Saint-Quentin, France, recently promoted to the division, is hosting the competition in the Palais de Fervaques, one of the most beautiful buildings in the region.

Rounds six to eight

Round six of the French 'Top 12' saw the showdown between the two leaders, Clichy and Bischwiller. Both teams were the only ones left with immaculate records, but of the two, Clichy came with the bigger guns in Vachier-Lagrave, Jakovenko, and Fressinet.

When push came to shove, Clichy was the one doing the pushing

Bischwiller is no pushover with Romain Edouard on board one, followed by Andrei Volokitin, but they were different weight divisions and Clichy punished the challenger with a no-nonsense 5-1, including two white wins by MVL and Jakovenko. Strasbourg was determined to end a string of defeats, and Vladimir Baklan, on board one paved the way as he scored a win helping lead his team to a 4-1 victory over Metz.

Chess is often decided but by a single move

GM Alejandro Ramirez annotates Riazantsev-Baklan:

Round seven saw another clash of the titans as Clichy and Mulhouse had a dogfight. Mulhouse is one of the strongest teams, and brings names such as Radoslaw Wojtaszek (2724) and David Navara (2712), not to mention Grzegorz Gajewski (2641) who has been an important contributor to the team's success. Aside from their surprise defeat to Bischwiller in round five, they had won all their matches, including a massive 6-0 win over Strasbourg in round three. The top players did their job in neutralizing Clichy's strike force, but Clichy's strength is not only in its 2700 top boards, and victories by Almira Skripchenko,  and former 2700 players Loek Van Wely and Maxim Matlakov clinched the 3-0 win. At this point, Clichy led, followed by Bischwiller and Mulhouse.

Almira Skripchenko got the ball rolling for her team in round seven

It had to happen, and Clichy was finally prevented from whitewashing the competition as Evry, one of the clubs in the middle of the pack, surprised the reigning champions by a 3-3 score (in number of wins), including a surprise result by Christophe Sochacki (2449) who defeated Laurent Fressinet (2711). The quickest match of the day was Mulhouse's 3-1 defeat of Bois-Colombes, including a win by David Navara over Alexander Ipatov.

Fressinet was victim of an upset as Sochacki beat him to level the match against Clichy 3-3

Alexander Ipatov had a tough time against David Navara

GM Alejandro Ramirez annotates Ipatov-Navara:

Pictures by D. Dervieux

Standings after eight rounds

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