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On the 6th of January a total of 40 participants took part in the blitz tournament which followed main Donostia Chess event. Thirteen GMs and three players rated over 2700 (Arkadiy Naiditsch, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alexander Moiseenko) participated. At the beginning all participants were divided into four groups (10-11 players each) and played in round-robin tournaments. Four players from each group could get to the final event with 16 players and knock-out system. Each match in the knockout tournament consisted of two blitz games and and Armageddon game in case of draw.
Unexpectedly for anyone Sarkhan Gashimov (above), the older brother and manager of GM Vugar Gashimov, became the winner of the tournament. He finished on second place in his group and managed to show a good result there by winning against Aleksa Strikovich and Konstantin Landa. He lost only to Arkadiy Naiditsch, but still get the chance to play in the main blitz event.
GM Loek van Wely, rated 2692, vs Sarkhan Gashimov, untitled, 2351 –
score: 1-2
In the final tournament Sarkhan (who is rated 2351 FIDE) was the lowest seed. But he was unstoppable, and one by one defeated such strong GMs as Alexander Moiseenko (1.5-0.5), once again Aleksa Strikovic (2-0), Loek Van Wely (2-1 in Armageddon), and Julio Granda Zuniga (1.5-0.5) in final match.
GM Julio Granda Zuniga of Peru being defeated by Sarkhan in the final
Spectators watching the finals
Concentration in the final moments of the blitz tournament. We remember Sarkhan
from an interesting encounter in Dortmund 2009, where he solved
a difficult study well ahead of the top GMs around him (they didn't solve
it at all)
Julio Granda Zuniga (above) also showed a very good result and climbed into the final after defeating such top seeds as Arkadiy Naiditsch and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
Pictures by David Llada and Anastasiya Karlovich
Links
The games were 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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