
Sarhan Gashimov wins Donostia Blitz tournament!
Report by WGM Anastasiya Karlovich
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.
Blitz tournament table

Pictures by David Llada and Anastasiya Karlovich
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