Moiseenko wins the Arctic Chess Challenge

by ChessBase
8/12/2007 – In the end it was a super-GM who took the unshared first place in the Tromsø Midnight Sun tournament: Alexander Moiseenko of the Ukraine scored 7.5/9 to overtake the long-time leader, "Mr Sunshine" Kjetil Lie, who had beaten him in round four. Top seed Magnus Carlsen recovered from a poor start to share 2-4. Like his parents we expect Magnus to scale the Store Blåmannen.

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The Arctic Chess Challenge took place in Tromsø from August 4th-12th, 2007, organised by the Tromsø Sjakklubb as a nine-round Swiss, with time controls of 2 hours for 40 moves + 1 hour for 20 + 30 minutes to finish the game. There were 99 players from 16 countries, with 11 GM's above 2580, including top seed Magnus Carlsen. The total prize fund is 11,050 Euros.


The winner: GM Alexander Moiseenko, Ukraine, with a 2740 performance


Gotcha! In the end Moiseenko caught Lie (left), who had defeated him in round four


Beating IM Venkatachalam Saravanan (count: nine syllables!) in round five

Final standings (after nine rounds)

Pl. Name Rtng Nat. Pts  TB  Perf.
GM Alexander Moiseenko 2641 UKR 7.5    2740
GM Kjetil A. Lie 2536 NOR 7.0 44.0  2675
GM Vugar Gashimov 2655 AZE 7.0 40.5  2657
GM Magnus Carlsen 2710 NOR 7.0 38.5  2609
GM Bartlomiej Macieja 2596 POL 6.5 43.0  2623
GM Simen Agdestein 2582 NOR 6.5 41.5  2577
GM Bartosz Socko 2660 POL 6.5 39.0  2576
GM Michail Brodsky 2595 UKR 6.5 39.0  2510
GM Mikhail Gurevich 2633 TUR 6.5 38.5  2520
10  GM Vladimir Epishin 2587 RUS 6.0 41.5  2521
11  GM Vladimir Burmakin 2581 RUS 6.0 40.5  2504
12  Joachim Thomassen 2075 NOR 6.0 39.5  2423
13  GM Victor Mikhalevski 2598 ISR 6.0 38.0  2414
14  IM Venkatachalam Saravanan 2355 IND 6.0 38.0  2393
15  Gunnar Berg Hanssen 2242 NOR 6.0 37.5  2425
16  FM Karsten Larsen 2325 DEN 6.0 37.0  2379
17  FM Diego Suarez Pousa 2418 ESP 6.0 36.5  2353
18  GM Heikki Westerinen 2385 FIN 6.0 36.5  2347
19  IM Eduard Porper 2474 ISR 6.0 36.5  2319
20  IM Gediminas Sarakauskas 2450 LTU 6.0 35.0  2301
21  Lars M Andreassen 2221 NOR 6.0 34.0  2293
22  IM Joanna Dworakowska 2320 POL 6.0 33.5  2299

Scaling the Store Blåmannen

Before the event, and in the expectancy that we would be visiting the Arctic Challenge in Tromsø, Henrik Carlsen invited us to join him and his wife Sigrun (and possibly Magnus) to climb the Tromsdalstind, which at 1238 meters is the highest mountain in the vicinity close to Tromsø city. It turns out that Magnus' 91-year-old granduncle, a former meteorologist and musician, has been marking the route up the mountain, and made some 500 climbs, over the past 25 years, to complete this task!


Since we were not there to join them Henrik and Sigrun decided to scale the
1044 meters "Big Blue Man" – in Norwegian Store Blåmannen.

Blåmannen bears an eerie similarity to a mountain in the Western Ghats of India. It is the "Duke's Nose", named after the Duke of Wellington, whose ample facial appendage this cliff is said to resemble. Duke's Nose is 12 km from the city of Lonavla, and is visible from the highway while driving towards Mumbai.

Click the attached thumbnail to enlarge. To get an impression of the Khandala region visit this photo pictorial. See you on Duke's Nose next year, Henrik? The kid can play in the Khandala GM.

Do not ask us how we unearthed this factoid – it's a long an convoluted story for another occasion.


Henrik Carlsen on the way to the top: scaling the 1044 meters high "Big Blue Man".

Report by Frederic Friedel

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