ACP Tour December report: 8 events, 8428 points

ACP's best players of December

Sergey Rublevsky	Levon Aronian	Alexander Morozevich	Dmitry Jakovenko
685	660	264	264

This report covers eight events, in which exactly 100 players received 8428 ACP Tour points. Unfortunately, the most successful player of December, Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov is not a member of the Association, thus he is not included in our list. For the same reason you will not find in the current Tour standings such names as Ivan Cheparinov, Zoltan Gyimesi, Vladimir Malaniuk, Sergey Tiviakov, and other 48 players (mostly from the lower part of the list).

Public attention in December gravitated to two major tournaments that took place on Russian soil: the World Cup and the Superfinal. Kazan representative Sergey Rublevsky, being moderately successful in Khanty Mansiysk, where he quelified for the candidates matches, swept a superstrong field of the Superfinal, finishing first with a round to spare. These results brought Rublevsky to the first spot of the December list.

The World Cup winner Levon Aronian asquired 660 points for that achievement, which not only gave him the second place in December, but also allowed the Armenian to become, using a football term, the «winter champion» of the ACP Tour 05/06. Harikrishna, who led the race earlier, got 233 points for finishing second equal in Pamplona and advancing to the third round of the World Cup.

Two players, Alexander Morozevich and Dmitry Jakovenko, both occupy the third place in our list for finishing second equal in Moscow. These guys seem to appear together at every piece of the news, after Morozevich failed to show up in time for their individual encounter in the Superfinal, and Jakovenko was very close to returning the point, being late to the 1st round game of the Moscow Chesspro Blitz. 264 points to both.

These four are closely followed by aforementioned Harikrishna (233), Bareev (220), Bacrot and Grischuk (both 210). Young Russian Denis Khismatillin, who won the Russian Cup knock-out final and earned 200 Tour points is probably the first name is not widely known.

With regard to the Cup – the tournament had taken place in November, but it was not computed yet by the time I wrote the November report. Khismatullin surpassed former Russian champions Lastin, Volkov, and Sakaev, as well as such strong GMs as Amonatov, Belov, Galkin, Khenkin, Smirnov and other respected professionals.

World Cup, Khanty Mansiysk

The World Cup organized in Khanty Mansiysk was a great success in many ways. It was probably the first time a FIDE event enjoyed such a professional media coverage with regularly updated website featuring excellent interviews and generally high-quality pictures. Unfortunately, quality of the Internet relay was a downside. In my opinion, these are two fields on which no organizer caring about publicity should spare money. FIDE cracked the first nut, maybe they will eventually arrange a better relay as well.

The lineup in knock-out events in usually very diverse, and in Khanty Mansiysk this pleasing diversity remained until the very end. Who could predict such a fantastic result by Mikhail Gurevich? Huron, as he is often called by his ex-Soviet colleagues, is a feared force in open tournaments across the world, but this time he showed excellent skill under great pressure and against world's top players. Everybody knows that Carlsen is very talented, but talent and sporting success often fail to coincide. And still, the kid qualifies to the candidates matches, while the generation leader Karjakin, who appears much more mature a player despite being born the same year with Carlsen, packs his bags early... Gata Kamsky's comeback is another feature of the World Cup that comes into one's mind. New Gata is still somewhat rusty and admits his opening problems, but amassed general chess knowledge and experience led him to a success. In January Kamsky shared next-to-last place in Wijk aan Zee; we'll come to that in the next report, the only thing I would like to say so far is – do not underestimate Kamsky!

However, as the Cup went on, it turned clear that despite effort of the experienced and courage of the young, there are four players of approximately the same age (22-23) who will decide the outcome of the first places. I shall not go into detail describing the most featured event of December... Probably the most dramatic of all was the semifinal between Aronian and Bacrot, in which the Frenchman resigned in a position that was losing for hours but turned drawn prior to the resignation!

Levon Aronian's win in the World Cup underscored the Armenian's terrific progress in 2005. Brilliant blitz and chess-960 player, Aronian entered the year 2006 with at the 5^th overall spot in the rating list with 2752 points! And, as a matter of fact, he took the lead in the ACP Tour 2005/2006.

Official page (tables, photos, interviews etc)

Russian championship Superfinal, Moscow

Another event that attracted a lot of attention because of a superb presence of excellent players. All eyes were on Vladimir Kramnik, who had withdrawn last year in a very unfortunate way. Sadly, the classical world champion failed to inspire, finishing at a 50 per cent mark. Shortly after the championship he withdrew from the Corus Wijk aan Zee due to illness...

The Russian superfinal could not be included in the ACP Tour 2004/2005 as there was a rule against counting national championships. Now the rules have changed, and it is thanks to this change that the champion Sergey Rublevsky can claim the title of the ACP's best player in December 2005! An interesting observation is that all players in the initial lineup of the championship were members of the ACP. Only after Evgeny Najer withdrew as he required an urgent medical treatment, he was substituted by a non-member Evgeny Tomashevsky.

Championship page (in English)

European Individual Rapid championship, Warsaw

The tournament did not gather a super-strong field, but nevertheless there were some outstanding players, including two Dortmund supertournament winners Bologan and Naiditsch. Curiously, none of the five top-rated players of the even were able to qualify to the knock-out stage. Arkady Naiditsch won the Swiss with impressive 10S/13, but his 5^th round loss to Pavel Jaracz deprived the German of the deserved place in the final stage. Jaracz also became the nemesis of another favorite, Bulgarian Kiril Georgiev, beating him in the 4^th round. Georgiev finished 3^rd in the consolation Swiss.

Korchnoi, Zubov, Malaniuk and Gyimesi won their groups and proceeded to the semifinals. Hungarian Zoltan Gyimesi defeated Korchnoi and Malaniuk to become a new European Rapid champion.

Semifinal

Zubov Alexander-MALANIUK VLADIMIR 0,5-0,5 0,5-0,5; 0-1

Semifinal

GYIMESI ZOLTAN-Korchnoi Wiktor 1-0; 0,5-0,5

Match for 3rd place

ZUBOV ALEXANDER-Korchnoi Wiktor 1-0; 0,5-0,5

Final

Malaniuk Vladimir-GYIMESI ZOLTAN 0,5-0,5; 0-1

Tiebreak table
Swiss table

Pamplona

Ruslan Ponomariov won a 7-round closed tournament in Pamplona, Spain, scoring 5/7 with 2791 performance. One of the ACP Tour leaders, Indian Harikrishna finished half a point behind. The tournament was very solid overall, with four players avoiding defeats.

Official page

Las Vegas open

Nice display of attacking chess shown by Nakamura and Shabalov allowed them to climb a few steps up the ACP Tour ladder. Among other players eligible for the Tour points, only Alexandra Kosteniuk is a member of the ACP.

Standings

Russian cup final

This event occurred shortly before the World Cup and was treated as preparational by some leading players. For example, Konstantin Sakaev failed to get to the top 16 the Russian Cup but made it in Khanty Mansiysk. Denis Khismatillin became a surprise winner of the Cup.

Results (in Russian)

Grand Prix d'Aix

This event is interesting because the games were relayed and are available at the ACP playing zone – the ACPO. More about it here.

Official page

Carlos Torre Memorial, Merida

The strongest Cuban player Lazaro Bruzon surpasses Michal Krasenkow, added 80 Tour points and advanced to the 23^rd place in the season list.

Official page

DECEMBER SUMMARY

January is a month rich on events, with two Wijk aan Zee tournaments and Gibraltar open being the most valuable for the ACP Tour.