ACP Tour in August-October

The end of August was marked by the traditional giant festival in Mainz. But in the beginning of the month the event with an even richer tradition took place in Spain. The rapid tournament in Villarrobledo celebrated its 21st edition. The proud organizers pointed that many elite players had participated in these tournaments including 3 of 5 top seeded of the current FIDE rating list.

150 players took part in this year event which produced no sensations. The main favourite failed to take clear first place but he shared the victory with three strong players. They all scored 7.5 out of 9

Ciudad de Villarrobledo

Sokolov		Anand		Ponomarev

1-4 Sokolov, Ponomariov, Korneev and Anand
5-7 Milov, Malakhov and Dreev

Oleg Korneev's ever-busy schedule involved also the next ACP Tour event which started in Canada two days after Villarrobledo had finished. Montreal Empresa gets stronger every year. The A Tournament was a 10 player round robin of Category 15. The official tournament language was probably Russian as only two players (Miton of Poland and Charbonneau of Canada) were "non-post-Soviet". The GMs showed combative chess creating several high quality examples such as Eljanov - Onischuk, Korneev - Timofeev, Korneev - Sutovsky, Sutovsky - Miton and Ibragimov - Miton. The 2004 Olympic Champion Pavel Eljanov finished on +4 to win the title half a point ahead of Miton and full point ahead of Timofeev.

Montreal Empresa

1 Eljanov
2 Miton
3 Timofeev
4 Sutovsky

Acropolis International Open in Athens is establishing a tradition that should be hailed and stimulated all over the world. It is already fourth time the Greek organizers held a women's tournament together with a regular open event. This year women's section saw the participation of 34 players but 3 brave ladies preferred to fight for the prizes in men's company. Those were the former World Champions Zhu Chen and Stefanova and WGM Botsari. In the upshot Zhu Chen scored 6 out of 9 thus collecting ACP Tour points. The Georgians Aroshidze and Gelashvili and Peralta of Argentina who scored 7 points became well-deserved winners.

The latest French men's and women's Championships were also held at one and the same venue. This year in Besancon the acknowledged lover of beautiful chess and rapid women (oops! vice versa of course) Vlad Tkachiev made the grade in his first French championship. He and Laurent Fressinet were tied for the first place and then Tkachiev won the tie-break match. The young and very promising Maxime Vachier-Lagrave shared the fourth place with none other than Joel Lautier and played a highly creative game against Nataf. The next month appeared to be even more successful for him.

French Championship

Fressinet		Tkachiev

1-2 Tkachiev and Fressinet
3 Fontaine
4-5 Lautier and Vachier-Lagrave

Many times national champion and currently the French player No. 1 Etienne Bacrot skipped the event for the sake of the Mainz amusements. His choice turned out to be justified as he succeeded in winning the FiNet Open thus obtaining the right to challenge the new World FiNet Random Chess 960 Champion Levon Aronian. Next year they will face each other in the match for this relatively new chess title.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov may consider himself as a guy who was too good to (get a) title. He finished second twice - in FiNet Open and Ordix Open. In the strongest rapid event of the year he shared the first place with Rustam Kasimdzhanov but tie-breaks favoured the former FIDE World Champion. Thus next year Rustam gets a chance to dispute Anand's absolute reign in Mainz. In the beginning of November they had a rehearsal of their possible encounter and, ok, we're running ahead.

Mainz Chess 960

1 Bacrot
2-3 Grischuk and Mamedyarov

Ordix Open

Kasimdzhanov		Mamedyarov

1-2 Kasimdzhanov Mamedyarov
3-7 Harikrishna, Ruck, Morozevich, Agrest and Mchedlishvili

The beginning of September saw a real outburst of the Russian new wave. The High League of the Russian Championship in Tomsk was a 9 round Swiss with 7 tickets to the Superfinal that will be held in December. It was the first time when a large group of youngsters surpassed such prominent players as Khalifman, Dreev, Malakhov, Volkov, Zvjaginsev, Motylev and others. 20-year-old Ernesto Inarkiev achieved the greatest success in his career taking clear first place with 6.5 points.

Tomsk

1 Inarkiev
2-8 Khismatullin, Tomashevsky, Nepomniachtchi, Grigoriants, Alekseev, Vitiugov and Najer

Kostic Memorial in Vrsac was a 10 player round robin. The event was dominated by Ivan Ivanisevic who finished on 6.5 full point ahead of Bartek Macieja.

The traditional Young Masters in Lausanne kept its usual format of an 8 player knockout. The top-seeded players Alexander Areshchenko and Vugar Gashimov in the end faced each other in the match for 3rd place while the title was decided in the encounter between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Wang Yue where 15-year-old French prodigy outplayed his opponent.

Lausanne Young Masters

1 Vachier-Lagrave
2 Wang Yue
3-4 Areshchenko and Gashimov

Areshchenko fully recovered at the subsequent Monarch Assurance open tournament in the Isle of Man where he shared the first place with Sergey Volkov. The winners scored 7 points.

Monarch Assurance

1-2 Areshchenko and Volkov
3-7 Kuzubov, Yakovich, Golod, Bartel and Kobalia

The starting list of the strong round robin in Saratov was headed by Bareev and Najer. Regrettably the coverage of the event was extremely poor. In a closed fight Alexander Moiseenko, Evgeny Tomashevsky and Emil Sutovsky shared the first place scoring the humble 6.5 points. Moiseenko was proclaimed the winner due to better tie-breaks.

Saratov

1-3 Moiseenko, Tomashevsky and Sutovsky
4-5 Dyachkov and Najer

Lenier Dominguez is surely the first nominee for "The hero of October" title. In the closed tournament in Barcelona he scored 8 out of 9! In the decisive encounter of the final round the Cuban defeated Ivanchuk who had been on his heels. Lenier has every right to be proud of this tense and instructive game. Korneev and Bologan also scored the ACP Tour points in this event.

Barcelona

1 Dominguez
2 Ivanchuk
3 Korneev
4 Bologan

Dominguez's great pal Bruzon wasn't among the winners of Open de Calvia that took place on approximately the same days as Magistral Ciutat de Barcelona. Neither was the ELO-favourite Tiviakov. No. 4 seeded Friso Nijboer stole away the trophy scoring 7.5 points in 9 Swiss rounds. Oleg Romanishin and Aleksa Strikovic were left half a point behind him.

Essent Hoogovin Crown is true to its compact quadrangular form. It was Topalov's first tournament after the ill-fated match in Elista. The ever-aggressive Mamedyarov and Polgar met the leader of the world ranking fully armed. Veselin lost three games and finished third. Shakh and Judit shared the victory scoring 4.5 points. On the whole the number of decisive games exceeded all expectations - 10 out of 12! Even the Sofia rules couldn't make it.

In contrast to the 90's nowadays Chigorin Memorial can't boast of a starry field but it still remains a decent open and the victory in it would certainly be a milestone in any of 2600 player's career. This year Dmitry Bocharov took clear first with 7 points.

Chigorin Memorial

1 Bocharov
2-5 B.Savchenko, A.Rychagov, Shomoev, Belov

The last days of October saw the first of three tournaments that compose Corsican Circuit. It took place in Ajaccio. The experienced Vladimir Malaniuk won the event. In the match for the title he beat Yuri Drozdovskij who stopped Kasimdzhanov in the semifinals.

In the first days of November in Venacu victorious was Daniel Fridman who defeated Mikhail Gurevich in the final encounter. The strongest of three is traditionally Bastia. For five consecutive years Anand didnТt allow to cast doubt on his exclusive right to own the trophy. But last year he lost the final match to Vadim Milov which set a precedent unpleasant for Vishy. This year he again reached the final but was beaten there by Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

Ajaccio
1 Malaniuk
2 Drozdovskij
3-4 Kasimdzhanov and Gritsak

Venacu
1 Fridman
2 M.Gurevich
3-4 Kazhgaliev and Gritsak

Bastia
1 Kasimdzhanov
2 Anand
3-4 Kazhgaliev and Bacrot

Another French region known for its passion for rapid chess is Cap d'Agde. This year the tournament assembled an impressive field of world's leading young players. They dominated the event confidently gradually eliminating the prominent female players, the former World Champion Anatoly Karpov and the members of the French national team Bacrot and Fressinet. In the semifinals Teimour Radjabov defeated Andrey Volokitin while Sergey Karjakin defeated Magnus Carlsen. Winning the final match 1.5-0.5 Teimour Radjabov took the trophy.

Cap d'Agde

1 Radjabov
2 Karjakin
3-4 Carlsen and Volokitin

The current standings of the ACP Tour are as follows:
1 Morozevich 511
2-3 Kramnik and Svidler 448
4 Volkov 415
5 Radjabov 390
6 Harikrishna 369
7 Polgar 364
8 Karjakin 348
9 S.Novikov 330
10 Fressinet 316

Photos from chesspics site were used in the report