The 15th Rochefort International Chess Festival is set to take place on 20-26th February, 2016, Room Colbert, at the Congress Palace, Rochefort, France.
The organizers have invested big effort to propose an interesting event for all-level players.
The players will be separated in two groups: “Masters” for players with rating above 1900 and “Accession” for players under 2000, the objective being to reduce the rating differences and to increase norm chances for candidate players.
More than 15 title norms were achieved since the beginning of the Festival.
List of the top rated players: GM Viorel Iordachescu MDA 2600, IM Diego Rafael Di Berardino BRA 2512, GM Rustam Khusnutdinov UZB 2487, IM Dmitry Stets UKR 2422, MI Dragos Dumitrache ROM 2412,etc
The winner of the 14th Rochefort Masters was GM Eduardo Iturrizaga.
The tournament will be played over 9 rounds of Swiss system, with rate of play 90 mins for 40 moves + 30 mins to the end and increment 30 sec from move one. The total prize fund is 7000 EUR, with 1000 EUR reserved for the winner of Masters.
On Sunday morning there will be the traditional Blitz Tournament.
More information:
e-mail – philippe.giambiasi@wanadoo.fr
Website – http://www.echiquier-rochefortais.com
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/events/431521630372027/
Rochefort is a port on the Charente estuary, in western France, home to unique bridge Pont transbordeur (built in 1900), Marine Museum, Conservatoire du Bégonia – the world’s largest begonia collection, and L’Hermione – replica of the legendary frigate built in 1779 in Rochefort.
In December 1665, Rochefort was chosen by Jean-Baptiste Colbert as a place of “refuge, defense and supply” for the French Navy. The Arsenal de Rochefort served as a naval base and dockyard until it closed in 1926.
In September 1757, Rochefort was the target of an ambitious British raid during the Seven Years’ War.
Another infrastructure of early Rochefort from 1766 was its bagne, a high-security penal colony involving hard labor. Bagnes were then common fixtures in military harbors and naval bases, such as Toulon or Brest, because they provided free labor. During the Jacobin period of the French Revolution (1790–95), over 800 Roman Catholic priests and other clergywho refused to take the anti-Papal oath of the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy” were put aboard a fleet of prison ships in Rochefort harbor, where most died due to inhumane conditions.
Off Rochefort, from the island of Île-d’Aix where he had spent several days hoping to flee to America, Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to Captain F. L. Maitland aboard HMS Bellerophon, on 17 July 1815, ending the “Hundred Days”.
Rochefort is a notable example of 17th-century “ville nouvelle” or new town, which means its design and building resulted from a political decree. The reason for building Rochefort was to a large extent that royal power could hardly depend on rebellious Protestant La Rochelle, which Cardinal Richelieu had to besiege a few decades earlier. Well into the 20th century, Rochefort remained primarily a garrison town. The tourist industry, which had long existed due to the town’s spa, gained emphasis in the 1990s.
News by IA Dominique Dervieux
Rochefort is a nice place, not far from La Rochelle which is also worth seeing.