There was only one decisive game on the top boards. GM Igor Khenkin (2644) has joined the leaders, while the defending champion GM Daniel Fridman (2650) is still among the pursuers with half a point behind.
Round 5 top results:
Braun (3½) – Meier (3½) ½-½
A. Zude (3½) – Fridman (3) ½-½
Beikert (3) – Khenkin (3) 0-1
Buhmann (3) – Siebrecht (3) ½-½
Hausrath (3) – K. Bischoff (2½) ½-½
Round 6 top boards:
(4) Meier – Khenkin (4)
(4) A. Zude – Braun (4)
(3½) Fridman – Hausrath (3½)
(3½) Siebrecht – Prusikin (3½)
(3) Baramidze – Buhmann (3½)
(3) K. Bischoff – E. Zude (3)
Source: ChessToday.net
Where’s Gustafsson?
“Where’s Gustafsson?”
Where are the Top-Players? – That is a question one could ask for National Chess Championships in a lot of countries…
the national Top-Seeds don’t bother attending, because they only go where the money is…
A good solution IMO would be to make national championships the first step in qualifying for the World Championship. That’s pretty much like it has been 30 years ago, when players moved on from national championships to Zonal-Tournaments, then to the Interzonal-Tournaments and from there into the Candidates Matches.
IMO that is definitely the best concept for a fair World Championship Cycle and would also bring the Top-Seeds back into national championships.
Indeed, the field is rather weak and lacks the more familiar names. Just 9 GMs are appearing. Naiditsch, Gustafsson, Graf, Luther, Lutz are nowhere to be found. I am not too quick to blame it on low prices I think 6000 Euro is a decent amount of money to be made especially in the current situation.
Here is the split:
Prices: 6000.- | 2.500.- | 2.000.- | 1.500.- | 1.000.- | 800.- | 700.- | 600.- | 500.- and 400.- Euro.
I don’t know who besides Naiditsch and perhaps Gustafsson has a reasonable shot of making this kind of money in another event.
In my opinion this is a real good field!
Three of the five Olympiad team players, besides Meier – did you watch him beating Cheparinov? – and Braun and Buhmann.
okay from germany
P.S. When you name Lutz, you can also ask about Hübner, Hort and Yussupov! 😉
Not besides but adding!