Pfalz Open chess tournament
43 GMs to play in the strong Pfalz Open 2009

The second Pfalz Open will take place 15th to 22nd of February, 2009. The tournament is a 9 round Swiss system with time control 2 hours / 40 moves + 1 hour / rest of the game. It features hundreds of players, of which 43 are GMs and over 100 are titled. Top seeded is GM Alexey Dreev, who will have serious competition from GM Graf, GM Baklan, GM Kuzubov, GM Malakhatko, GM Tiviakov, GM Mamedov, GM Lupulescu, etc.

Chessdom.com commentators GM Valentin Iotov and GM Dejan Bojkov participate in the event as well. After the tournament is over they will be joining GM Bauer and GM Dimitrov in the commentary of Topalov Kamsky and Linares 2009.

Among the participants we find a group of strong female players led by GM Antoaneta Stefanova, WGM Anna Muzychuk, IM Anna Ushenina, and WGM Tania Sachdev.

Official site: pfalzopen.de

Pfalz Open participants

Dreev, Alexey GM 2688
Tiviakov, Sergei GM 2684
Graf, Alexander GM 2643
Baklan, Vladimir GM 2627
Kuzubov, Yuriy GM 2626
Malakhatko, Vadim GM 2610
Lupulescu, Constantin GM 2608
Drozdovskij, Yuri GM 2607
Mamedov, Nidjat GM 2607
Markowski, Tomasz GM 2605
Epishin, Vladimir GM 2587
Arutinian, David GM 2586
Kempinski, Robert GM 2584
Borovikov, Vladislav GM 2582
Gharamian, Tigran IM 2581
Emelin, Vasily GM 2578
Sulskis, Serunas GM 2573
Georgiev, Vladimir GM 2572
Jankovic, Alojzije GM 2571
Buhmann, Rainer GM 2565
Stefanova, Antoaneta WGM 2557
Iotov, Valentin GM 2556
Gopal, Greetha Narayanan GM 2555
Greenfeld, Alon GM 2548
Kunin, Vitaly GM 2546
Muzychuk, Anna WGM 2540
Milov, Leonid IM 2539
Dgebuadze, Alexandre GM 2538
Luther, Thomas GM 2536
Teterev, Vitaly GM 2530
Macak, Stefan IM 2527
Maiorov, Nikita GM 2524
Aloyzas, Kveinys GM 2522
Bogner, Sebastian IM 2501

The full list can be seen here.

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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