Untitled Jorge Sammour-Hasbun wins Dos Hermanas!

For the eighth year running, the VIII Internet Chess Tournament “Ciudad de Dos Hermanas” is being held on the Internet Chess Club playing zone. This event has become one of the most important Internet chess tournaments in the world, featuring the largest number of participants. In the 2006 edition, more than 2000 players from all over the world took part. 23 GM’s, 11 of them 2600+, battled their way through to the final, where they joined world-class players such as Gata Kamsky, and young turks Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen. German GM Fabian Doettling won the 1.800 euros first prize, with Baadur Jobava, another young Georgian GM, a former Aeroflot Open winner, finishing in second place.

This year the prize fund has been increased, with 32 cash prizes. The total prize fund is 7.700 euros, with a first prize of 1.800 euros. In addition, there are many class prizes.

The winners of the 12 qualifiers plus the 18 best other finishers are seeded by FIDE rating in the knockout finals played Friday March 23 starting at 3:00 pm EDT and Saturday March 24 starting at 3:00 pm EDT. Minimatches are best of 4 games except for the final of the last 2, where it is best of 6 games. Sudden Death if necessary.

Jorge Sammour-Hasbun is the champion by beating 5 GMs!!

See: http://www.chessclub.com/resources/event/doshermanas2007 for all the brackets in the finals. He had to beat some strong players.

In the 1st round, Jorge defeated GM Daniel Fridman 2626 FIDE
In the 2nd round, Jorge defeated GM Gadir Guseinov 2585 FIDE
In the 3rd round, Jorge defeated GM Kiril Georgiev 2661 FIDE
In the 4th round, Jorge defeated GM Rasul Ibrahimov 2530 FIDE
In the 5th and final round, he feated GM Tigran Petrosian 2592 FIDE to become the Champion!

To stop cheating rumors there were proctors in place for the last games.

Congrats Jorge!

There will be a live interview with the Dos Hermanas winner in just a few minutes on ChessFM.

Special thanks to Duncan Oxley for directing most of the events and covering every round! Ulrich König is the TD for the final.

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar