The jubilee edition of the traditional 25th Erfurt Chess Festival was held December 26-30, 2015 at the splendid area of Radisson Blu Hotel.
The event in the Thuringian capital Erfurt, Germany, attracted 428 players from 18 countries, thus making it one of the biggest chess tournaments in Europe and the world! Suffice to say, that the registration, unfortunately, had to be closed three weeks before the festival, as even the huge and elegant halls of the hotel had their limit…
The event was organized by ESV Lok Sömmerda, in cooperation with the Radisson Blu Hotel Erfurt. It was split in four different groups: Master, Main, Amateur and Senior tournaments.
The Master Tournament an 8-round Swiss open with first prize of 1.025 € and total prize pool of all tournaments in the amount of 6.175 €. But almost half of the participants won some kind of prize – cash or material one. And each player got a nice pen with his name printed on it! The first to the third place in each section got also a trophy of lead crystal.
The Master Tournament was won by the rating-favourite – Bulgarian GM Boris Chatalbashev, on better tie-break from the young hope of German chess IM Jonas Lampert and the experienced IM Georgios Souledis – all with 6.5 out of 8.
The other winners:
Main Tournament – Vladimir Modric and Alexander Lubbe – 6.5/8
Senior Tournament – Gunter Weidlich – 4.5/5
Amateur Tournament – 10 years old Momchil Kosev from the local Erfurter Schachklub – 6 from 7!
The jubilee event was covered also by MDR television and has his own YouTube channel.
With such a great organization effort put by the team lead by Daniel Wanzek, no doubt next year would be just as successful!
Master Tournament final ranking (top 20):
1 GM Chatalbashev Boris BUL 2564 2550 SV Würselen 6.5
2 IM Lampert Jonas GER 2463 2458 Hamburger SK 6.5
3 IM Souleidis Georgios GRE 2409 2380 Hamburger SK 6.5
4 IM Zelbel Patrick GER 2428 2395 SC Hansa Dortmund 6
5 IM Lagunow Alexander GER 2420 2368 SK Zehlendorf 6
6 IM Lubbe Nikolas GER 2513 2501 SF Neuberg 6
7 IM Fries-Nielsen Jens Ove DEN 2400 0 Fredericia Skakforening 6
8 WGM Levushkina Elena GER 2335 2282 SC Garching 6
9 Vöge Tobias GER 2190 2203 Stader SV 6
10 Lagunow Raphael GER 2170 2165 SK Zehlendorf 6
11 Beeke Bob NED 2227 0 ASV Arnhem 6
12 Paul Johannes GER 2291 2252 SG AE Magdeburg 6
13 Wöllermann Jan GER 2310 2283 SG AE Magdeburg 5.5
14 IM Berchtenbreiter Maximilian GER 2392 2361 SG Pang-Rosenheim 5.5
15 IM Eisenbeiser Amadeus GER 2386 2356 BG Buchen 5.5
16 Schmid Franz GER 2144 2092 SV Röhrnbach 5.5
17 Pfreundt Jakob GER 2251 2195 Königsspringer SC 5.5
18 IM Shytaj Luca ITA 2443 0 5
19 WIM Osmanodja Filiz GER 2277 2260 USV TU Dresden 5
20 FM Skibbe Willi GER 2260 2207 SSC Rostock 5