Georgiev wins Open Norwegian Championship on tiebreaks

Press release:

GEORGIEV WINNER OF OPEN NORWEGIAN CHAMPIONSHIP IN FAGERNES
By Øystein Brekke

GM Vladimir Georgiev (36) of Macedonia won The Open Norwegian Championship 2012 in Fagernes, but had to share prize-money with five other players also finishing at 6½ points. Bulgarian Grandmaster Vladimir Georgiev has represented Macedonia since 2002 and is a national champion of both countries.

The Open Norwegian Championship 2012 had 126 participants, 58 of them playing in the top group, and was part of the second Norwegian Chess Festival in Fagernes. Altogether this was a new success with a varied chess program and 250 players of different strengths and ages participating in the tournaments. Both the playing and living conditions at Norway’s leading new chess hotel Quality Hotel & Resort Fagernes are first class.

This year’s Open Norwegian championship was the “Arnold Eikrem memorial tournament” to honour Norway’s longtime leading chess organizer Mr. Arnold Eikrem (1932-96) would have turned 80 this April. His famous chess activities at Gausdal, Norway started 1970 with the first Open Norwegian Championship, which was later moved to Oslo from year 2001 and from 2011 to Norway’s new chess resort Fagernes.

1. GM Vladimir Georgiev, Macedonia 6½ points (41)
2. GM Ramil Hasangatin, Russia 6½ (40)
3. GM Yuri Solodovnichenko, Ukraine 6½ (39)
4. IM Timofey Galinskyi, Ukraine 6½ (39)
5. GM Gabriel del Rio, Spain 6½ (37,5)
6. GM Marc Narciso, Spain 6½ (36,5)

7. GM Leif E. Johannessen, Norway 6 (37,5)
8. GM Normunds Miezis, Latvia 6 (36,5)
9. GM Sipke Ernst, Netherlands 6 ((36)
10. GM Eduardas Rozentalis, Lithuania 6 (33)

11. IM Axel Smith, Sweden 5½ (40)
12. WGM Olga Dolzhikova, Ukraine (Norway) 5½ (37,5)
13. IM Eirik Gullaksen, Norway 5½ (37)
14. Vegar Koi Gandrud, Norway 5½ (35,5)
15. IM Bedri Sadiku, Kosovo 5½ (34)
16. GM Sergey Kasparov, Belarus 5½ (33)
17. Iulia Mashinskaja, Russia 5½ (31)

18. IM Petter Haugli, Norway 5 (41)

Among the attractions during the festival were also a FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar to qualify arbiters for the Tromsø 2014 chess olympiad. The seminar was led by wellknown FIDE secretary general IA Ignatius Leong (Singapore) and IA Almog Burstein (Israel).

The results, games and other information from the Norwegian chess festival are available at the website http://festival.sjakkweb.no. Next year’s Norwegian chess festival in Fagernes is planned for the Easter week March 23 – 31.