The 15th Rochefort Chess Festival was held from 20th to 26th February at the Congres Palais, in Rochefort, France.
51 players competed in the Masters section which was reserved for the players rated above 1900. Grandmaster Ventzislav Inkiov (Bulgaria) won the first place with 7 points. He was followed by Master Diego Di Berardino (Brazil) and Grandmaster Rustam Khusnutdinov with also 7 points.
The young ukrainian Egor Bogdanov missed a IM-norm at last round against grandmaster Nikolov. The young french Dimitri Lagarde realized a performance above 2300. IM Silvia Collas and WFM Cecile Haussernot were the first women.
The Accession tournament, available for players rated under 2000, had 125 participants. The winner started the tournament only at round 2 but finished alone above all others with impressive serie of 8 wins ! Thierry Koslowski (FRA) is followed by Philippe Moine (FRA) with 7,5 points and Thomas Lucbernet (FRA) with 7 points.
The tournaments were played over 9 rounds of Swiss system and offered the prize fund of 7000 EUR.
Official site : www.echiquier-rochefortais.com
Masters : http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Resultats.aspx?URL=Tournois/Id/35344/35344&Action=Ga
Accession : http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Resultats.aspx?URL=Tournois/Id/35343/35343&Action=Ga
Report by IA Dominique Dervieux