The 23rd Cappele la Grande tournament in France is now over. Out of 600 players, roughly 150 held the GM or IM title. GM Yue Wang took first on tiebreaks with a score of 7.0/9, good for a performance rating of 2784. Also tied at 7.0 were GMs Evgenij Miroshnichenko, Vugar Gashimov, David Arutinian, Yuri Drozdovskij and Vasily Yemelin.

Our local hero, IM David Pruess, drew his final game against GM Czaba Balogh to finish with 5.5/9. This was enough for David’s second Grandmaster norm! His performance rating of 2611 placed him on the top of the 5.5 point group. David defeated four GMs, lost to three GMs and drew the final round.

Way to go David!

His colleague from the East Bay Chess Club in Oakland, CA, IM Josh Friedel, finished with 5.0/9. Both David and Josh are now just one norm away from the Grandmaster title!

Report by NM Michael Aigner, soon to be FM and qualifier of the 2007 US Championship! Thanks Michael!

Congrats to IM Pruess for earning his second GM norm and to IM Friedel for a fine tournament as well!

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Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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