Sports legends “on the field” for the ACP Golden Classic

PRESS RELEASE

Sports legends “on the field” for the ACP Golden Classic

Bergamo, July 7, 2014 – ACP Golden Classic 2014 is going to be one of the fifteen strongest chess tournaments of the year. But besides that it is going to be a celebration of sports and athletes. Next Friday the Hotel San Marco in Bergamo will host the opening ceremony of this prestigious event, a round robin chess tournament whose field includes seven of the best players in the world. The venue for the ACP Golden Classic 2014 is the Auditorium of Piazza della Libertà, which will host a breathtaking fight from 12 to 20 July.

ACP stands for Association of Chess Professionals and the seven contenders of this tournament are undoubtedly first level professionals. Top seeds are Filipino Wesley So, 20 years old – who is now the 16th player in the world Fide list and became world university champion in 2013 – and Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi, 24 years old, former Russian and European Champion (2010) and just graduated vice-world champion for blitz chess. Then there will be other top players such as Georgian GM Baadur Jobava (who replaces Azerbaijan’s Teimour Radjabov), eight-time Hungarian champion Zoltan Almasi, 2001 European champion Emil Sutovsky from Israel – who is president of ACP – and two of the strongest Italian players, both born in 1989: Daniele Vocaturo from Rome and Sabino Brunello from Bergamo, who is Italian Champion for blitz and rapid chess.

Even if chess will be the main theme of the event, the organizing commitee (Asd Caissa Italia and Bergamo Chess Club) asked other well-known athletes of the Italian scene to symbolically make the first move to open each round, a rather standardized procedure in the major chess tournaments. Among them are motorcycling legend Giacomo Agostini, worldwide and Quadruple World Champion in rhythmic gymnastic Daniela Masseroni, regional Olympic Committee president and historical flag of Cantù Basketball Pierluigi Marzorati, as well as the City Councillor for Sports Loredana Poli and the rector of the University of Bergamo Stefano Paleari, together with pro-rector Gianpietro Elvio Cossali, who is also a chess candidate master. The first move of the opening round, Saturday, July 12, will be played by a player from Bergamo, Gianpietro Pagnoncelli, who is a council member for the National Olympic Committee as well as president of the Italian Chess Federation.

The tournament rounds will start at 2 p.m. (except for the last round, Sunday 20th, when games are scheduled at 11 am), with free access to the venue – the auditorium has 300 seats – and two days of competition will be reserved the conclusion of the adjourned games. The formula of ACP Golden Classic relives a feature of the major tournaments of the past, which basically disappeared at the end of the twentieth century: if a game doesn’t finish after 5 hours and 40 moves, it will be “frozen”, and the arbiter will ask the player to write the move and “seal” it inside an envelope; the two players will meet later to finish the game – Tuesday 15th and Saturday 19th of July will be dedicated to finish the “enveloped” games.

In addition, the International Open “Città di Bergamo” will take place from 18th to 20th July, offering amateurs (200 enthusiasts from around the world expected) the chance to challenge some very well-known players from the international scene, such as Bulgarian champion GM Kiril Georgiev, who won the event in 2012 and took second place behind Brunello last year, Serbian GM Ivan Ivanisevic (bronze in 2013), together with 23 years-old Italian champion GM Danyyil Dvirnyy and 22 years-old GM Axel Rombaldoni.