Pentala Harikrishna Wins Biel Chess Masters International Tournament

Alexandra Kosteniuk's Chess Blog for Daily Chess News and Trivia (c) 2013

Hi everyone,

Parallel to the Olivier Breisacher Memorial, a very strong 11-rounds open took place in Biel. Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna showed a great performance to finish in sole first place with 8.5/11 points.

Harikrishna arrived as the second seed with 2680 rating points. Thanks to his strong run at this event, he joined the 2700-club and is now on the 38th position according to the live ratings list. Second place went to GM Mateusz Bartel. The fur-time Polish champion arrived to the last round with the same amount of points as Harikrishna, but was not able to defeat GM Susanto Megaranto, thus getting a final 8/9 score.

Two other players obtained 8 points. Turkish GM Dragan Solak got the medal for third place due to his better tiebreak score. Bu Xiangzhi was the player left out of the podium.

 

The first prizes were distributed as follows: CHF 7’000, 5’000, 4’000, 3’000. Daniel Hausrath from Germany obtained a GM norm, and three players gained IM norms: Huang Qian (CHN), Holger Rasch (GER) and Hakimifard Ghazal (IRI). Ghazal also got a WGM norm.

Tournament website

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Turkish Chess Champion 2012/13 is GM Dragan Solak

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013

Hi Everyone,

Esen (2nd), Solak (1st) and Ipatov (3rd)

The Turkish National Chess Championship 2012-2013 took place on 1-9 February at the Halls of the Limra Hotel in Antalya, Turkey. The favorite GM Dragan Solak lived up to the expectations and won the event. The event was 11 rounds Swiss open and the Classical FIDE time control was used. A total of 320 players participated, according to Chessdom.

The battle for first place was fierce and the champion was only decided in the last round. Solak and GM Alexander Ipatov reached the final round with 8.5 points; Solak defeated Vahap Sanal, while Ipatov wasn’t able to beat IM Atakisi Umut. With the victory GM Solak got the title and the 5,000 Turkish Lira after scoring 9.5 points in 11 rounds.

GM Baris Esen finished on second place – edging Ipatov on tie-breaks – and GM Emre Can finished fourth. Thus, the four first places were taken by the four favorite players. Full standings below. 

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Dragan Solak wins the Turkish Chess Championship

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

The Turkish Chess Championship for men was held over 10 rounds of Swiss system from 29th January to 5th February in Kemer, Antalya.

309 participants (52 more compared to previous year), including 19 titled players sorted as 4 GMs, 6 IMs 6 FMs and 3 CMs took part in the championship.

Dragan Solak became the winner of the Turkish Championship after his victory in the last round against the youngster Ege Koksal. It was the first Turkish championship for Dragan Solak, who recently completed the transfer from Serbian Chess Federation and is going to represent the Turkey in the next Chess Olympiad in Istanbul. Read more at www.chessdom.com.

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GM Dragan Solak and WGM Evgeniya Doluhanova change federations

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011


Hello everyone,

According to the latest chess news update via www.chessdom.com, two strong players have switched federations!

GM Dragan Solak has moved to the Turkish Chess Federation and WGM Evgeniya Doluhanova has moved to the Armenian Chess Federation. The TSF will regulate the transfer fees in order to have Solak in the team for the 2012 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul. With the projected elo of 2613 in the January rating list Solak will be the highest rated player in Turkey.

GM Dragan Solak is married to WGM Yildiz of Turkey and they have a three-year-old daughter Lara. The Armenian Chess Federation announced the transfer of WGM Evgeniya Doluhanova from the Ukrainian Chess Federation.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com