Dear Members,
We have some good news that we want to share with you.
But before getting to the meat, let us first congratulate the winners of the European Women’s Individual Championship that was held in Antalya – our Premium Member Alina Kashlinskaya from Russia won the championship and became European Champion! The silver medal was won by Marie Sebag from France. Lots of congratulations are in order for our Premiums: Elizabeth Paehtz (Germany) won bronze, Inna Gaponenko (Ukraine) was fourth and Antoaneta Stefanova (Bulgaria), who won her last 5 games (!) was fifth, all five finishing on 8 out of 11.
The special ACP prizes in the tournament went to our Premium Members Jovanka Houska (England), Elena Semenova (Russia) and Ketevan Arakhamia Grant (Scotland).
Hearty congratulations to all of them!
Now onto the good news.
Our Board Member Sergey Beshukov and his company Archibald Chess organised an open tournament in Sochi called Archibald Chess Professional (11-20 May). Our President officially opened the tournament and made the ceremonial first move. The tournament was organised on a very high level and there were also prizes for our Premiums. The Archibald Chess Professional was won by Stanislav Bogdanovich from Ukraine while the ACP prizes went to our Premiums Aleksej Aleksandrov (Belarus), Igor Kovalenko (Latvia) and Sergey Volkov (Russia). Congratulations to the winners!
The ACP is happy to announce several important projects it worked on in the last period.
Perhaps the most important one is the organisation of an ACP Women Cup in 2020. The ACP Cup was a very popular tournament in the past, but in the last years it was increasingly difficult to find the resources to organise it. One of the first goals of the new board was to try to resurrect our event and we are happy to announce that we managed to do so!
We worked hard to secure sponsorship and find organisers for this prestigious event and we succeeded. ACP agreed a cooperation with the Archibald Chess Company and we will partner with the experienced organisers in Italywho brought the ACP Cup live in 2012. More details will follow as time approaches but for now you can mark your calendars for the summer of 2020!
The ACP was also very active in expanding its network in the USA and the news in this particular field of our activities are quite substantial.
First, we established a cooperation with one of the most legendary chess clubs in the world – the Marshall Chess Club. The club will try to organise events that can qualify for the ACP Tour with prizes for our Premiums.
From 10-14 July the Marshall Chess Club organises the 12th New York International open tournament and we agreed that there will be a special prizefor an ACP Premium Member of 1000 USD.
The aforementioned prize is aided by the US Chess Trust, who was very happy to cooperate with us on this project.
We are delighted to be working with President Noah Chasin and Executive Director Bryan Quick, who share our enthusiasm for chess and the help we provide to the chess players. We also look forward to future forms of cooperation with the US Chess Trust and its President Jim Eade.
The US Masters tournament, an official US Chess Championship to be held from 21-25 August will qualify for the ACP Tour and will have an ACP Prize in the amount of 1000 USD. The organiser Walter High provides conditions to our Grandmaster Premiums:
- Free entry to the U.S. Masters Chess Championship (no requirement to pay an entry fee out of prize winnings);
- Free room for six nights at the Embassy Suites Hotel (playing venue) in a room shared with another player who also has full conditions. If a player wants a single room, the organiser will pay half the cost of the room and the player pays half. There is a possibility that the organiser could run out of free rooms, so committing in advance by contacting him is important;
- Free cooked-to-order breakfast each morning with full breakfast buffet for all who stay at the Embassy Suites;
- Access to the players lounge which is open after each evening round. Free sodas, beer, and snacks and a place to analyze, play blitz, or relax with fellow players.
This is one of the rare US tournaments that offers conditions, so in addition to the ACP Prize and the solid prize fund of 27000 USD with a first prize of 7000 USD, it is an excellent opportunity for our members!
While this is not all we have been working on, we won’t reveal all our ideas just yet. Stay tuned for more good news soon!
Wishing you the best,
The ACP Board
