Dear Members,
It was a very eventful summer on the chess scene both on and off the board.
In the ACP Opens our members did well – in Warsaw, the Miguel Najdorf Memorial was won by our Premium Member GM Grzegorz Gajewski with the result 7.5/9 ahead of two other Premiums – GM Ilya Smirin (7/9) and GM Hrant Melkumyan (6.5/9).
The Gideon Japhet Memorial in Jerusalem was won by GM Arkadij Naiditsch with 6.5/7 ahead of many people on 5/7 – among them were our Premiums GM Daniil Yuffa, GM Oleksandr Bortnyk and GM Avital Boruchovsky.
The Porto Mannu Open was won by IM Danny Raznikov with 7/9 ahead of our Premiums GMs Sabino Brunello and Dmitry Frolyanov on 6.5/9.
The Bergamo Open was won by GM Francesco Rambaldi on 5.5/6 ahead of ACP Premium Members GMs Daniel Fridman (5/6) and Sabino Brunello with 4.5/6.
In total, over 40 ACP Premium Members received special conditions and fought for special ACP prizes in these events. It is worth noting that this year ACP allocated almost 20.000 EUR from its funds to support the players participation in the ACP Opens and we intend to continue with this program in the next year as well.
The traditional Poikovsky tournament in Siberia was won for a second year in a row by the Ukranian GM Anton Korobov. Incidentally enough, our wild card and Premium Member GM Igor Kovalenko was pivotal in determining the final winner – in the last round the winner managed to beat our wild card.
We are proud to announce our cooperation with the London Chess Classic. This year we will have 2 spots (one male and one female) covering the accomodation and providing a starting fee of 500 GBP each. These will be distributed based on the ACP Tour standings on 1 November. We would like to thank IM/IO Malcolm Pein, the organiser of the London Classic, for providing the opportunity for our Premium Members to compete in one of the best tournaments in the world.
We would like to remind you that the wild cards for the Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee (Masters and Challengers) and Gibraltar Tradewise will be determined by the ACP Tour standings on 1 December.
The biggest event of the summer was undoubtedly the 42nd Chess Olympiadin Baku. In the tightest of races USA won their first Olympic gold after 1937 with the amazing score of 20/22. Even more amazing is that there was another team that had the same score – Ukraine won 10 (!) matches and lost only one, to the winners. Distant third were the Russians with 18/22.
The women’s event was won by China (20/22) ahead of the surprising Poland and Ukraine, both on 17/22.
During the Olympiad the FIDE Congress also took place and here ACP’s position as a leading authority that represents the opinion of almost all the leading chess players, organisers and arbiters came to the fore. ACP’s Petition Against the Proposed Changes of the World Championship Cycle was signed by over 1200 people, of them more than 200 GMs. As a result of this campaign the Commission for World Championships and Olympiads did not approve the proposal by the Russian Chess Federation to allow commercial matches for the title. Following that decision the FIDE General Assembly rejected the proposal. We would like to thank everybody who supported us in this fight. This is a great victory for chess, not only as a sport, but also as a respected discipline with established tradition. We showed that together we are stronger and we can change things for the better.
The ACP Board
