More than 100 players with an international title played a very hard-fought FiNet Open this year. No player remained unbeaten in the 11 rounds. On the first day the usual suspects did their job and dominated the field. Rustam Kamsky had a very good start on the second day: he won an 8-moves game against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. The ex-youth world champion from Azerbaijan obviously has mysterious black-outs from time to time. Last year he was in the lead after 8 rounds but two moments of madness cost him the first prize. But in Chess960 such things happen: the unusual structures and a single moment of abstraction may lead to disaster.

The prize giving ceremony

In the 9th round, Gata Kamsky stumbled. Etienne Bacrot sacrificed a piece and won a magnificent attacking game. Bacrot was on his way to defend his Chess960 title, when he met the reinvigorated Vassili Ivanchuk. The Ukranian lost a game on the first day against Naiditsch but fought his way back to the top again. This was also a very short game, which Bacrot dismally lost. Now it was suddenly Ivanchuk again, who became the sole leader after 10 rounds with 9 points. He just needed to play a draw with the white pieces against Bologan to win the tournament. However, he lost the game without a real fight and suddenly Mainz saw an unexpected winner. Victor Bologan from Moldova, who is a regular visitor to Mainz, certainly deserved the win this year.

Victor Bologan snatched the biggest part of the FiNet money cake

Kamsky, Ivanchuk, Volokitin und Navara scored 9 points. Other formidable players like Shirov, Grischuk and Akopian were happy to reach at least the top 20! This year 279 players participated in the FiNet Open, with prominent names like the Lord Mayor of Mainz Jens Beutel, who always takes a break from his daily routine to play the Open tournaments. The number of participants-needless to say that a new record was broken- shows that Chess960 is becoming more and more popular. The top players like to play Chess960 and they show in their games that this chess variant leads to exciting games. The renowned German chess journalist Harald Fietz observed that many interesting endgames appeared on the board. Amateurs have fun too, and the many special rating prizes in different categories motivate them as well. The FiNet Open was the last Chess960 event this week in Mainz, in the Ordix Open and in the GrenkeLeasing Rapid World Championship “classical” chess will be played.