Malakhatko wins 8th Open of Balagne

Grandmaster Vadim Malakhatko of Belgium won the 8th edition of the Balagna Open in Corsica, France with 7.5 out of 9. He finished half a point ahead of Hicham Hamdouchi (France), Christian Bauer (France), Robin van Kampen (the Netherlands) and Tejas Bakre (India). A report by WIM Arlette van Weersel, who played as well.

By WIM Arlette van Weersel

The 8th Calvi International Open took place from the 26th of April until the 1st of May 2011 in the beautiful city of Calvi, Corsica. Twenty titleholders from ten different countries competed to win a total price fund of 15,000 euro.

The tournament took place inside the boxing hall of Calvi. This setting inspired the players to fight for every point. And since offering a draw was prohibited, only 8 per cent of the games ended in draws.



Although there were only fights over the board the reporter did wonder when the first frustrated player would punch the boxing ball hanging from the ceiling. But luckily everybody could control their anger!

The beautiful landscape (snow covered mountain peaks and sunny beaches all at the same time) plus the fact that the players could watch live football matches and visit a nearby wine yard also helped them relax.



Finding the playing hall was, despite the easy walk, for some players quite difficult. On the day of arrival, the organization had told the players who were staying in the hotel and camping site that it was possible to take a short-cut, by walking a few meters up the hill.

Robin van Kampen, trusting the reporter's female intuition, tried to find this short-cut, but after walking half an hour up the hill we still hadn’t reached the playing hall! The only thing we could do is run down the hill again and take the normal route. Twenty five minutes late (only 5 minutes before we would be forfeited) we arrived at the playing hall. During the tournament we also heard that Romain Edouard had difficulties finding the short-cut. But luckily nobody got seriously lost. :-)

After seven rounds, four players (Malakhatko, Hamdouchi, Bauer, Van Kampen) were leading with 6 points. But in round eight Malakhatko took the lead by winning against Sebastien Midoux , while Hamdouchi, Bauer and Van Kampen all drew. In round 9, although the Sofia rules applied, all four top games ended in a draw by repetition with Malakhatko winning the tournament.

Robin van Kampen (16), who already has two GM norms, is still in the running to become the youngest Dutch grandmaster ever. In Balagua he scored an impressive GM-norm performance, but was a bit unlucky with the pairings. Since there were only nine French titleholders he had to play against a minimum of 4 different nationalities. However, due to the fact that there were some opponents who recently changed their FIDE country he lacked the amount of foreign opponents...



8th Open Internaziunale di Balagua 2011 | Final Standings (top 40)

#	Title	Name	Elo	Pts	TB1	TB2	Perf
1	g	MALAKHATKO Vadim	2546	7½	44½	53	2674
2	g	HAMDOUCHI Hicham	2593	7	46	56	2649
3	g	BAUER Christian	2633	7	45½	54½	2649
4	m	VAN KAMPEN Robin	2456	7	45½	54½	2601
5	g	BAKRE Tejas	2530	7	42	51	2553
6	g	EDOUARD Romain	2600	6½	45½	55	2578
7	m	VENKATESH M.r.	2455	6½	44	53	2500
8	m	RICHTER Michael	2486	6½	42½	52	2473
9	g	MIRZOEV Azer	2571	6½	42	51	2479
10	m	DEMUTH Adrien	2375	6½	41½	50	2366
11	m	PRAVEEN KUMAR C.	2352	6½	35½	43½	2218
12	m	ADRIAN Claude	2258	6	42½	51½	2304
13	m	TERRIEUX Kevin	2422	6	42	50½	2365
14		HUMEAU Cyril	2230	6	41	49	2296
15	f	GACHET Sebastien	2279	6	40½	49	2236
16	gf	HAMDOUCHI Adina-Maria	2268	6	40½	47½	2259
17	mf	VAN WEERSEL Arlette	2234	6	39½	47½	2261
18		GERTOSIO Franck	2166	6	39	47	2236
19		SHAMIEH Mahmoud	2195	6	38½	48½	2266
20		MARIE Maxime	2209	6	38½	45½	2206
21	f	MIDOUX Sebastien	2303	5½	45	54½	2375
22		CRISTOFARI Antoine	2144	5½	38½	46	2182
23	m	LJUBISAVLJEVIC Zivojin Z	2211	5½	38	45½	2220
24		STEINHAUSER Thomas	2091	5½	36	42½	2066
25		KWOSSEK Georg	2060	5½	36	42	1972
26		RICTER Jean-Paul	2118	5½	35	42½	2051
27	m	BATTAGLINI Gabriel	2413	5	43½	52½	2366
28		BRESSAC Stephane	2241	5	41	49	2282
29	f	MASSONI Michael	2338	5	38½	47	2166
30		HOFFMANN Roger	2055	5	37½	45	2037
31		SEGERBERG Tomas	1966	5	37½	44½	2038
32		DELSENY Serge	2017	5	37½	44½	2033
33		PINCHON Henri	1915	5	36	42	1948
34		ANTON Jose	1879	5	36	39½	1939
35		OBRINGER Jean-Marc	2046	5	35½	42½	2004
36		ATTAL Maxence	1977	5	35½	41½	2037
37		FRANCESCHINI Francois-Marie	1714	5	35½	41½	1916
38		CALLIER Christophe	2011	5	35½	41	2014
39		BATTESTI Marc-Andria	1983	5	35	41	2000
40		HAVE Didier	1920	5	34	40	1887

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