Parimarjan's Politiken: Negi Convincing Winner in Elsingore
On Sunday Parimarjan Negi won the strong Politiken Cup in Elsinore, Denmark. The 20-year-old Indian grandmaster achieved a superb score of 9 points out of 10 games (a 2794 performance, which is very difficult to reach in an open tournament!) and finished a full point ahead of a group of seven grandmasters: Ivan Cheparinov (Bulgaria), Romain Edouard (France), Sebastien Maze (France), Sune Berg Hansen (Denmark), Jan Timman (Netherlands), Sabino Brunello (Italy) and Robin van Kampen (Netherlands).
Despite the word 'Copenhagen' in the logo of the tournament website, this annual Danish summer open was held in Elsingore, the city of Hamlet. The first half (actually a bit more than that) was dominated by the 27-year-old Bulgarian grandmaster Ivan Cheparinov. Still mostly known as the former second of Veselin Topalov, Cheparinov is a very strong grandmaster himself, who started with 6/6. In the sixth round he nicely outplayed one of Levon Aronian's part-time seconds, Hrant Melkumyan of Armenia.
In the next round, Cheparinov dropped his first half point to Parimarjan Negi of India. This was quite a nice game as well:
With three rounds to go (they played 10 rounds instead of the usual 9), Cheparinov was half a point ahead of Negi and also last-minute entry David Smerdon of Australia, Dutch chess legend Jan Timman, Romain Edouard of France (currenly Veselin Topalov's second!), Sebastien Maze of France, Jonny Hector of Sweden and Sabino Brunello of Italy.
The Bulgarian player drew again, with Edouard, and two players caught him in first place: Brunello, who beat Smerdon, and Negi, who beat Maze.
Both Brunello and Negi won their games in the penultimate round as well. On board one, Cheparinov had apparently used up too much energy.
Negi won a long and tough ending against Melkumyan:
And so the tournament had the dream pairing in round 10, with the two leaders facing each other at the board! Unlike Adams and Kramnik in Dortmund, these two GMs fought out a good fight, and it ended in the Indian's favour.
The names of two true chess legends cannot remain unmentioned. Both Jan Timman (61) and Lajos Portisch (76) were among the very best players of the world in their heydays, both of them don't play very much anymore but both participated.
Timman's last tournament was the B group of the Tata Steel tournament, in January in Wijk aan Zee. There he won five games, drew four and lost four (a very decent 2651 performance). At the Politiken Cup it didn't go bad either: the Dutchman finished among the group of players with 8/10, staying undefeated and scoring a 2619 performance.
Portisch hadn't played a serious tournament since October last year. The Hungarian legend scored 6.5/10 and a 2301 performance.
The Politiken Cup took place July 27th-August 4th, 2013 at the Konventum Helsingør in Elsinore, Denmark. It was a 10-round Swiss; the rate of play was 90 minutes for 40 moves + 30 min for the rest of the game + 30 seconds increment for every move played starting from the first move. The dates for next year's edition have been announced already: 21th-29th July, 2014.
Politiken Cup 2013 | Final standings (top 40)
| # | Player | Rating | Pts | MiBu | SoBer |
| 1 | GM Parimarjan Negi | 2634 | 9 | 55 | 59,75 |
| 2 | GM Ivan Cheparinov | 2678 | 8 | 59 | 57 |
| 3 | GM Romain Edouard | 2662 | 8 | 57,5 | 55,25 |
| 4 | GM Sebastien Maze | 2547 | 8 | 54,5 | 52,5 |
| 5 | GM Sune Berg Hansen | 2549 | 8 | 54,5 | 52,25 |
| 6 | GM Jan H. Timman | 2584 | 8 | 53 | 51,75 |
| 7 | GM Sabino Brunello | 2593 | 8 | 52,5 | 51 |
| 8 | GM Robin Van Kampen | 2595 | 8 | 49 | 47 |
| 9 | GM Sergey Erenburg | 2615 | 7½ | 55 | 48,5 |
| 10 | GM Hrant Melkumyan | 2632 | 7½ | 55 | 48,25 |
| 11 | IM Simon Bekker-Jensen | 2414 | 7½ | 50,5 | 46,25 |
| 12 | GM Krzysztof Bulski | 2534 | 7½ | 50,5 | 43,25 |
| 13 | FM Bjørn Møller Ochsner | 2343 | 7½ | 49 | 42,75 |
| 14 | GM David Smerdon | 2521 | 7 | 55 | 45 |
| 15 | GM Jonny Hector | 2509 | 7 | 55 | 44,5 |
| 16 | IM Jakob Vang Glud | 2520 | 7 | 54 | 44 |
| 17 | GM Lars Schandorff | 2522 | 7 | 53,5 | 44,5 |
| 18 | GM Stelios Halkias | 2565 | 7 | 53 | 45 |
| 19 | GM Nils Grandelius | 2573 | 7 | 52,5 | 44,5 |
| 20 | GM Henrik Danielsen | 2510 | 7 | 52,5 | 41 |
| 21 | GM Vitaly Kunin | 2502 | 7 | 52 | 40,5 |
| 22 | FM Jakob Aabling-Thomsen | 2370 | 7 | 51,5 | 43,25 |
| 23 | IM Jonathan Carlstedt | 2387 | 7 | 51,5 | 43 |
| 24 | IM Mads Andersen | 2477 | 7 | 51 | 42,5 |
| 25 | GM Allan Stig Rasmussen | 2502 | 7 | 51 | 41,75 |
| 26 | IM Rasmus Svane | 2427 | 7 | 50,5 | 41,25 |
| 27 | FM Aryan Tari | 2383 | 7 | 49,5 | 39,5 |
| 28 | IM Petter Haugli | 2287 | 7 | 47 | 39 |
| 29 | Thibault Louis | 2222 | 7 | 47 | 37,5 |
| 30 | IM John Arni Nilssen | 2353 | 7 | 47 | 36 |
| 31 | FM Benjamin Arvola | 2347 | 7 | 46,5 | 36 |
| 32 | FM Karsten Larsen | 2270 | 7 | 45,5 | 38 |
| 33 | Tom Rydström | 2172 | 7 | 44,5 | 33,5 |
| 34 | GM Jens Kristiansen | 2396 | 6½ | 51,5 | 39,25 |
| 35 | Sandi Stojanovski | 2270 | 6½ | 51,5 | 39,25 |
| 36 | GM Lajos Portisch | 2479 | 6½ | 50,5 | 39,25 |
| 37 | IM Iñigo Argandoña Riveiro | 2388 | 6½ | 50,5 | 39 |
| 38 | Fabian Englert | 2282 | 6½ | 50,5 | 37,25 |
| 39 | FM Igor Teplyi | 2409 | 6½ | 50 | 37,75 |
| 40 | FM Jacob Carstensen | 2384 | 6½ | 50 | 37,5 |
Full final standings here
Photos courtesy of the official website, games via TWIC.
