 Cap D'Agde: Radjabov wins against Karjakin
  The seventh edition of the Cap d’Agde Rapid (south of France) tournament took place from October 26th to November 2nd. Azerbaijan GM Teimour Radjabov won the first prize of 16,000 euros by defeating GM Sergei Karjakin in the final.
Sixteen players started the event in two groups of eight, playing with the Round Robin all-against-all format. The top four of each of these groups progressed to the Knockout stage. There were few surprises, as most of the best players qualified for the KO stage. Maybe the biggest surprise was the elimination of Anatoly Karpov, a traditional Cap d’Agde player.
It is clear that the young players are pushing hard. All of them are increasing their ratings fast, and they are soon going to be disputing the top events with the BIG players. Actually, some of them already are, especially Radjabov and Carlsen, and of course Bacrot. One of the missing young players in this event is USA number two Hikaru Nakamura. He would have been one of the favourites at Cap d’Agde for sure, as he is well-known as a specialist in fast chess.
Radjabov, receiving the check for the first place
(Photo: Cap D'Age
site)
In the first group, the 16-year old Ukrainian GM Sergei Karjakin demonstrated his excellent quick play conditions by qualifying in first place, undefeated and half a point ahead of the other favorites Azerbaijan GM Teimour Radjabov (19 years old) and local French GM Laurent Fressinet (one of the “veterans” with his 25 years). The fourth player to qualify for the KO stage was Indian GM Pentala Hariskrishna (20 years old). The three ladies in the group didn’t have much of a chance, although curiously Stefanova and Kostenik were able to draw against the winner.
The B group was much more disputed. Another youngster, Ukrainian GM Andrei Volokitin (20 years old) dominated the group with 5.5/7 and qualified in first place, one point ahead of Norwegian wonder kid GM Magnus Carlsen (only 16 years old!). Both of them finished the qualifying stage undefeated. There was a tie for the other two KO places: no less than four players tied with 50% of the points (3.5/7) and a tie-break took place between them. 23-year old French number one GM Etienne Bacrot won the tie-break with 3.5/5 tied with Chinese WGM Zhao Xue (21 years old) who curiously defeated ex-World Champion Anatoly Karpov twice in this event, once in the first stage and again in the tie-break. Karpov also lost two games to Indian WGM Humpy Koneru, clearly a poor event for him.
 Knock-Out stage
The quarter finals were made up by pairing the first of each group with the fourth of the other group and the second with the third. Radjabov and Carlsen qualified quickly with a 2-0 score against Bacrot and Fressinet respectively. This was a pity, as France was left without representation very early. Karjakin made a comeback after losing the second game but went on to win against Zhao Xue by 2.5-1.5. The toughest match was Volokitin-Harikrishna. No less than seven games had to be played until the Ukrainian emerged as the winner with a 4-3 score.
| N |
TIT |
NAME |
FED |
FIDE |
RES |
TIT |
NAME |
FED |
FIDE |
| 1 |
GM |
Karjakin |
UKR |
2672 |
2.5-1.5 |
WGM |
Zhao Xue |
CHN |
2467 |
| 2 |
GM |
Radjabov |
AZE |
2729 |
2.0-0.0 |
GM |
Bacrot |
FRA |
2705 |
| 3 |
GM |
Carlsen |
NOR |
2698 |
2.0-0.0 |
GM |
Fressinet |
FRA |
2640 |
| 4 |
GM |
Volokitin |
UKR |
2645 |
4.0-3.0 |
GM |
Harikrishna |
IND |
2674 |
|
In the semi finals, the matches finished quickly. In the clash between the two youngest players, Karjakin outplayed Carlsen in the second game (the first game was drawn) to qualify to the final by 1.5-0.5, whereas Radjabov demonstrated his strength by clearly defeating a tired Volokitin 2-0.
| N |
TIT |
NAME |
FED |
FIDE |
RES |
TIT |
NAME |
FED |
FIDE |
| 1 |
GM |
Karjakin |
UKR |
2672 |
1.5-0.5 |
GM |
Carlsen |
NOR |
2698 |
| 2 |
GM |
Radjabov |
AZE |
2729 |
2.0-0.0 |
GM |
Volokitin |
UKR |
2645 |
|
In the final, Radjabov revenged his loss in the preliminary stage by defeating Karjakin 1.5-0.5. He held the draw with Black in the fist game (a Sicilian Sveshnikov) and thrashed the young Ukrainian in the second game, which you will find below annotated by IM Angel Martin Gonzalez.
Related information
LINUX MAGIC wins the Spanish Team Championship
  The final playoff of the Spanish Team Championship took place in Lugo (north of Spain) November 3rd-4th. Many of the best players in the world participated in this event, defending the colors of the top Spanish Teams.
The main favorites was the teams of Intel Tiendas UPI, who field the following GM’s: Ivanchuk, Radjabov, Vallejo Pons, Bruzon, Volokitin and Illescas and especially Linux Magic, with a very strong team consisting of GM’s Aronian, Morozevich, Ponomariov, Shirov, Karkajin and IM Perez Candelario.
The other two teams are Reverte Albox Unicaja with GM’s Dreev, Krasenkov, Rustemov, Movsesian, Comas and Del Rio, and Cuna de Dragones Ajoblanco who field GM’s Svidler, Adams, Mamedyarov, Harikrishna, and local IM’s Llanes Hurtado and Ibarra Jerez.
FINAL MATCH RESULTS [Nov, 4th]
|
| AJOBLANCO |
1.5-4.5 |
MAGIC |
| Nº |
TIT |
NAME |
FIDE |
RES |
TIT |
NAME |
FIDE |
| 1 |
GM |
Svidler, P |
2750 |
0-1 |
GM |
Ponomariov, R |
2703 |
| 2 |
GM |
Jakovenko, D |
2671 |
0-1 |
GM |
Shirov, A |
2720 |
| 3 |
GM |
Pentala, H |
2674 |
1/2 |
GM |
Karjakin, S |
2672 |
| 4 |
GM |
Timofeev, A |
2662 |
1/2 |
GM |
Sargissian, G |
2688 |
| 5 |
IM |
Llanes, M |
2435 |
0-1 |
GM |
Rublevsky, S |
2467 |
| 6 |
IM |
Ibarra, J |
2451 |
1/2 |
GM |
Perez Candelario, M |
2496 |
| TIENDAS UPI |
5.0-1.0 |
REVERTE |
| Nº |
TIT |
NAME |
FIDE |
RES |
TIT |
NAME |
FIDE |
| 1 |
GM |
Ivanchuk, V |
2741 |
1/2 |
GM |
Dreev, A |
2655 |
| 2 |
GM |
Vallejo, F |
2674 |
1-0 |
GM |
Krasenkow, M |
2647 |
| 3 |
GM |
Bruzón, L |
2648 |
1/2 |
GM |
Movsesian, S |
2637 |
| 4 |
GM |
Volokitin, A |
2645 |
1-0 |
GM |
Rustemov, A |
2552 |
| 5 |
GM |
Eljanov, P |
2658 |
1-0 |
GM |
Comas, L |
2495 |
| 6 |
GM |
Illescas, M |
2620 |
1-0 |
GM |
del Río, G |
2492 |
|
|
|
One of Vladimir Kramnik’s seconds, GM Miguel Illescas, will be interviewed live on Tuesday on the Fred Wilson’s ICC radio show.
With the recent victory at the annual superstrong Essent tournament of Judit Polgar of Hungary and Shakriar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan, leaving recent villain Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in the dust, here's hoping that a fresh new chess scene has turned the page. I'm sure that Topalov will regain his hero status soon -- he's the kind of player you can't keep down. It would certainly be good for chess if Judit Polgar stays active and continues to do well. 
The Mikhail Tal Memorial tournament will take place in Moscow November 5th-20th. Subject to confirmation, the participants in this Category XX event are GM’s Morozevich, Shirov, Leko, Aronian, Gelfand, Svidler, Grischuk, Ponomariov and Magnus Carlsen, definitely making it one of the strongest tournaments in the 2006 chess calendar, if not the strongest 10-player Round Robin.
