The participants of FIDE Grand Prix tournament in Jermuk 8th-24th August 2009, Jermuk, Armenia.
Official website: http://jermuk2009.fide.com/
| No. | Surname | Name | Federation | July 2009 Rating |
| 01 | Akopian | Vladimir | ARM | 2712 |
| 02 | Alekseev | Evgeny | RUS | 2714 |
| 03 | Aronian | Levon | ARM | 2768 |
| 04 | Bacrot | Etienne | FRA | 2721 |
| 05 | Cheparinov | Ivan | BUL | 2678 |
| 06 | Eljanov | Pavel | UKR | 2716 |
| 07 | Gelfand | Boris | ISR | 2755 |
| 08 | Inarkiev | Ernesto | RUS | 2675 |
| 09 | Ivanchuk | Vasily | UKR | 2703 |
| 10 | Jakovenko | Dmitry | RUS | 2760 |
| 11 | Kamsky | Gata | USA | 2717 |
| 12 | Karjakin | Sergey | UKR | 2717 |
| 13 | Kasimdzhanov | Rustam | UZB | 2672 |
| 14 | Leko | Peter | HUN | 2756 |
Source: FIDE.com
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Whatever happened to Yerevan?
who is yeveran?
“who is yeveran?”
You are either kidding, or you are not particulary smart. For your sake I hope it’s the first.
The 5th venue for Grand Prix was supposed to be Yerevan.
A German chess site (http://schach.twoday.net by IM Stefan Loeffler) mentions that the Grand Prix tournament should have started already this week, hence it would have collided with the Mainz rapid event. But then “Armenian VIP” Levon Aronian intervened and the tournament was postponed. Maybe this change of schedule implied a change of venue?
The 5th Grand Prix was scheduled to begin on August 8th from the very beginning.
http://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS/download/gp_2008_participants.pdf
Well, maybe Stefan Loeffler was wrong – or maybe the FIDE website was updated and doesn’t leave traces of earlier versions?
However it was good to see Akopian, Aronian, Kamsky, Bacrot, and Kasimdshanov in Mainz. Last year most of them played at the same time the Grand Prix.
But now: What is your prdiction?
Aronian, who else?
okay
“Well, maybe Stefan Loeffler was wrong – or maybe the FIDE website was updated and doesn’t leave traces of earlier versions?”
No. That is the original pdf document, when FIDE announced participants, venues and the schedule for the 2008/09 Grand Prix.
The whole adress is
http://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS/
/download/gp_2008_participants.pdf
You can see the same original scan here:
http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/a8b0$gix.htm
OK fair enough. But this is a VERY old version: Only the first two events took place as announced (when and where). Then Doha was moved to Elista, Montreux to Nalchik, Elista to Yerevan then Jermuk, Karlovy Vary will be moved to “??”.
And a change of venue might lead to a change of dates – somehow I find it hard to believe that IM Loeffler (a well-known German Chess journalist) was lying or making things up.
But in the meantime there is another explanation why Yerevan became Jermuk, quoting from the report on Chessvibes: “The tournament was orginally to be held in the Armenian capital Yerevan, but later moved to Jermuk, where the climate is much better. As FIDE’s Commercial Director Geoffrey Borg told us, “Jermuk is also the place where the Armenian Olympic Chess Team goes for training prior to any Olympiad. The Armenian Chess Federation preferred it to Yerevan as it will be too hot in the capital city at this time.”
Maybe the Armenians also want to promote Jermuk as a tourist destination – fair enough. I don’t know at all what Yerevan has to offer in terms of sightseeing – but while most people will have heard of the capital, only few insiders will know a holiday resort with 4,600 inhabitants.