The ninth and final round of 18th Offene Internationale Bayerische Schachmeisterschaft, that was taking place from 25th October to 2nd November 2014 in Bad Wiessee, Germany, was characterized by very gentle acting on the top boards. The leaders GM Robert Hovhannisyan (Armenia) and GM Ante Saric (Croatia) played an extremely safe variation of the Slav Defence and finished equal, sharing first place with 7,5/9 points.
Five players could join them but only one succeeded. The USA GM Aleksandr Lenderman outplayed GM Michael Prusikin with Black pieces to share the first place and luckily for him, he prevailed on a better tie-break score and took the first prize in the amount of 2.500 €.
Hovhannisyan remained second, while Saric took the bronze.
The rest of the 6,5/8 players drew in-between, thus a group of 18 (!) players shared fourth place on 7 points each, including top GMs: Nisipeanu, Khenkin, Melkumyan, Postny, Prohaszka, Oleksienko, Graf, Landa, Delchev, Sandipan and Rozentalis. You can see the full standings below.
As always, it was a great tournament with exciting games, sunny weather and good food. Enough reasons to look forward to the 19.OIBM in 2015!
Official website/ LIVE games with analysis
Previous reports: 18. OIBM kicked off in Bad Wiessee/ Nisipeanu and Bluebaum superior after 5 rounds/ 13 players in the lead
Great job Alex.