The 13th Rochefort Chess Festival is set to take place on 22th-28th February 2014 at the Congres Palais, in Rochefort, France.
Just days before the huge Cappelle-la-Grande Open, the Rochefort Open is an excellent occasion for the players to test their preparation and use the perfect training opportunity.
Over 100 players, of which more than 25 titled, have signed in advance. The organizers have invested big effort to propose an interesting tournament for all-level players.
The tournament will be played over 9 rounds of Swiss system, with rate of play 90 mins for 40 moves + 30 mins to the end and increment 30 sec from move one. The total prize fund is 7000 EUR.
The players will be separated in two groups: “Masters” for players with rating above 1900 and “Accession” for players under 2000, the objective being to reduce the rating differences and to increase norm chances for candidate players.
List of the top rated players: GM Andrey Sumets UKR 2614, GM Yuri Solodovnichenko UKR 2586, GM Axel Bachmann PAR 2545, GM David Arutinian GEO 2537, GM Vishnu Prasanna V IND 2523, GM Bogdan Lalic CRO 2492, IM Nikolay Milchev BUL 2460, GM Viesturs Meijers LAT 2458, IM Spas Kozhuharov BUL 2457, IM Dragos Dumitrache ROM 2450, GM Vladimir Lazarev FRA 2427, IM Daniel Pulvett VEN 2423, GM Ramon Mateo DOM 2413, IM Vincent Colin FRA 2413, IM Jose Sequera Paolini VEN 2413, etc…
There is also a strong competition among women with IM Ana Matnadze ESP 2382, WGM Anda Safranska FRA 2291 and WIM Marina Brunello ITA 2259 being the top rated.
Last year winner was GM Davit Jojua (GEO)
Information about the tournament
Information by IA Dominique Dervieux
Beautiful city. Excellent chess.