Grand Prix PlusCity in Linz

At the beginning of the summer holidays, I played another tournament, this time in Linz, Austria. The tournaments were held from the 30th of June to the 1st of July in the PlusCity shopping mall in Linz.

Blitz

On the first day, we played the blitz tournament. The players were super strong, as there were 45 grandmasters and another 55 titled players, with a total number of 279 players from 33 countries. I was ranked in 179th place. The time control of the tournament was 3 minutes plus 2 seconds per each move and the prize fund for all tournaments was €50000.

This tournament went really well for me, as I placed 110th by scoring 8 points from the 15 rounds (the most precious ones were a win with a fide master and a draw with an international master) and I gained 206 rating points!

The tournament leaders were changing after almost every round, but after many hard games, a Hungarian GM Balog Imre took the first place with 12,5 points. He started with 5 wins, but then he lost two games in a row. But that didn’t stop him and he finished the tournament by making an amazing 7½ points out of 8 games.

The second place was taken by GM Sanal Vahap, who led the tournament until the 11th round, but after losing two games in a row, he also lost hopes for first place and finished the tournament with 11,5 points. The same number of points got GM Korobov Anton, but because of a worse tiebreak, he ended in third place. You can check the results of the blitz here

Rapid

On the second day, we played the rapid tournament – the time control was 10 minutes plus 5 seconds per each move. The rapid tournament had even more participants. 330 players from 35 countries competed, from which 102 were titled players (43 grandmasters). I was ranked 157th place.

The tournament went great for me again – I placed 100th with 5/9 points (I defeated an international master and two fide masters!) and gained 84 rating points.

GM Kozul Zdenko won the tournament with 8,5 points from 9 games and a performance of over 2800! He only drew in the seventh round and won all the other games. The second place was taken by GM Meier Georg with 8 points and GM Maghsoodloo Parham ended third with 7,5 points and the best tiebreak out of the other four players with the same points.

I really enjoyed both of the tournaments, not only because I played well, but I also got the chance to see some of the top players and also to play with some of them! The playing area was really nice as well. It was quite an interesting change, as we were playing in the shopping mall. There were always many people around and it was something unusual compared to the other tournaments I have played. You can check the results of the rapid here

Teams

On the 2nd of July, there was another tournament, the Open Austrian Team Rapid Championship. The teams consisted of 4 players plus one substitute and the time control was the same as in the rapid tournament. Unfortunately, I didn’t take part in this tournament.

The winner of the tournament was the Arbeiter-Schachverein Linz 1 team, which was composed of GM Fedoseev Vladislav (5,5/9 points), GM Maghsoodloo Parham (6,5/9 points), GM Shimanov Aleksandr (6,5/9 points) and GM Balogh Csaba (7/9 points). They won 7 matches, made a draw in one, and lost one.

In second place was the SV Raika Rapid Feffernitz team (GM Brunello Sabino, GM Diermair Andreas, IM Schreiner Peter, and GM Sebenik Matej), which had the same match points, but half a point fewer game points as the first team.

In third place was the Hask Mladost Zagreb team (GM Livaic Leon, GM Jovanovic Zoran, IM Bukal Vladimir Jr., and FM Pecnik Leo). They won 6 matches, made a draw in two, and lost one. You can check the complete results here.

Author

LUCIA ŠEVČÍKOVÁ