ICC Mainz Chess960 - Sasikiran and Rathnakaran qualify.

Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran and IM K Rathnakaran made to the Knockout stage of the Chess960 online qualifiers tournaments in progress at the Internet Chess Club. The Chess960 Online qualifiers tournament is held in conjunction with conjunction with “Chess Tigers”, the organizers of the annual Mainz Chess Classic in Germany.

Both Rathnakaran and Sasikiran scored 7.5 points from 9 games in the last of the six qualifer events which was held on July 12th. They now progress to the 32 player knockout to be held on the 14th and 15th of July at www.chessclub.com.

All of last week, qualifiers were held on the ICC, where 959 unique players (1546 in total over 10 events) battled it out for the coveted spots to the 32-player KO final, to be staged 14-15 July on the ICC.

Five players qualified from each of the 6 larger ICC events, 1 from the best cumulative score from all ICC events, and 1 from the 4 smaller World Chess Live events. Of the 32 contesting the finals, 15 are Grandmasters - five being FIDE top 100 players: Gata Kamsky (USA), Krishnan Sasikiran (India), Ivan Sokolov (Netherlands), Kiril Georgiev (Bulgaria) and Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Georgia) - and 11 International Masters.

Complete list of qualifiers, results & pairings is available at http://www.chessclub.com/resources/event/chess960/2007/

The overall winner will receive a round trip ticket, 600 Euro ($811) cash, hotel room and breakfast at the Hilton Mainz Hotel, by the banks of the Rhine, just 1 block from the picturesque Old Town, from August 15 to 20 (5 nights and 6 days!).

They will also receive an automatic seat into two of the biggest and most prestigious series of rapid chess tournaments in the world, playing alongside many of the game's top grandmasters: the 6th FiNet Open, the world's biggest Chess960 (FischerRandom) tournaments, and the 14th ORDIX Open, one of the strongest rapid tournaments in the world.

While there, they will also have the best seats in the house for the main evening attraction: Anand, Kazimdzhanov, Aronian and Bacrot will battle it out for the GRENKELEASING Rapid World Championship and the FiNet Chess960 Rapid World Championship.

In the 2006 edition of the Grenkeleasing Rapid World Championship in Mainz, GM Viswanathan Anand secured his seventh successive title and ninth overall with 5-3 win in the the 8-game match against Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan. In the Chess960 match, GM Pentalya Harikrishna made a remarkable comeback from being 3 points down to defeat Germany’s Arkadi Naiditsch 4.5-3.5.

The final of the last 32 players on the ICC (www.chessclub.com) will take place on Saturday, July 14th, 14:00 EST, and the final of the last 8 players will take place on Sunday, July 15th, 14:00 EST.

Mainz tournament Information:

http://www.chessclub.com/resources/event/mainz2006/
http://chesstigers.de/ccm7.php?lang=1
http://chesstigers.de/ccm7_index_news.php?id=1062&rubrik=6&lang=1&kat=0t
 

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Published : 15  July , 2007