FEFB tournament report

Tournament report – 33rd Individual FEFB Championship

From 16 to 20 May 2012, the 33^rd Individual Championship of the French-Speaking Chess Federation of Belgium (FEFB) took place in Brussels. The tournament, organised as in 2011 by local club CREB, saw a record participation of Europchess with nine members participating.

The time modus was somewhat unusual – 90 minutes for 30 moves plus 60 minutes for the rest of the game – and caused many games to arrive in hectic at a rather early moment.

Another interesting feature of the tournament was the split into an elite and an open tournament. The elite section was composed of 12 players who could take up the challenge of playing a whole tournament against strong opponents. A field of pre-qualified participants representing the different FEFB leagues was completed by the highest rated entries of the open. Thanks to this formula Europchess was exceptionally well represented with Georgi Tomov, Tom Wiley and Frank Hoffmeister.

Tom scored 4/7 finishing 6^th and just short of the prizes. Frank reached 50% finishing 8^th, whereas Georgi played somewhat below his expectations with 2.5/7. The tournament was won by the Elo favourite, IM Stéphane Hautot, 5/7. The same score was reached by the surprise runner-up Jimmy Lafosse (2085) who remained unbeaten and won against Frank and IM Pieter Claesen.

For Frank, the tournament started with a loss against Hautot, a win against Wettach and a draw against Georgi. With 50% in the back, the 4^th round would decide whether he would play in the upper half. With Black against Jimmy Lafosse (2085), Frank gained a clear advantage, but then threw away the full point on move 30, the last move before time control.

See the game at the end of the page!

After this unfortunate loss, Frank won against I. Werner and played two draws against Luminet and Duhayon, bringing his final score to 50%.

In the open, the remaining 69 players competed, and for the top players, with a rating of 2000-2150, it constituted a fine opportunity to fight for winning a tournament, as even after several victories in a row they would not face “unbeatable” opponents. József Molnar seemed particularly motivated by this situation. Seeded 4^th, he won his first 5 games, before he was stopped by the tournament winner Martin Müller (2080). He came back well in the last round though, and finished clear second with an impressive 6/7. Johannes Bertram played quite well with 4.5 points until the last round, but missed out on a prize by losing against Christophe Callier (2034). 4 points were reached by Mattias Johansson, Kristian Pade Frederiksen and José María Ramos Florido. With this score, Kristian won 2^nd place in the category 1800-1899, while José María was awarded the 1^st prize for players rated 1700-1799. Luis Carlos Busquets finished with 2.5/7.

Tags: FEFB