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The youth strikes

It has become a tradition that many young players take part in the GRENKE Chess Open in a bid to get a sought-after GM scalp. One of them went one step better in round 3. 15-year old Luis Engel from Hamburg beat Hungarian Grandmaster Gabor Papp, who thus became Luis’ first +2600 victim. Vincent Keymer is another young talent who is off to a promising start as the 13-year old drew against Ukrainian super GM Anton Korobov. The top seed, Etienne Bacrot from France, also dropped half a point, as did Alexei Shirov from Latvia. The clash between two favourites for the women’s prize, Anna Zatonskih (USA) and Melanie Lubbe, ended in a long and fighting draw.


Gabor Papp resigns against Luis Engel | Photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni

The GRENKE Chess Open is not only the biggest open tournament in Europe, but it is also a very tough event as after the opening day four double-round days await the participants. That explains why in the third round we already saw a few quick, energy-saving draws. On the first ten boards three games ended peacefully, but they were all fighting draws. With the black pieces Etienne Bacrot couldn’t get more than half a point against Israeli FM Jonathan Bakalchuk and Alexei Shirov was also held by Polish FM Mikolaj Tomczak. From a German perspective, the home crowd will have been very happy with Vincent Keymer’s draw against Anton Korobov.

Very good start for Vincent Keymer | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

After three rounds there are 32 players left on a perfect score and out of these only two are non-titled. One of them is Luis Engel, who beat Gabor Papp, and the other is Anthony Petkidis, who got the better of Leonid Milov. The highest seeds among the leading group are Richard Rapport (Hungary), Dmitry Andreikin (Russia) and Loek van Wely (Netherlands).

Loek van Wely | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

In an interesting match-up two of the top contenders for the women’s prize were paired against each other and the exciting game between Anna Zatonskih (USA) and Melanie Lubbe ended in a fighting draw. They are joined on 2.5/3 by Iva Videnova (Bulgaria) and Alexandra Obolentseva (Russia), all of whom have had a good start to the event. Josefine Heinemann also continues to impress, as after her draw against IM Lawrence Trent she also held IM Tobias Hirneise.

Anna Zatonskih vs. Melanie Lubbe | Photo: Georgios Souleidis

Round 4 will kick off on Saturday at 9am. The pairings at the top look as follows:

1 42 Lobron, Eric 2 Rapport, Richard   -  
2 44 Korpa, Bence 4 Andreikin, Dmitry   -  
3 45 Noe, Christopher 6 Van Wely, Loek   -  
4 9 Fridman, Daniel 49 Kevlishvili, Robby   -  
5 54 Pavlovic, Milos 10 Gordievsky, Dmitry   -  
6 11 Banusz, Tamas 57 Nasuta, Grzegorz   -  
7 72 Carow, Johannes 12 Kozul, Zdenko   -  
8 15 Bindrich, Falko 80 Xu, Xianliang   -  
9 17 Bernadskiy, Vitaliy 83 Skawinski, Arkadiusz   -  
10 74 Carlstedt, Jonathan 18 Buhmann, Rainer   -  

The top board clash between Eric Lobron and Richard Rapport promises to be an intriguing one as Lobron is a former member of the German national team who is making a comeback after being away from the chess world for a number of years.

Results after round 3
Standings after round 3
All pairings of round 4

Text: Georgios Souleidis
Translation: Fiona Steil-Antoni