Etienne Bacrot won the Corsica Masters on Wednesday in Ajaccio. In the final, the French grandmaster defeated his compatriot Laurent Fressinet 2-0. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Nigel Short were eliminated in the semi-finals on Monday.

Etienne Bacrot, the winner in Ajaccio

While most of the action took place in Bastia, the final of the 16th Corsica Circuit chess festival took place in Corsica's capital Ajaccio. Once the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte (or rather Nabulione Buonaparte), Ajaccio has a population of about 65,000 and is located on the west coast of the island of Corsica, 390 km southeast of Marseille.

Ajaccio's Palais des Congrès was the venue for the final between Etienne Bacrot and Laurent Fressinet. They had qualified by beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Nigel Short respectively on Monday in Bastia, where the lion's share of the festival took place. The tournament was the climax of this year's Grand Prix organized by the French Chess Federation, which we covered two times here at ChessVibes.

The final was a short affair. The rate of play was 15 minutes + 3 seconds increment per move, and because Bacrot won both games the whole thing must have lasted less than an hour. In the first game Fressinet never got enough compensation for the sacrificed pawns.

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The second game was equal all the time, until Fressinet blundered his knight:

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