This year's Corsican chess festival will have an all-French final with Etienne Bacrot and Laurent Fressinet. The two grandmasters defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Nigel Short respectively in the semi-finals on Monday.

The semi-finals in Bastia | Photo courtesy of the tournament organizers

The 16th Corsica Circuit chess festival is taking place October 27-31 in Bastia and Ajaccio. It started last Saturday in the north-Corsican city of Bastia, with simuls by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Loek van Wely and Artur Jussupow. Later that day the first seven rounds of the open event were played and on Sunday morning rounds 8 and 9. The rate of play was 15 minutes + 3 seconds increment per move, and draw offers are not allowed.

Corsica Circuit 2012 | Open | Final standings (top 30)

The top 8 qualified for the knockout phase: former World Championship Candidates Artur Jussupow and Nigel Short together with Gabriel Battaglini, Ante Brkic, Stefan Djuric, Andrei Shchekachev, Michael Massoni and Grigory Seletsky. The pre-seeded players for the knockout were Andrei Istratescu, Tigran Gharamian, Etienne Bacrot, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Laurent Fressinet, Loek van Wely, Alexander Fier and Alojzije Jankovic.

On Sunday night the 1/8 finals were played, which saw the following results: Short-Seletsky 2-0, Gharamian-Shchekavev 2-0, Bacrot-Philippe 2-0, Brkic-Fier 2-0, Fressinet-Battaglini 3-1, Van Wely-Djuric 1.5-0.5 and Vachier-Lagrave-Massoni 1.5-0.5.

On Monday both the 1/4 finals and the1/2 finals were played:

1/4 finals

Short-Brkic 2-0, Vachier-Lagrave-Jussupow 2-0, Bacrot-Gharamian 2.5-1.5, Fressinet-Van Wely 1.5-0.5

1/2 finals

Bacrot-Vachier-Lagrave 1.5-0.5, Fressinet-Short 1.5-0.5

Here are all the games from the knockout phase so far:

PGN file

The grande finale between Bacrot and Fressinet takes place on Wednesday the 31st in Ajaccio.