Cheparinov wins 2nd consecutive Ruy Lopez title
He did it last year, and he did it again: Ivan Cheparinov won the Ruy Lopez tournament in Villafranca de los Barros, Spain. The Bulgarian scored a superb 6/7 (2902 performance) and finished 1.5 points ahead of Caruana and Malakhov.
The 4th Ruy Lopez Chess Festival this year moved from Zafra, the birth place of Ruy Lopez, to Villafranca de los Barros. It took place June 11-19 at the Historic and Etnografic Museum. Traditionally, the Spanish organizers invited an interesting mix of players: Ivan Cheparinov (Bulgaria), Fabiano Caruana (Italy), Vladimir Malakhov (Russia), Gabriel Sargissian (Armenia), Ivan Salgado Lopez (Spain), Manuel Perez Candelario (Spain, Pia Cramling (Sweden) and Deysi Cori Tello (Peru).
Cheparinov scored an undefeated 6 out of 7 and finished one and a half point ahead of Caruana and Malakhov. The Bulgarian thus secured an invitation to the 5th edition of the tournament, which will be held in Zafra again next year.
The tournament website compared the 23-year-old to Bobby Fischer for 'always looking for victory, in every game of the tournament'. But the fighting spirit was not limited to Cheparinov: out of a total of 28 games, only 8 ended in a draw. Below you can replay all games.
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Founder and editor-in-chief of ChessVibes.com, Peter is responsible for most of the chess news and tournament reports. Often visiting top events, he also provides photos and videos for the site. He's a 1.e4 player himself, likes Thai food and the Stones.
Comments
Zeblakov
1 year 7 months ago
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Not bad result from Cheparinov, who is considered more creative (i.e. opening ideas) than Kasparov, Kramnik and Carlsen put together according to some experts.
unknown
1 year 7 months ago
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Congrats. Great performance.
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