If everything went according to plan he already travelled to Nanjing, China to play another tournament on another continent starting today, but only two days ago Vassily Ivanchuk scored 8/10 in a rapid event in Benidorm, Spain to finish clear first ahead of Alexei Shirov.

The 7th, quite impressive Festival Internacional de Ajedrez took place 1-8 december in the beach resort of Benidorm, Spain. (Interestingly, the weaker the players, the bigger the prizes they got: the open for FIDE <2000 had a first prize of 4500 Euros, the 2000-2300 group winner earned 3000 Euros and first in the "Open Master" >2300 yielded only 1500 Euros.)

The top group, called Grand Torneo de las Estrellas (grand tournament of the stars), was a bit of a strange mixture: Vassily Ivanchuk and Alexei Shirov together with Sergei Tiviakov, Kateryna Lahno, Xavi Vila and Sabrina Vega.

Who? Well, Vila and Vega are obviously two talented young, Spanish players and for them it was just great to participate in such a strong double round-robin. Which was rapid play, by the way. Oh, and Vila managed to beat Shirov, we shouldn't forget to mention that!

Ivanchuk won the event convincingly, and his 8/10 could have been even better if he hadn't spoilt his ending with a pawn up against Shirov (which he eventually even lost).

Spaniards love chess, but unfortunately they're still not the biggest talents as far as web coverage is concerned. At the tournament website, the menu on the left goes completely crazy in Firefox and Safari and, more importantly, many of the games played in the Grand Torneo de las Estrellas don't seem to have been saved for eternity.

Luckily the following gem by tournament winner Vassily Ivanchuk was available:

The six players in Grand Hotel Bali, Benidorm, Spain

Ivanchuk, the convincing winner, trying to forget about drug tests and related subjects

Alexei Shirov, who recently expressed his support to Ivanchuk in an open letter

European Champion Sergei Tiviakov didn't play the Olympiad for The Netherlands but still a very active player

Kateryna Lahno, part of the Olympic silver winning team, the Ukraine

Xavier Vila Gazquez, a talented Spanish IM from the same generation as Magnus Carlsen

21-year-old Sabrina Vega Gutierrez, Spain's 3rd female player

Links:

• Tournament website
• Some games in PGN