Yaroslav Zherebukh Saturday won the strong open in Cappelle-La-Grande. The Ukrainian grandmaster, just 16 year old, was the only player to finish on 7.5/9. Veteran GM Mihhail Gurevich was doing well, but lost the crucial round 8 game to Zherebukh.

Yaroslav Zherebukh | Photo Jean Michel Delfosse

The 26th edition of the Cappelle-La-Grande chess festival was held 13-20 February. The main event was a big 9-round Swiss.

The rate of play of 90 minutes plus 30 seconds per move for the first 40 moves and then 30 minutes plus 30 seconds per move to the end of the game. Draws by mutual agreement in under 20 moves were not allowed.

The tournament was organized by the “L’Echiquier Cappellois” chess club and took place at the Palais des Arts in Cappelle-la-Grande, just south of Dunkerque, France.

Yet another relatively unknown Ukrainian grandmaster won in Cappelle this year. 16-year-old Yaroslav Zherebukh scored 7.5 points and only lost to the winner of last year, Yuri Vovk. As Chess Today reports, both are in fact pupils of IM Vladimir Grabinsky.

Zherebukh finished ahead of many favourites, such as Yuri Drozdovskij (2625), Murtas Khazgaleyev (2643) and Ivan Sokolov (2649). The latter probably won't like to be reminded of the tournament, finishing 85th with 5.5/9 as the top seed. His performance rating was just at GM level: 2507. In Wijk aan Zee Sokolov told me that he'll be tournament director of the big Bosna chess festival this year, so, well, he has more important things to do! ;-)

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