Smirin wins Acropolis 2007

Ilia Smirin has won the open tournament Acropolis 2007, held 14-22 August in Athens. After his draw against Malakhatko in the last round all the other results turned out positively for the Israeli grandmaster, who finished on 7 out of 9. On a half point ended K. Georiev, Parligras, Mastrovasilis, Malakhatko, Banikas and Svetushkin.

Smirin laid the basis for his victory by two nice wins in round 5 and 6. This got him on 5½ out of 6, and despite a finish of three draws he never lost his sole lead.

Final standings:

 1 GM Smirin, Ilia              2649 ISR 7
 2 GM Georgiev, Kiril           2663 BUL 6½
 3 GM Parligras, Mircea         2542 ROM 6½
 4 GM Mastrovasilis, Dimitrios  2541 GRE 6½
 5 GM Malakhatko, Vadim         2596 BEL 6½
 6 GM Banikas Hristos,          2567 GRE 6½
 7 GM Svetushkin, Dmitry        2618 MDA 6½
 8 GM Rozentalis, Eduardas      2551 LTU 6
 9 GM Halkias Stelios,          2580 GRE 6
10 GM Gelashvili, Tamaz         2604 GEO 6
11 IM Esen, Baris               2441 TUR 6
12 GM Macieja Bartlomiej,       2596 POL 6
13 GM Kotronias, Vasilios       2602 GRE 6
14 GM Romanishin, Oleg M        2546 UKR 6

Full final standings here.

Ilia Smirin

Vadim Malakhatko

Oleg Romanishin

Tamaz Gelashvili

Stelios Halkias

Vasilios Kotronias

Alexander Graf

More photos here.