Potkin Wins In Aix-les-Bains

Submitted by SonofPearl on Chess.com

Long-time leader Vladimir Potkin of Russia took the European Individual Chess Championship title on tie-breaks after taking a quick draw with Judit Polgar in the final round.

That turned out to be enough for Potkin to take first place thanks to a superior tie-break score (the first tie-break score was the TPR - tournament performance rating).

With the top top 23 finishers qualifying for the Chess World Cup later this year, nerves were shredded among the players in the last round as some took safe draws and other pushed for wins, depending on how safe they thought they were.

According to The Week In Chess, reports from the scene suggest that there was great confusion as to who had qualified. The organisers' calculation of the TPR involved ignoring the highest and lowest individual game rating performances for everyone and their scores in those games.

Another quirk was that since three players among the top 23 have already qualified for the World Cup by other means (Svidler, Potkin and Mamedov), it appears that the final places 24-26th have also qualified.

Notable casualties included the young talents Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana.

The final top standings (qualifiers in red):

	Name	Nat	Elo	Pts	TPR
1	Potkin Vladimir	RUS	2653	8.5	2849
2	Wojtaszek Radoslaw	POL	2711	8.5	2826
3	Polgar Judit	HUN	2686	8.5	2799
4	Moiseenko Alexander	UKR	2673	8.5	2755
5	Vallejo Pons Francisco	ESP	2707	8.0	2819
6	Ragger Markus	AUT	2614	8.0	2783
7	Feller Sebastien	FRA	2657	8.0	2766
8	Svidler Peter	RUS	2730	8.0	2751
9	Mamedov Rauf	AZE	2667	8.0	2751
10	Vitiugov Nikita	RUS	2720	8.0	2741
11	Zhigalko Sergei	BLR	2680	8.0	2732
12	Jakovenko Dmitry	RUS	2718	8.0	2719
13	Korobov Anton	UKR	2647	8.0	2697
14	Inarkiev Ernesto	RUS	2674	8.0	2695
15	Postny Evgeny	ISR	2585	8.0	2633
16	Azarov Sergei	BLR	2615	7.5	2776
17	Khairullin Ildar	RUS	2634	7.5	2771
18	Kobalia Mikhail	RUS	2672	7.5	2754
19	Guliyev Namig	AZE	2522	7.5	2739
20	Zherebukh Yaroslav	UKR	2560	7.5	2739
21	Riazantsev Alexander	RUS	2679	7.5	2728
22	Iordachescu Viorel	MDA	2626	7.5	2725
23	Lupulescu Constantin	ROU	2626	7.5	2722
24	Mcshane Luke J	ENG	2683	7.5	2718
25	Fridman Daniel	GER	2661	7.5	2717
26	Motylev Alexander	RUS	2677	7.5	2716
27	Ivanisevic Ivan	SRB	2617	7.5	2712
28	Jobava Baadur	GEO	2707	7.5	2711
29	Parligras Mircea-Emilian	ROU	2598	7.5	2709
30	Romanov Evgeny	RUS	2624	7.5	2709
31	Esen Baris	TUR	2528	7.5	2707
32	Nielsen Peter Heine	DEN	2670	7.5	2703
33	Cheparinov Ivan	BUL	2664	7.5	2698
34	Gustafsson Jan	GER	2647	7.5	2687
35	Kulaots Kaido	EST	2601	7.5	2669
36	Smirin Ilia	ISR	2658	7.5	2668
37	Saric Ivan	CRO	2626	7.5	2651
38	Pashikian Arman	ARM	2642	7.5	2649
39	Edouard Romain	FRA	2600	7.5	2634
40	Bologan Viktor	MDA	2671	7.5	2629
41	Beliavsky Alexander G	SLO	2619	7.5	2627
42	Rublevsky Sergei	RUS	2678	7.5	2627
43	Volkov Sergey	RUS	2621	7.5	2625
44	Sjugirov Sanan	RUS	2643	7.5	2594