Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Updated tournament schedule


I published a blog entry back in February about my tournament schedule for 2015. Since then reality has kicked in and I had to delete the following tournaments from my list:

Malahide Open
2-4 May


I did not realize that this was a 3-day tournament. I usually work on bank holidays, so I should take another day off for May what I can't do.

Galway Congress
2-4 October


There is that weird new system the organizers are going to implement. So far there is no news that they have changed their mind, so the Congress is out.

Drogheda Chess Congress
30 May - June 1


This one would be OK, but it is the only Irish tournament left on my list - meaning that I should pay the 35 Euro membership fee for only one tournament. It is not worth the money, so Drogheda is also out.

Teplice Open
13-21 June


and

Pardubice Open
24 July - 1 August


I could not find proper cheap flights for these, so each one would cost about 800 pounds for me and my wife. Too expensive. Teplice and Pardubice out.

After that, not much was left on my list. Only the local tournaments: Belfast City, the Ulster Championship, and the Ulster Masters...

So I obivously had to compensate the losses. After some search, I found this hidden little gem:

http://www.sunnybeach-chess.com/2014_participants.html

A Bulgarian open tournament, with an A group for players with 2300 rating and above. For 10 Euro extra I can play in the A group, where my opponent's rating average would be at least 2350. On the 2014 starting list, I would be only the 25th from 33 players. :O

Starting Rank List 2014

SNo. Name IRtg FED Birth age Fide-No.
1 IM Bernadskiy Vitaliy 2559 UKR 1994/10/17 19 14100371
2 GM Vajda Levente 2556 ROU 1981/00/00 33 1203975
3 GM Drenchev Petar 2527 BUL 1977/04/25 37 2903261
4 GM Nikolov Momchil 2506 BUL 1985/00/00 29 2905710
5 GM Petrov Marijan 2488 BUL 1975/09/14 38 2901773
6 GM Vasilev Milen 2486 BUL 1978/06/06 36 2903628
7 IM Swayams Mishra 2484 IND 1992/08/13 22 5028183
8 IM Zhou Yang-Fan 2464 ENG 1994/09/08 19 468584
9 IM Dimitrov Radoslav 2463 BUL 1993/03/27 21 2908549
10 GM Georgiev Krum 2443 BUL 1958/05/24 56 2900092
11 IM Kurayan Ruslan 2414 UKR 1993/08/28 21 14120615
12 IM Stets Dmitry 2414 UKR 1971/03/24 43 14104547
13 IM Cioara Andrei-Nestor 2396 ROU 1971/06/27 43 1203509
14 IM Enchev Ivajlo 2380 BUL 1989/09/05 25 2907712
15 IM Nikolov Sasho 2362 BUL 1958/09/01 56 2900297
16 IM Solovjov Sergey I. 2352 RUS 1974/12/13 39 4122780
17 Sidhant Mohapatra 2341 IND 1998/09/03 16 5028698
18 WGM Michna Marta F 2337 GER 1978/01/30 36 1106686
19 IM Dimitrov Pavel 2331 BUL 1991/12/02 22 2907470
20 FM Badev Kiril 2322 BUL 1973/03/04 41 2901986
21 Naboka Sergey 2302 UKR 1993/10/21 20 14123452
22 FM Popovic Aleksandar M 2300 SRB 1967/02/03 47 927422
23 FM Tonkov Boyan 2294 BUL 1971/03/04 43 2900491
24 FM Michna Christian 2278 GER 1972/00/00 42 4625293
25 Gorbanovsky Oleg 2227 MDA 1997/12/03 16 13903829
26 Stoinev Metodi 2226 BUL 1959/05/01 55 2901404
27 Yurtseven Melih 2208 TUR 1996/02/16 18 6312160
28 GM Spiridonov Nikola 2207 BUL 1938/00/00 76 2900238
29 WFM Folkova Martina F 2203 CZE 1973/01/01 41 304271
30 Monev Alexander 2144 BUL 1996/04/10 18 2910322
31 Kastner Oldrich 2043 CZE 1961/12/09 52 307971
32 Agranovskiy Semen 0 BUL 1946/10/06 67 0

This one will be my only strong tournament this year. I have already registered, booked the flight and the hotel, and looking forward to it. There is a nice beach close the hotel, the country is cheap (the hotel costs only 32 Euros/night with breakfast for two persons!), and we have never been to Bulgaria before. It looks like a promising chess vacation. And, who knows, with a little luck and a lot of hard work I manage to get my first IM norm... (Or, alternatively, with a lot of luck and a little hard work. :D )

I don't really mind the other tournaments after all. They would have cost a lot of money and all the travelling would have been very exhausting. A bit less playing and more studying will be better. Quality over quantity, as they say. This year I have learnt where and how to look for tournaments (once again, thanks for GM Gyula Pap for all his advice), so next year I will do the organizing much better.

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