Alexandr Fier wins VI Montevideo Open “Marcel Duchamp Cup 2023”

February 17, 2023
2:19 pm

CHESS NEWS

Tags: #Tournaments, #Uruguay

By Julieta Lopez

At the beginning of February, the capital of Uruguay hosted the VI Montevideo Open “Copa Marcel Duchamp 2023”. The event with a total prize fund of $6,000, brought together 134 players from 12 countries.

The event, organized by the IM-IO Bernardo Roselli Mailhe and IA Sabrina de San Vicente as a Chief Arbiter, who was also in charge of the first 32 electronic boards broadcast, would not have been possible without the great contribution of the Argentines Tomas Darcyl and Ricardo Costianovsky who sponsored it, as well as the support of FIDE through its FIDE Open Aid Project program.

Red Room of “Intendencia de Montevideo”

The magnificent Red and Gold rooms of the “Intendencia de Montevideo” (Montevideo’s Municipality) saw many great players such as GMs Alexandr Fier and Everaldo Matsuura from Brazil, Neuris Delgado from Paraguay, Carlos Garcia Palermo from Italy, Aleksa Strikovic from Serbia and the local Alejandro Hoffman battle it out. Other prominent chess players such as IM Pablo Ismael Acosta, winner of the tournament’s fourth edition, and WGM Claudia Amura (pictured below), a legendary figure in Argentine chess who returned to the competition on this occasion, added to that list. A total of 33 titled players took part in the event.

GM Carlos Garcia Palermo came to the final 9th round as the only leader with 7/8 and faced IM Pablo Acosta (6/8) with the black pieces on the first board. Meanwhile, on board 2, GM Alexandr Fier (pictured below), who trailed the leader by a half-point, took on Aleksa Strikovic. The fate of the title was decided on these two boards. After White triumphed in both encounters, the current Brazilian champion, Alexandr Fier, came out on top and finished the event undefeated on 7.5/9.

As many as four players tied for second place on 7/9, with Carlos Garcia Palermo taking second prize thanks to superior Buchholz; Pablo Ismael Acosta came third, followed by two local players, FM Manuel Larrea and IM Claudio Coppola, who managed to win in the last round.

There were no major surprises in the Women’s category since the favourites WFM Candela Francisco (pictured below)and WGM Claudia Amura finished first and second, respectively, both with 6/9. Young Uruguayan player Nahiara Fabra and a multiple times Olympic representative from Uruguay, WCM Natalia Silva Rosa, took third and fourth places, both scoring 4.5/9.

IM Leon Piasetski from Canada (pictured below) won the Senior Category (+65), netting 6 points. Norbert Krueger of Germany finished second, a half-point behind the winner. A local representative, Jaime Escofet, came in third with 5 points.

Alongside the tournament between Monday the 6th and Friday the 10th, several exciting events open for all were held: on Monday the 6th, Master Class with GM Carlos Garcia Palermo; on Tuesday the 7th, a talk on Psychological Training at Chess by FM Psych Mateo Arcos Facio, Wednesday 8th Workshop of Arbiters by IA Sabrina de San Vicente, on Thursday 9th GM Aleksa Strikovic gave a presentation on Chess and Mathematics Problems, and on Friday 10th WGM Claudia Amura and IM Bernardo Roselli taught about women’s chess, youth chess and motivation. All of them were a great success.