Vitiugov takes it all

    The Gibraltar Tradewise Chess Festival ended yesterday. It was an exciting last round, followed by an even more exciting play-off.

1	9	GM	Vitiugov Nikita	2694	7½	½ - ½	7½	GM	Vachier-Lagrave Maxime	2711	5
2	6	GM	Navara David	2710	7	½ - ½	7½	GM	Short Nigel D	2690	10
3	30	GM	Zhao Xue	2554	7	½ - ½	7	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	2758	1
4	16	GM	Georgiev Kiril	2643	7	½ - ½	7	GM	Adams Michael	2725	3
5	8	GM	Le Quang Liem	2705	7	0 - 1	7	GM	Sandipan Chanda	2590	24

Here's the Vitiugov-Vachier-Lagrave draw:

The Regulations of the tournament said that if there was to be a tie for the 1st place, the players must play a blitz play-off (10m +5s each). So, Nigel Short, Sandipan Chanda, Vitiugov Nikita and Vachier-Lagrave Maxime ( all scoring 8p out of 10) played a mini-ko. Short won against Sandipan and Vitiugov against Vachier-Lagrave. Once more, Short had to play a play-off for the 1st place- like the lat year- when he beated Hou Yifan and took the 1st prize. The luck wasn't on his side this time and he lost against Vitiugov with a 1,5-0,5 score.

Nikita Vitiugov-The winner of Gibraltar

    Zhao Xue took the 1st women's prize, scoring an impressive 7,5p out of 10, making a draw against Ivanchuk in the last round.

    Congratulations to the winners and I hope I'll manage to play in Gibraltar next year too! ;)