FIDE World Senior Chess Champions 2019 have been announced yesterday in Bucharest, Romania. The event was played in 2 age categories: 50+ and 65+, Open and Women section, with participation of 366 players.
In Open 65+ section, after 11 played rounds, Vaganian Rafael (ARM, 2541), Vaisser Anatoli (FRA, 2497) and Balashov Yuri S (RUS, 2457) tied for the top, with 8.5 points, each. According to tiebreaks, Vaganian Rafael took gold, Vaisser Anatoli was silver and Balashov Yuri came third.
In the same age category, Women 65+ section, Nona Gaprindashvili (GEO, 2275) took the title of FIDE World 65+ Senior Chess Champion for the 4th time. With score of 8.5 points, Gaprindashvili Nona was alone on the top of the list. Fatalibekova Elena (RUS, 2152) and Kozlovskaya Valentina (RUS, 2130) tied for the second place, each with 8 points, but according to tiebreaks criteria, Fatalibekova came second and Kozlovskaya took bronze.
In Open section 50+, Shishkin Vadim (UKR, 2428), ranked 17th on the starting rank list, surprised and won the Championship with 9 match points, without a lost game! Nevednichy Vladislav (ROU, 2518) and Morovic Fernandez Ivan (CHI, 2505) were in a tie for the second place, but thanks to better tiebreaks, Nevednichy Vladislav ended second, and Morovic Fernandez Ivan finished on the third place.
After 11 played rounds in Women 50+ section, Berend Elvira (LUX, 2349) scored 8.5 points to become World Women 50+ Senior Champion 2019. Bogumil Tatiana (RUS, 2150) was running-up, with 7.5 points, and took silver medal, while Strutinskaia Galina (RUS, 2196) took bronze thanks to better tiebreaks than: Grabuzova Tatiana (RUS, 2289) and Makropoulou Marina (GRE, 2174), who had the same score of 7 points.
The Closing ceremony of the event with a total prize fund of 46.000 EUR, took place yesterday evening.
Photos by: Mark Livshitz , https://www.facebook.com/ChessFIDE/