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18
year old IM Evegeny Postny from Haifa, Israel took the title in a tie
break ahead of GM Alon Greenfeld in the super strong Israel Open. In a
grand show the young Israeli came up with a fine home run ousting GMs
Sutovsky and Mikhalevsky en passant to the big title.
The Israel open Chess Championship was held from 9th April 2001 to 17th
April 2001 at Sol & Sissy Mark centre, Tagore St., Ramat Aviv,
Israel. Surprisingly, Tagore Street, derives its name from the great
Indian poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore who is a well
acknowledged personality there. This 9-round Swiss league attracted 128 players from 14 countries including 24 GM's, 17 IM's and more than 100 FIDE rated players. The GM's included names like GM Boris
Avrukh, E Sutovsky, Alex Huzman, Alon Greenfeld, Yehuda Gruenfeld, Lev
Psakhis, Igor Khenkin (Germany), Peter Acs and Zoltan Gyimesi
(Hungary), Eric Van den Doel, Denis de Vrugt (Holland) and WGM
Antoneta
Stefanova (Bulgaria) among others. Super GM Boris Avrukh was given the highest seeding but his winning cart was upset by young Israeli IM Zolar Dan in the second round. GM Erik
Van den Doel of Holland was the surprise leader in the third round and went on to maintain his lead till the seventh round when GM Zoltan Gyimesi of Hungary upset his winning spree in the eighth round. The championship was thrown wide open in this
round.
Ninth round saw a lone leader in GM Zoltan
Gyimesi (6.5/8) and Israeli GM Alex
Huzman, Alon Greenfeld, Zafrani Dov, V Mikhaleviski, Doetling Fabian
(Germany), Eric Vanden Doel (Holland), IM E Postny, Mark Tseitlin following him on 6/8. Most of the top board games were drawn on final day but the eventual winners IM
E Postny and GM Alon GreenFeld won their last round games to share the first place with
7/9. IM
E Postny was declared the winner on tiebreak and GM Greenfeld finished second.
The Prize fund for the Israel Open was 19000 US$ with the winners sharing 3500 US$ each.
The tournament was conducted by Israel Chess Federation at the beautiful Sol &
Sissy Mark centre (Official building of ICF) under the aegis of Mr Igor
Lotan (Managing Director, ICF) and the Chief Arbiter was IA Yochan Afek. No doubt Israel is a highly developed country but chess culture and game overall is highly developed with excellent facilities available for the players at this
Hi tech center. Israel already is a chess power to reckon with. It has more than 30 GM's and
equal number of IM's & plenty of strong rated players.
Final standings
| Rank |
Player |
Points |
| 1-2 |
E Postny |
7.0 |
| 1-2 |
A Greenfeld |
7.0 |
| 3-11 |
E Van den Doel |
6.5 |
| 3-11 |
Zoltan
Gyimesi |
6.5 |
| 3-11 |
D Zifroni |
6.5 |
| 3-11 |
B Avrukh |
6.5 |
| 3-11 |
F Doettling |
6.5 |
| 3-11 |
B Kantsler |
6.5 |
| 3-11 |
A Huzman |
6.5 |
| 3-11 |
Ma Tseitlin |
6.5 |
| 3-11 |
H Jonkman |
6.5 |
Related
link : http://www.slavchess.co.il/academy/isropch2.html
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