Surprise winner in Baden-Baden

He was not one of the absolute favorites to win the tournament, but in the end Erik Förster, who started 6th in the rankings, was the sole winner, ahead of the international master Igor Solomunovic, who scored 5.5 points. Almost even more surprising was the third place of Maxime Savignon Schmidt, who started the tournament with an Elo of 1889 and missed second place by just one Buchholz point. But when you see that Maxime is only 11 years old, it becomes clear which way the wind is blowing. France has been known for doing great work with young players, and not just since Maurizzi won the Junior World Championship. Fourth place went to Veaceslav Cofman, who had led the tournament for a while. The female Fide master Mariya Kovanova from Kazakhstan also had an outside chance. But she started the tournament with just one point from three games and was quickly out of the running for the beautiful trophies.
But there was not only an A-Open at the 2nd International Baden-Baden Open in the beautiful rooms of the LA8. There was also a fight for places and prize money in the B and C Open.
The women dominated the B-Open. Paula Stasaitis won the tournament alone with 5.5 points, ahead of Angelina Agalykova, who earned 5 points and beat two other players with the same score thanks to the better final score.
Noe Guilbert is the winner of the C-Open, he won by himself with 6 points.

A great tournament that the Noppes family put together together with the Baden-Baden Chess Center. It certainly won't be the last of its kind. Every chess lover who enjoys playing chess in beautiful places and locations should definitely take part in one of these tournaments!

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