CITTA’ SANT’ANGELO (Italy): Untitled young players in evidence

The Abruzzo International Chess Festival was held in Città Sant'Angelo, in the province of Pescara, at the Miramare hotel.

The host city, overlooking the southern central coast of the Adriatic Sea, has a thousand-year history; its first known inhabitants came here from the Middle East in the mists of time and occupied the territory that extends from the highest mountains of the Apennines to the sea; they took the name of “Vestini” because worshiped the goddess Vesta that the ancients believed to be the protector of water that has always been the most important wealth of this territory.

The medieval town of Città Sant’Angelo, between the sea and the highest mountains in the Apennines

Currently the main activities of its inhabitants are the trade and the tourism that have developed because Città Sant'Angelo is located both on the ways that connect Italy from North to South and both from the Adriatic coast to the tyrrhenian one.

The organizing committee was composed by the local committee of the Italian Chess Federation and the dilettantistics sport associations “L'Archimede” and “D'Annunzio Chess” based in Cappelle Sul Tavo and in Pescara; the leader of the organizers, Spada Angelo, in the year 2012 was awarded by the Italian National Olympic Committee (C.O.N.I.) with the “Bronze Medal for Sport Activity”; the other main ones were Maione Massimo, Cerquitella Luca (the best Italian instructor in the Italian central regions in 2017, according to Italian Chess Federation) and Scurti Gino.

The festival was divided into 5 tournaments: Master, Subsidiary, Beginners, Blitz FIDE and Rapid FIDE; a total of 133 players, from 18 nationalities and 3 continents, participated; between them 9 I.G.M. and 12 players owning an international title.

A moment of Master tournament in the Abruzzo International Chess Festival

In the main tournament, the Master, 42 players were on the list and the first on the scoreboard was the Ukrainian I.G.M. Yury Solodovnichenko who, at the end of July, had overtaken the I.G.M. Axel Delorme (from France, 2nd) in the ranking issued by the FIDE.

The biggest surprise of the event occurred in the Master; in fact the young Italian national master Francesco Bettalli (14 years !!) scored the maximum score of the tournament together with the I.G.M. Ventzislav Inkiov (Bulgaria) and the favorite I.G.M. Yuri Solodovnichenko.

In the bucholz tie-break the young italian talent was preceded by the Bulgarian representative but was classified in front of the Ukrainian G.M.I. who, just some days earlier, had won an another tournament held in Italy, with the presence of four I.G.M.

With his fantastic performance Francesco, already former Italian Champion in the U14 section, has earned his first norm of International Master.

Not only Bettalli, but others young guys have played without awe in front of more experienced owners of international titles.

Among these an excellent result has been obtained from the Norwegian Chess Federation promise Isak Sjoberg; his initial Elo FIDE was the 31st out of 42 but, at the end, he ranked within the first 10, with the same points of three IGM and even he has preceded two of them in the final standing.

Surely we will hear again about these guys in tournaments in the coming years.

In the final standing I.G.M. Bela Badea (Romania) has reported the 4th place, follow: 5th, I.G.M. Bogdan Lalic (Croatia), 6th I.G.M. Sergey Kasparov (Belarus), 7th I.G.M. Axel Delorme (France), 8th I.M. Andjelko Dragojlovic (Serbia), 9th I.G.M. David S. Markosian (Armenia), 10th Isak Sjoberg (Norway), 11th I.G.M. Stefan Djuric (Serbia), 12th I.M. Milan Mrdja (Croatia), 13th F.M. Marco Corvi (Italy); etc.

The second tournament: the subsidiary, has seen the victory of Giulio Simeone (of Rome) that has realized 7 points on 8; in the beginners tournament the Sicilian player: Enrico Bandieramonte has achieved the full score: 8 on 8! and has been, obviously, the solitary winner.

A moment of the “Begginers” tournament in the Abruzzo International Festival

All the tournament news have been published on the website: www.festivalscacchiabruzzo.it

The next edition of the tournament has already been set to start on 4th August and finish on 10th August 2019.