Tournament winner Eduardas Rozentalis surrounded by Simen Agdestein in 2nd place (right) and Sergey Volkov in 3rd place

A GM NORM AT 13 - AND ROZENTALIS WINS OPEN NORWEGIAN CHAMPIONSHIP

GM Eduardas Rozentalis (2616) of Lithuania won the Open Norwegian Championship in Fagernes, but 13 year old Norwegian Aryan Tari (2297) was nevertheless name of the day when he secured his first Grandmaster norm. And it all happened on the same Sunday when Magnus Carlsen gained his most important win of the Candidates tournament in London, in the penultimate round against Radjabov.

Although young Aryan Tari clearly is a Norwegian chess hope for the future, his GM norm came surprisingly early. He is not even and FM yet. Among his countryman only Magnus Carlsen has earlier achieved GM norms at the age of 13. Tari faced 5 GM's and 3 IM's in Fagernes, defeating GM's Misa Pap of Serbia and Norway's second seed Jon Ludvig Hammer, while only losing to Maxim Turov of Russia.

Also the elder Norwegian top player Simen Agdestein (45) performed strongly in his sort of come-back tournament in Fagernes, and lost only the final battle against Eduardas Rozentalis, when a draw would have secured him a clear victory ahead of 10 GM colleagues. For next year's chess olympiad host Norway it is good news that Simen Agdestein is seriously running for the team again.

IM Timofey Galinsky of Ukraine gained the second GM norm of the tournament, through his last round victory over top seed GM Jon Ludvig Hammer, who didn't have his best tournament.

The Open Norwegian Championship consisted of three groups with a total of 130 participants, and was a main event of the third Norwegian Chess Festival in the beautiful holiday resort Fagernes.

Aryan Tari (13) completing his GM norm defending the endgame well against GM Nikolai Ninov of Bulgaria in the final round

Results of the Open Norwegian Championship 2013 in Fagernes:

1. GM Eduardas Rozentalis, Lithuania 7 points
2. GM Simen Agdestein, Norway 6 1/2
3. GM Sergey Volkov, Russia 6 1/2
4. IM Timofey Galinsky, Ukraine 6 1/2
5. GM Maxim Turov, Russia 6 1/2
6. IM Frode Elsness, Norway 6 1/2
7. Aryan Tari, Norway 6
8. GM Normunds Miezis, Latvia 6
9. GM Nikolai Ninov, Bulgaria 6
10. GM Aloyzas Kveinys, Lithuania and GM Leif E. Johannessen, Norway 6 points

Complete results of the A group of the Open Norwegian Championship 2013:
http://turneringsservice.sjakklubb.no/standings.aspx?TID=DetapneNM2013GruppeA-NorskSjakkforlag

The festival webpage: http://festival.sjakkweb.no
Here there is access to the various events of the festival, the results, photos and games.