5th Open International Bavarian Masters
27/10-4/11/2001

The 5th Open International Bavarian Championship was played with 512 chess-players. This was the maximum number of possible participants and the limit was already reached four weeks before the tournament started. The 5th Open International Bavarian Championship is over and Bad Wiessee has a new champion: Vladimir Akopian

Final Standings (Top 20)

All final Standings (zipped in Excel file 57 Kb) | The games | Official Site

Top 3 players (Left to Right: Shabalov, Akopian, Baklan)

Thomas Leckner reports:

Vladimir Akopian new Champion of Bad Wiessee

The 5th Open International Bavarian Championship was played with 512 chess-players. This was the maximum number of possible participants and the limit was already reached four weeks before the tournament started. The organizers were very sorry, that some players could not take part, because their inscription was too late. Both amateurs and professionals took part and played together in one single section. For the first time the event was sponsored by Kreissparkasse Miesbach-Tegernsee. With 512 participants the OIBM is the greatest open chess tournament in Germany and one of the most important in Europe.

It was beautiful autumn weather and it were sunny days at the lake Tegernsee, when in the tournament-hall (Wandelhalle) the chess-players were struggling hard. Both champions of 2000 (Alexander Graf, GER, ELO: 2610) and 1999 (Alexander Shabalov, USA, ELO: 2585) took part in the event. Besides there were 85 international FIDE-title-holders in the tournament; 32 grandmasters and two female grandmasters participated. So the tournament in Bad Wiessee in 2001 was stronger, than ever before.

The highest rated player in the tournament was Vladimir Akopian (ELO: 2660) from Armenia. Akopian was in the finals of the world championship 1999. After the expected wins in the first rounds, he made a draw against the high talented Andrei Volokitin (ELO: 2566, 15 years) from Ukraine. For this reason Michal Krasenkow (POL, ELO: 2592) and Eric Lobron (GER, ELO: 2524) took the leadership in round 5. After their draw in round 6 there was no-one left with 100%. Due to a lot of draws, noone could even guess, who would become champion. Eric Lobron, who started in a glorious way lost against Vladimir Baklan (UKR, ELO:2590) und Alexander Graf (ELO: 2610). Even worse was the experience for grandmaster Mikhail Ulibin (ELO: 2580) from Russia. He lost against Edin Pezerovic (BIH, ELO: 2415) and also against Klaus Klundt (GER, ELO: 2368), two international masters of the chess-club of Tegernsee. After round 8 there was a leading group with grandmasters Akopian, Baklan, Krasenkow and Shabalov. Even after round nine the four of them had the equal points, but in the end Akopian had the highest Buchholz. So Akopian won the 5th OIBM in Bad Wiessee with 7½ points. The second place was divided between Baklan and Shabalov. Krasenkow reached place four.

Also the fight for the prize of best female was very interesting. During the whole event, the young Indian chess-player Ramashwamy Aarthie (ELO: 2301) looked like becoming the champion. But in round 9 she lost against Holger Grund (GER, ELO: 2466) and Nino Gurieli (GEO, ELO: 2343) succeeded in winning the special prize. Gurieli also was winning this prize for several times in the last five years. The prize for the best senior was given to the Croatian Ivo Vukovic (ELO: 2260). Actually Klaus Klundt should have get this prize, but he preferred the prize in category ELO<2400.

The best participating youth-player was Andrei Volokitin. He had such a great performance, that he succeeded in getting his fourth GM-norm. So Volokitin will become grandmaster in the next FIDE-congress. The prize for the best U20 was given to Henning Schneider (GER, ELO: 2230). Volokitin reached place 5 in the final rankings and of course he preferred this prize instead of the youth-trophy.
Winner of rating-prizes were Bryan Smith ( ELO<2400), Reinhard Jänig ( ELO<2200), Werner Frank ( ELO<2000), Marco Baldauf ( ELO<1800) and Desiderius Meier ( ELO<1600).

During the closing-ceremony on November 4 the district major Norbert Kerkel was presenting the trophies. And his special thanks was for Horst and Thomas Leckner and their professional and enthusiastic organisation before and during the tournament. Also Mr. Egidio Parigi of Bank Hofmann participated in the closing-ceremony. Bank Hofmann was only co-sponsor in this year after four years of beeing main-sponsor. Mainsponsor in 2001 was Kreissparkasse Miesbach, which also provided the great prize-funds of DM 42.000,-.

Horst Leckner, substitute member of the executive board of Kreissparkasse Miesbach-Tegernsee and tournament director had thankful words for all sponsors and especially for the city of Bad Wiessee, which always supported this event in a generous way. Also he thanked all the "invisible" helping persons, which are necessary for such a great tournament. But Mr. Leckner's very special thank you was for the extraordinary fair participants of the OIBM. Although there were 512 participants (and 2.300 games!!), there was not a single protest during the event.