When the first edition of the Porticcio Open was announced in the early months of 2014, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Not only am I half Corsican (well, French technically, but I like to think those are two very distinct things), but we also happen to have aa holiday home in the very city of Purtichju, as it’s called in the local language. I went ahead and participated in the tournament, while last year I helped the Corsican Chess League President Léo Battesti produce daily video reports. This year I attended purely as a tourist (and a second for my 1591-rated dad), giving me the opportunity to follow the action while soaking up some sun in preparation for my return to rainy Hamburg.

Porticcio seen from the air (I hope you appreciate my Paint skills) | photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni

Before I talk about the actual tournament, though, let me give you a brief overview of what an incredible journey the Corsican Chess League has been on since its beginnings less than 20 years ago. When the league was founded in 1998, it had a mere 250 members, while today there are 7,568 – for a population of only 320,000! This incredible explosion took place thanks to the passionate work of Léo Battesti and his team, who over the years implemented Chess in Schools and put Corsica on the world chess map thanks to all the extraordinary tournaments and events that have been organised on the island. In the last 15 years, no less than 45,000 children have been introduced to the game through the Chess in Schools programme. Corsica also hosts what is probably the biggest school tournament in the world, when every June up to 1,700 children meet over the board in Bastia.

Memories from when I helped arbitrate the school tournament in 2010 | photo: Fiona Steil-Antoni

The Porticcio Open also attracted big numbers of youthful participants and I was particularly happy to see more and more young girls playing. 

But let’s come back to the tournament – a 9-round Swiss Open with a €15,000 prize fund, held from 25 June to 1 July. For the third consecutive year, the event was held in the beautiful seaside resort of Marina Viva. With direct access to the beach, a swimming pool, tennis courts, ping pong tables, and a beautiful terrace area (where players would gather to analyse their games, play cards or participate in the (in)famous ‘jeu apéro’), the tournament location offers everything anyone could possibly ask for.

MVL and yours truly trying our hands at ping pong | photos: Amruta Mokal

The bar, restaurant and simul areas at Marina Viva | photos: Fiona Steil-Antoni

The top three seeds were Etienne Bacrot, Alexander Areshchenko (the defending champion) and Viktor Laznicka – all three had played in 2015 and their return most likely testified to the fact that they had enjoyed their stay in Corsica last year. It was a very strong event, with 15 GMs (10 of them rated above 2600) and 7 IMs making their way to Porticcio. In total, the tournament attracted 106 players from 16 countries. In parallel to the main event, a children’s tournament was also organised, which drew 40 additional players.

The children’s tournament podium: Emilien Piantoni, Apollo Deladerriere and Jean-Thomas Geronimi | photo: Corse-Echecs

In the main tournament, Nils Grandelius took the sole lead when he scored 2/2 on the second double round day (against Gawain Jones and Romain Edouard), but his run was subsequently ended in Round 7 by defending champion Alexander Areshchenko. Daniel Naroditsky and Deep Sengupta also won their Round 7 games to join the Ukrainian on 6/7. In Round 8, the top four board encounters ended in draws, which meant a status quo in the standings going into the last and decisive round. Once again, the first three boards ended in draws, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying, as all the games were extremely hard-fought. This is probably a good time to mention one of the peculiarities of the tournament: what most of you will know as Sofia rules actually originated in Corsica and draw offers are prohibited in every tournament held on the island (and have been for well over 10 years), no matter the time control.

The main tournament podium: Sengupta (3rd), Areshchenko (1st) and Naroditsky (2nd) | photo: Corse-Echecs

This string of results gave Zhigalko, Jones and Edouard the opportunity to catch up with the leaders thanks to their wins against Lalith, Libiszewski and Kuzubov respectively. This meant six players shared first place with 7/9, but at the end of the day Areshchenko had the best tiebreak and thus managed the impressive feat of defending his title.

You can replay the top games using the selector below (hover over a player's name to see their games and performance and click a game to replay it with computer analysis):

The final standings were as follows:

The Porticcio Open also doubles as the Corsican Championship, and here it was a first title for Pierluigi Piscopo, ahead of defending Champion Francois Brethes and the island’s most promising young player, 13-year old Albert Tomasi.

The podium of the Corsican Championship: Brethes, Tomasi and Piscopo | photo: Corse-Echecs

Porticcio Open winners: Alexander Areschchenko and Apollo Deladerriere | photos: Fiona Steil-Antoni

However, the chess action didn’t stop there. After a day off, activities resumed at a much faster time control at the blitz tournament in Ciamanacce on Sunday 3 July, with one additional player joining the field – none other than world number four Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. MVL was also kind enough to play two simuls, one in Porticcio on the Thursday, and one in Ciamannacce on the Saturday (more about this in the interview below).

Some impressions from the MVL simul in Porticcio | photos: Raymond Steil

This event is probably unique in the world: Ciamannacce is a small village of 116 inhabitants (there were 111 participants!), hosting one of the world’s strongest blitz tournament, played outdoors, with an incredible prize fund of €10,000!

Memories from Ciamannacce 2015 | photos: Fiona Steil-Antoni

And it doesn’t stop there. On the Saturday all the players were invited to a cultural evening, with local specialities and music. This dinner as well as all the refreshments and food during the tournament were offered to all participants, courtesy of the municipality and its partners. This is a good moment to thank the mayor Felicia Francisci and her entire team for organising this amazing tournament year after year.

While some were enjoying the party, others were watching the football | photos: Corse-Echecs

Just like last year, I swapped my tourist hat for that of participant for the blitz, but I'd rather not go into too much detail about my play…  Two players who didn’t need to be ashamed of their results, though, were Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Daniel Naroditsky, who shared first place with 8/9.

Two major clashes: Naroditsky-MVL and Battesti-Steil Antoni | photos: Antoine François Nonna

In the end the Frenchman narrowly edged the title on tiebreaks, but it was nevertheless another impressive showing from the American GM, who had flown over from San Francisco just to take part in these two events. Areshchenko also carried his Porticcio form forward as he took third place with 7/9, ahead of Libiszewski, Edouard, Bacrot and Zhigalko.

The main prize winners | photo: Corse-Echecs

The final crosstable

Before leaving to Corsica, I'd recorded a GCT review and summer preview, where I invited everyone to leave questions for players participating in the Porticcio Open. 

I recorded the answers to these questions before the blitz tournament started, but after Daniel’s result that day I decided to also get his impressions of both tournaments:

There were also a couple of questions for the ever-popular Nils Grandelius:

And finally, here are the impressions of Ciamannacce Champion Maxime Vachier-Lagrave:

It seemed like all the players agreed about the tournament conditions and atmosphere, with Sébastien Mazé even dubbing Porticcio and Ciamannacce ‘definitely the two most beautiful tournaments of the summer’.

I can only echo Maxime, Gawain and everyone else’s sentiments. Thank you very much to Léo, Marie Paule (the president of Ajaccio Chess Club) and everyone else involved in making both Porticcio and Ciamannacce such convivial and successful events!

To conclude this report, let’s come back to the well-known Corsican tournaments I mentioned in my introduction. The oldest and most famous of them all is arguably the Corsican Circuit, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. The tournament will be held in Bastia from 22-30 October and has an impressive prize fund of €52,000. On top of that, four invited players have already been announced: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vishy Anand, Teimour Radjabov and Hou Yifan! I will most likely be participating myself and I can only recommend the event to everyone reading this.

About the author

Fiona Steil-Antoni

Fiona is currently part of the chess24 team. She started playing chess at age nine, earned the WIM title in 2010 and won a gold medal on board two at the 2006 Olympiad. She has worked as a press officer, commentator or interviewer at the Reykjavik Open, the PokerStars Isle of Man International Tournament, the 2015 European Team Chess Championship, the London Chess Classic and the Qatar Masters Open.