Bastia 2

Gawain Jones

In the second round, all the 2600+ players won except for Pavel Tregubov who drew. The biggest surprise was Vitalii Pesotskyi's victory over experienced GM Nenad Sulava. Gawain Jones was the first of the favourites to win with an ambitious piece sacrifice, which worked a treat as his opponent was unable to solve the resulting practical problems.

Here are the results from the second round:

Table	Points	White	Rating	Result	Black	Rating	Points
1	[1]	FRESSINET Laurent	2696	1 - 0	GIROYAN Gary	2318	[1]
2	[1]	SAADA Julien	2313	0 - 1	SASIKIRAN Krishnan	2689	[1]
3	[1]	MAMEDOV Rauf	2660	1 - 0	MAMEDJAROVA Zeinab	2314	[1]
4	[1]	JONES Gawain C B	2624	1 - 0	COLEMAN Teddy	2312	[1]
5	[1]	MASSONI Michael	2304	0 - 1	MELKUMYAN Hrant	2619	[1]
6	[1]	GRIGORYAN Avetik	2614	1 - 0	WEISBUCH Udi	2304	[1]
7	[1]	INANTS Aghasi	2288	X - X	TREGUBOV Pavel V.	2602	[1]
8	[1]	GHAEM MAGHAMI Ehsan	2583	1 - 0	BERTHELOT Yannick	2286	[1]
9	[1]	PESOTSKYI Vitalii	2268	1 - 0	SULAVA Nenad	2540	[1]
10	[1]	DURARBEYLI Vasif	2526	1 - 0	MAMEDJAROVA Turkan	2277	[1]
11	[1]	RIBREAU Herve	2233	0 - 1	ARNOLD Marc T	2505	[1]
12	[1]	BARON Tal	2505	1 - 0	HUMEAU Cyril	2261	[1]
13	[1]	DUPORT Nicolas	2220	0 - 1	FLEAR Glenn C	2471	[1]
14	[1]	BATTAGLINI Gabriel	2452	1 - 0	IVANOV Stojan Emilov	2221	[1]
15	[1]	DAURELLE Herve	2209	X - X	DEMUTH Adrien	2440	[1]
16	[1]	DIMITROV Radoslav	2424	1 - 0	GIUA Frederic	2193	[1]
17	[1]	EGOZI Nadav	2173	0 - 1	BEDOUIN Xavier	2406	[1]
18	[1]	DEBRAY Christopher	2402	1 - 0	GIDEL Jean-Louis	2150	[1]

Official site: http://www.opencorsica.com/

But also check out the French Federation site:

http://www.echecs.asso.fr/

Live games: http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Toma.aspx?Tournoi=Corsican%20Circuit

Gawain Jones from England is the fifth seed in this year's tournament. In 2010 he lost out in the Blitz play-off, to the eventual winner Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, in the quarter-finals.

On the second day of the event, throughout the day dozens of young players from all over the island were playing their own tournament at the theatre. There were excellent prizes (computers, a home cinema, ipads, game consoles and so on), plus the top twenty will get the chance to play in a simultaneous display against Pavel Tregubov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov on Thursday.

The junior tournament

Overall, the main organizer, Léo Battesti, and his team have managed to get 120 diverse corporate sponsors on board. This must be something of a record!

Here he is below (that's him on the left!) along with my favourite chess-inspired advertisement from the event.

Tiffany is seeking her knight (in shining armour).

Léo Battesti, the main mover on the island