Vallejo First on Tiebreak at Bangkok Open

He's not a professional chess player anymore, but he can still win tournaments: Francisco Vallejo Pons. The Spanish grandmaster edged out Pinoy GM Oliver Barbosa on tiebreak at the Bangkok Open after both had finished on 7.5/9. GMs Jan Gustafsson of Germany & Bartosz Socko of Poland and IM Lui Qingnan of China tied for third place with 7 points.

Photos courtesy of the Bangkok Chess Club

After a painful loss in the final round of the 2012 Masters Final against Sergey Karjakin, Vallejo announced his retirement from competitive chess. Since then he played some games in the German and Catalan team championships, but also the 2013 European Championship, where he qualified for the FIDE World Cup in Tromsø. There he defeated Diego Flores of Argentina, but was eliminated by Le Quang Liem of Vietnam.

The 31-year-old Spanish grandmaster is still a very strong player of course, and he showed it last week in Bangkok, Thailand. “Paco” won the tournament, a Swiss open, with 7.5 points out of 9 games, getting on the verge of a 2700 rating again. Oliver Barbosa of the Philippines ended on the same number of points, but had a worse tiebreak.

After a good start of 3.5/4, he won an important game against Turkish grandmaster Suat Atalik. Normally Black stays a pawn down in the Marshall, but here he didn't and so the position was dead equal after 23 moves. Vallejo decided to play on, set a nice trap and Atalik fell for it.

After a draw with Jan Gustafsson, the next round Vallejo won again:

In the final round Barbosa and Vallejo drew quickly and so both ended on 7.5 points. Vallejo won the tournament on tiebreak, but there was “compensation” for the Filipino, who had won the blitz tournament earlier! Gustafsson, IM Qingnan Liu and GM Bartosz Socko all finished on 7 points, putting them in 3rd to 5th place. For Qingnan this meant a GM norm.

Bangkok Open 2014 | Final Standings (Top 30)

(Full final standings here)