Cebuano Sanchez finishes in a tie for 11th to 18th places in Cannes

CEBUANO Grandmaster Joseph Sanchez (Elo 2518) finished tied for 11th to 18th place at the 26th Cannes Chess Festival,  which concluded yesterday at the Lerins Island in Cannes, France.

Sanchez, Cannes winner in 2009 and 2011, finished with 5.5 points in nine outings, the same output of GM Sebastian Feller (2658), FM Lucas Di Nicolantonio (2311) and Said Brih (2407) of France, GM Krikor Sevag Mekhitarian (2487) of Brazil, GM Nenad Sulava (2514) of Croatia, GM Michele Godena (2533) and IM Giulio Borgo (2403) of Italy.

GM Evgeny Romanov (2628) of Russia scored a crucial last round victory over GM Feller to finish in solo first with 7.0 points, half a point ahead of top seed GM Etienne Bacrot (2704), GM Tigran Gharamian (2676) and GM Fabien Libiszewski (2509) of France, GM Alexander Fier (2603) of Brazil and IM Axel Rombaldoni (2441) of Italy who tied for 2nd to 6th place.

Romanov took home 2,200 euros in the 10,000 euros tournament.

At 7th to 10th places were GM Yannick Pelletier (2589) of Switzerland, GM Valeriy Neverov (2541) of Ukraine, GM Ruben Felgaer (2753) of Argentina and IM Igor Blechzin (2442) of Russia with 6.0 points each.

GM Sanchez will next play in the Cappelle la Grande Open in Cappelle la Grande, France (March 3 to 10) and the La Roda Open in Albacete, Spain (Apr. 4 to 8). /Correspondent Marlon Bernardino