Lesiège Live!
The CYCC and CanadianOpen/Quebec Open aren't the only exciting chess action in Montreal this month...
Four Quebec GMs came out Thursday night to compete at Cafe Kuchini in the regular "Tournois de Miguel" event: GM Anton Kovalyov, GM Bator Sambuev, GM Thomas Roussel-Roozmon, and the very special guest: GM Alexandre Lesiège, playing his first blitz event in.... a decade if not forever.
In the photo you can see GMs Roussel-Roozmon and Sambuev (both center) watching the last-round game between GMs Kovalyov and Lesiège. This game -- the last of the evening -- ended in a draw, one of only two Anton conceded on his way to scoring a Fischer-like 21/22!
Playing at a time control (3m+2s) which didn't even exist when he last played serioulsy, Lesiège -- incredibly -- showed very little signs of rust: against a 12-player RR with an average rating of over 2400 (!), his only weak round was when he dropped one game late in the evening against the tournament's lowest rated player: David Gunapalan.
Top 5 Scores:
- GM Anton Kovalyov 21/22
- GM Bator Sambuev 18.5/22
- GM Alexandre Lesiège and GM Thomas Roussel-Roozmon 15/22
- Andre Gulko 14/22
- Nikita Kraiouchkine 13.5/22
Lesiège told me he has no plans to return to competitive chess, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be happy to see him play in any format or contribute in any forum.... even (perhaps) annotating games in a national newsletter... ;-)
Thanks to Les Tournois de Miguel for making it happen, and thanks to Bator for letting me know it was happening.
(photo: John Upper)