Loek Wan Wely is leading ACC before the last round. The rating favorite GM Loek Van Wely has thus far lived up to the expectations and leads the tournament with 7 points. He is followed by GM Manuel Leon Hoyos on the same score, but lower tie-breaks. Young Hoyos is only 21 years old and must be regarded as tournament surprise. He has lost only one game and won the rest.

Trailing the leaders by 1/2 point are GMs Sandipan, B. Socko and Kobalia. The winner of the tournament is among these five.

Talking about Loek; he has really played an international chess tournament and met players from nine different countries, playing on the first board 7 of the 9 rounds.

Norm chances

of Norway has achieved his IM title since he in this tournament has passed 2400 as well as making his fifth(!) norm.
, Finland needs a draw for an IM norm.
from the Netherlands has achieved his third norm, and can even get his first GM norm with a win!
, Ireland needs a draw against Frode Elsness to achieve a GM norm.
, Norge becomes IM if he wins against Dr. Holger Riedel.

Bartosz Socko, Chanda Sandipan, Loek van Wely, Manuel Leon Hoyos, Mikhail Kobalia, norms Hide

A few statistics as of today:

The starting list contains 29 title holders, of which only 2 are Norwegian!
8 of the title holders are women, led by last year’s winner, Monika Socko.

IM Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen in 20th spot, (Elo 2412) is so far the highest ranked Norwegian.

The top ten average is a solid 2613!

ACC definitively is an international tournament already, since just 23 of the contestants are from Norway. 21 other countries are represented, making up more than 60% of the list so far.

Only 8 of the entries lack international Elo, and the average rating is 2268.

Players coming in pairs

As of now 7 chess couples are listed, with all 14 having international titles. Last year’s winner Monika Socko and her husband Bartosz have the highest average Elo, 2551. Below are all chess couples :

GM	Bartosz Socko	Poland	2637	2551	1
GM	Monika Socko	Poland	2465
GM	Yuri Drozdovskij	Ukraine	2627	2509	2
WGM	Natalia Zdebskaja	Ukraine	2390
GM	Zoltán Gyimesi	Hungary	2586	2465	3
IM	Nóra Medvegy	Hungary	2344
GM	Mateusz Bartel	Poland	2614	2440	4
WGM	Marta Przezdziecka	Poland	2265
GM	Malakhatko Vadim	Belarus	2549	2435	5
WGM	Zozulia Anna	Belarus	2321
GM	Loek van Wely	The Netherlands	2639	2396	6
WIM	Lorena Zepeda	EL Salvador	2152
IM	Gediminas Sarakauskas	Lithuania	2430	2327	7
WIM	Zivile Sarakauskiene	Lithuania	2224

Bartosz Socko, Monika Socko, Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen Hide