Comments on French championship players

Here are my small comments on each player of the 2010 edition:

1. Laurent Fressinet 8
A big year for this 29y-old player. Among French top 3 for years he earned his first French champion title and crossed the 2700 Elo threshold for the first time. Currently 2717 and among world top 30, this nice guy is currently at his top.

2. Romain Edouard 8
Last year was great for Romain, from 2562 to 2620, being 19y-old. It's more difficult this year, but with this fantastic 2nd place he is back. He won 21 Elo points in this tournament. He has a very strong will to win and works with a very good coach.

3. Etienne Bacrot 7
It's not necessary to introduce him! 6 times French champion, youngest GM in the world at his time (he was 14). He failed to win the title this year but he is not very far from his best Elo ever reached and has strengthened his play with more agressive lines.

4. Christian Bauer 6
A very interesting player, always fighting and playing entertaining chess. I must say I have 100% against this player (but ok it's only on 1 game and a simultaneous one :-)).

5-6. Vladislav Tkachiev 5,5
The 2009 champion was totally out of form in this tournament. He was not lucky too. He will be in the French Olympiad team. He can obviously play very good games.

5-6. Iossid Dorfman 5,5
A very wellknown and experienced trainer (Kasparov, Bacrot, among others) but nowadays a disappointing player. As he already did, this year his made 11 draws in 11 games, some of them very quickly. It's a pity because when he wants to attack he can play fantastic chess.

7. Emmanuel Bricard 5
I like this player. He is always playing very strange openings, home-prepared, very interesting. He is very strong in closed positions and is able to outplay strong grandmasters. He played a very good tournament this year because he was last seed!

8. Andrei Sokolov 4,5
Former n°3 in the world, world championship challenger in the 80', very experienced trainer and very solid player (he can probably draw with white against almost every player in the world). He had a disappointing tournament this year.

9. Hicham Hamdouchi 4,5
Former African champion and first to cross 2600, he lives in France for years and played his first French tournament last year. He had a very good start this year but had a very difficult tournament then, being sometimes unlucky (Edouard, Fressinet).

10. Aliaksei Charnushevich 4
A very solid player, playing for Besançon for years. Fressinet and Bacrot had a hard time to finally beat him with white.

11. Jean-Mard Degraeve 4
An experienced and agressive player. He played some fantastic attacking games. Sometimes he goes too far with his openings, but it's very interesting for spectators. This year he was totally out of form too.

12. Matthieu Cornette 4
One of the French hopes, though he is 25 now. He was a very tactical player (and can still play amazing combinations) but decided to play more solid openings now (a little like me, ha ha). I played 2 times against him, scoring +1 -1. In this tournament his play was quite good but he was unlucky in several endgames.