We are delighted to announce the participation of Grandmaster Francisco Vallejo Pons in the 5th International Chess Tournament "Vardaris", which will take place in Thessaloniki from March 7th to March 11th.

It is a huge success of "Vardaris" organizers and not only. The participation of this top Spanish chess player in an open tournament in our country is a great success for the chess of the city of Thessaloniki, but also for the entire chess events in Greece. It is extremely rare to observe chess players of this level to be at the table next to you. So, we are expecting this great opportunity with great joy and impatience!

Whatever we say, words are few.

We thank Francisco very much for this honor.

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Few biographical data for Francisco Vallejo Pons.

(as written on August 21st at website www.skaki64.gr)

On this day in 1982, the great Grandmaster Francisco Vallejo Pons was born in Es Castell, Spain.

Vallejo Pons is 5 times Champion of Spain.

He won the title of Grandmaster at the age of 16 years and 9 months.

In 2000 he won the World Youth Championship under 18.

In 2013 he was ranked first in the European Individual Championship.

His highest ELO was 2724 in June 2011 that raised him up in the 18th place of the world.

To be continued!!!

"Vardaris", for yet another year, is hosted on the pages of the "New In Chess Magazine 2018/8" that has just been released. Besides the latest chess news, thousands of magazine’s readers worldwide will also meet "Vardaris".

So, try walking on "Vardaris" shoe, an idea of ​​Nikos Syrakis and Maria Orfanou, the trademark of this year's 5th International Tournament "Vardaris".

"New In Chess" was first released in 1984 and is being distributed today in 116 countries around the world. The world’s top chess players have written articles for this magazine.

64 days before the start of the tournament, exactly as many as the squares of the chessboard…

Chess Club SACH of Thessaloniki has the pleasure and honor to organize, for 5^th consecutive year, the International Chess Tournament “Vardaris”.

The unique playing venue of Holiday Inn Hotel in the center of the city in combination with our good mood and our will for an even better tournament are the basic ingredients that attract every year chess players from every corner of Greece, as well as all over the world.

Surprises will continue, as all participants of previous years had the chance to experience.

We are waiting all of you to our big feast!

Α’ Group

Final Standings

1^st     Dardha Daniel

2^nd    Petrov Martin

3^rd    Dardha Arben

4^th     Markidis Konstantinos

5^th     Stanojoski Zvonko

6^th     Trimitzios Petros

Women 

1^st     Avramidou Anastasia

2^nd    Arsovic Helena

3^rd    Yordanova Svetla

Special Categories

Veteran S50

1^st     Bogdanovski Vlatco

The 13-year-old Belgian, Daniel Dardha, was the winner of Group A at the 4th International Chess Tournament “Vardaris”. Remarkable, besides the young age of the chess player, was the fact that in the last round, he confronted and defeated his father and personal coach too, Arben Dardha!

“Vardaris”, for the first time this year, was consisted of 4 different groups of capacities. So, the winner of Group B was Yiannis Tsotras of the Evia’s Chess players’ Association, in Group C (U12) the winner was Stelios Sioulas of the Chess Club Evosmos-Kordelio and finally the winner of Group D (U8) was the Romanian Robert-Gabriel Sava.

254 chess players participated in total, from 12 different countries.