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The 15th Rouen Open took place Tue 26th to Fri 29th Dec 2023. It's an event I've never covered in TWIC before. Alireza Firouzja played in this 7 round Swiss in a final, final attempt to qualify for the Candidates. Rouen is different to Chartres and will in my view be rated, this is a regular scheduled Swiss, Firouzja withdrew from the World Rapid and Blitz knew going in he would have to score 7/7. In round 6 he defeated his main obstacle, Gata Kamsky. He then beat fellow Iranian expat IM Kamran Shirazi in the final round. Shirazi has lived in France for many years and is a frequent competitor in the Paris Championship. Now Firouzja has won this event with 7/7 and gained enough points to overtake Wesley So on the rating list. This event has already been rated on the FIDE website. The controversial Chartres matches do not seem to have been rated, they don't appear but a final fourth match not involving Firouzja has been rated. My suspicion is that this will be the last time straight rating will be a route to the Candidates but in the end Firouzja did it over the board in a regular tournament and that's surely fine.

Just in 31st Dec. Firouzja rated for the Sinquefield Cup and Rouen only and beats Wesley So by a couple of rating points to the final Candidates place. The whole three matches in Chartres thing proved a massive waste of everyone's time.

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