Read more: Monaco, Scotland and Germany break the news / Turkey reports problems / England on accommodation issues / Anish Giri critical of the situation

GM Alojzije Jankovic added Croatia to the list of countries with issues. In a statement for Chessdom, Alojzije Jankovic says, “We were unpleasantly surprised when we got the info from the Olympiad organizers that due to single rooms upgrading we will be forced to separate some of our team members to another hotel, not so close to the one we have got.” However, GM Jankovic adds another level to this problem, “The hotel price which was offered for those additional single rooms, sounded really strange, compared to usual prizes of those hotels around the year. And what’s even more strange, a usual Full board was not included, so the offer for each meal was 50€(!).“

GM Jankovic, who was a brilliant commentator in the live studio of the recently concluded EIYCC , noted, “It’s not a big deal to check with previous Olympiad organizers how many countries have those additional rooms requests, it’s not something new. I’m only mentioning countries with players and captains, but how about trainers, journalists etc. There is no point in dividing the teams… It’s quite clear that someone was quite unsuccessful in negotiating the Olympiad hotels. We can understand that Hungarian ministry might be inexperienced in organizing such a big chess event, however, what hurts me the most is that our highest chess association, FIDE, is obviously lacking some organizational know-how. Frankly speaking in this case, I really don’t know on which level, but hopefully that will be improved in future!“

GM Alojzije Jankovic (photo: Walter Kastner)

The 2014 Croatian Individual Chess Championship for men was held from 11th to 21st January 2015 in Opatija, a resort town in western Croatia, situated on the Adriatic Sea.

The event was a 12-player round-robin tournament with tempo of play 90′/40 + 30′ + 30″.

GM Alojzije Jankovic emerged a clear winner with 7/9 points and took the first prize in the amount of 2,800 €.

GM Ante Saric and GM Zdenko Kozul tied for the second after finishing with 6.5 points but Saric prevailed on a superior tie-break score and finished second.

You can see the full standings and replay the games with analysis below.

Final standings:

1 GM Jankovic Alojzije CRO 7
2 GM Saric Ante CRO 6,5
3 GM Kozul Zdenko CRO 6,5
4 GM Stevic Hrvoje CRO 6
5 GM Bosiocic Marin CRO 6
6 GM Palac Mladen CRO 6
7 GM Zelcic Robert CRO 5,5
8 GM Kuljasevic Davorin CRO 5
9 GM Jovanovic Zoran CRO 5
10 GM Brkic Ante CRO 4,5
11 GM Cvitan Ognjen CRO 4
12 GM Martinovic Sasa CRO 4