World Open “Chess Festival” Underway

The World Open “Chess Festival” got underway on Thursday June 27th with the first round of the Philadelphia International. Over the next two weeks, there will be over a dozen different tournaments under the World Open umbrella. All the events are being held at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. The Philadelphia International is the first event in the Festival series. It is a nine round norm event, drawing 50 titled players in the 90 player Premier section. There are also 50 players in the Under 2200 section.

The top seed in the event is GM Lazaro Bruzon Batista rated at 2657 FIDE. Right behind him are a slew of GMs including second seed Illia Nyzhnyk, fresh off his first place finish in the National Open. In the first round, the higher rated players were able to mostly carry the day. There were only two upsets: Michael Zheng defeated Carlos Mena and Max Li defeated IM Arthur Guo. The latter is perhaps not so much of a surprise, as the players’ US Chess ratings differ by less than 100 points. (FIDE ratings, which can be outdated with youth players, are used for pairings in the International.)

Max Li (photo Phil Ferguson)

[pgn]

[Event "Philadelphia International"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2019.06.27"]
[Round "1.41"]
[White "Li, Max"]
[Black "Guo, Arthur"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B90"]
[WhiteElo "1919"]
[BlackElo "2286"]
[PlyCount "101"]
[EventDate "2019.??.??"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 a6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Nf6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nb3 Be6 8. f3
h5 9. Nd5 Bxd5 10. exd5 Nbd7 11. Qd2 g6 12. Na5 Qc7 13. c4 Bg7 14. Be2 O-O 15.
Rc1 Kh7 16. b4 b6 17. Nc6 Ng8 18. O-O Bh6 19. Bxh6 Nxh6 20. f4 exf4 21. Rxf4
Rae8 22. Bd3 Ne5 23. b5 a5 24. Bb1 f5 25. h3 Nhf7 26. Qf2 Nd8 27. Rf1 Kh8 28.
Qd4 Rf7 29. g4 hxg4 30. hxg4 Rh7 31. Nxe5 dxe5 32. Qe3 Qg7 33. R4f2 f4 34. Qxb6
Rh6 35. g5 Rh5 36. Rg2 e4 37. Rxf4 e3 38. Qxg6 Qxg6 39. Bxg6 e2 40. Rxe2 Rxg5+
41. Rg2 Re1+ 42. Rf1 Rxg2+ 43. Kxg2 Rxf1 44. Kxf1 Nb7 45. Be8 Nc5 46. d6 Kg7
47. d7 Ne6 48. c5 Kf6 49. b6 Nd8 50. b7 Nxb7 51. c6 1-0

[/pgn]

The Philadelphia Open gets under way Friday evening. There are already over 200 players registered and the top seeds are GM Hovhannes Gabuzyan and Vladimir Belous. We will continue to provide updates and wrapups of the various events over the next two weeks!

Quick Links: Full “Festival” tournament schedule Live games broadcast for Philadelphia International:

Standings for Philadelphia International Standings for all tournaments