A number of high-profile tournaments took place around Christmastime both domestically and internationally. Between the holidays and coverage of FIDE's rapid and blitz world championships, it's time to catch up on some of the biggest names and news items from the previous month.
Chessable Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival
The holiday season kicked off with the 10-round Chessable Sunway Sitges International Chess Tournament, featuring 329 players in the “A” group, in addition to a number of side events and tournaments. Taking place from December 12 through 22 in Sitges, Spain, Indian GM Abhimanyu Puranik claimed outright first with an impressive 8½/10 score.
American GM Brandon Jacobson finished second on tiebreaks with an 8/10 score ahead of GM Aravind Chithambaram (IND), GM Volodar Murzin (RUS), and IM Ernesto Fernandez Guillen (CUB), thanks to his last round over an Indian IM:
A series of blitz tiebreak matches decided the placement, with Jacobson winning both games from promising positions, although one was more eventful than the other:
American IM Bryce Tiglon was in the group of players tied for sixth with 7½/10, earning a 2630 performance rating and boosting his official FIDE over 2500 (to 2506) to start the new year. This should be good for his third and final GM norm. Tiglon played seven consecutive grandmasters to end the tournament, going undefeated with five draws and two wins, including this convincing attacking gem:
The biggest story of the first half of the event, though, was the last-minute entry of GM Leinier Dominguez, entering as the top-seed in order to make a push ahead of GM Wesley So in the live ratings with a candidates spot on the line. Dominguez eventually withdrew after five rounds with a 4/5 score, as draws would continue to dent his rating. Indeed, he was lucky to escape with a draw in round five:
Full results available here.
17th Annual SPICE Cup
The 17th Annual SPICE (Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence) Cup featured nine rounds of fighting chess from December 17 through 22 in St. Louis. With six GMs and 11 IMs among the 38 participants, the event was competitive from the first round. At the end, IM Andy Woodward emerged in sole first with a 7/9 score (earning $5,000) thanks to grinding down GM Christopher Woojin Yoo in the final round:
GMs Aram Hakobyan and Yasser Quesada Perez tied for second along with IM Safal Bora on 6½/9, each splitting second-through-fourth place and earning $2,166.67 apiece. GM Ilya Nzyhnyk and IM Justin Wang tied for fifth with 6/9 scores, earning $500 each. IM Anna Sargsyan won the $1,000 prize for top woman with her 5½/9 score. IM (it's official) Alice Lee and WGM Annamaria Marjanovic earned $350 each with 4½/9 scores.
Full results are available here.
33rd Annual North American Open
The 33rd Annual North American Open, in Las Vegas, was held December 26 through 30 and featured a $130,000 prize fund across all sections.
In the open section, GM Grigory Oparin claimed clear first (and $10,300) with a 7½/9 score. Oparin began the event with six straight wins before cooling off with three consecutive draws. His final win, over GM Richard Bitoon, was enough to keep him out of reach in the home stretch:
The three Under-2400 prizes were split five ways. GMs Richard Bitoon and Denes Boros were joined by FMs Sean Vibbert, Dhanush Bharadwahj, and Jacob Furfine with 6/9 prize to earn $1,200 apiece. Corrales had secured his share of second with a nice endgame finesse over GM John Michael Burke in round eight:
Balakrishnan and Chatterjee each had to earn their share of second with wins in the final round:
Excitingly, Furfine also earned an IM norm along the way, outplaying a grandmaster in his must-win last-round game:
Results in all sections are available here.
1000GM Winter GM and IM Norm Scheveningen Invitationals
The 1000GM Chess Charity of course joined in on the holiday spirit, offering a GM and an IM invitational tournament from December 26 through 30 in Sunnyvale, CA. Both events were held as modified Schveningen tournaments, allowing the norm-seekers to play more established players rather than compete against each other as in a traditional Round Robin.
Shelev Oberoi, with a rating just over 2200 FIDE, earned an IM norm with a 5½/9 score in the GM section. Thanks to tough pairings, a 5/9 score was sufficient for an IM norm, but with a final-round pairing against IM Yiping Lou looming large, Oberoi played for a win in the penultimate round to lock in his norm:
Oberoi did manage to draw Lou in the final round, meaning that Lou finished with “only” eight points out of a possible nine. Full results are available here.
In the IM section, Rose Atwell earned a WIM norm with her 5/9 score, exhibiting fine fighting chess along the way:
Results from the IM section are available here.
A second batch of IM and GM norm events are currently halfway completed in Sunnyvale, featuring several of the same competitors. At 3½/5, Atwell is already within a half-point of another WIM norm in the IM norm section. In the GM norm section, FM Isaac Wang is on pace for an IM norm, needing only a point-and-a-half out of his final four games.
15th Rouen Open
The most-covered post-Christmas event is usually the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz championships. But this year, French GM Alireza Firouzja withdrew to play the 15th Rouen Open closer to home. Like Dominguez, Firouzja was making a late push in the ratings race to overtake So for the final Candidates spot.
Unlike Dominguez, Firouzja first played in a series of matches, ultimately falling short before the matches were retroactively removed from FIDE’s page.
This left Firouzja playing a local open tournament in Rouen, facing several opponents rated under 2000 before eventually playing GM Li Min Peng in round five and American ex-pat GM Gata Kamsky in the sixth round. His win over the rock-solid Kamsky was particularly impressive:
The pair of victories were enough for Firouzja to overtake So in the live ratings list, and with a win over veteran IM Kamran Shirazi in round seven, it was settled: Firouzja is in the 2024 Candidates over So.
Editor's note: Do you want your tournament covered on Chess Life Online? For norm invitationals, competitive opens, or anything else that you think deserves coverage, email JJ Lang.
Editor's note: A previous version of this article mistakenly referred to Woodward as a GM, not an IM. This has been corrected.
Categories
Archives
- October 2024 (11)
- September 2024 (23)
- August 2024 (27)
- July 2024 (44)
- June 2024 (27)
- May 2024 (32)
- April 2024 (51)
- March 2024 (34)
- February 2024 (25)
- January 2024 (26)
- December 2023 (29)
- November 2023 (26)
- October 2023 (37)
- September 2023 (27)
- August 2023 (37)
- July 2023 (47)
- June 2023 (33)
- May 2023 (37)
- April 2023 (45)
- March 2023 (37)
- February 2023 (28)
- January 2023 (31)
- December 2022 (23)
- November 2022 (32)
- October 2022 (31)
- September 2022 (19)
- August 2022 (39)
- July 2022 (32)
- June 2022 (35)
- May 2022 (21)
- April 2022 (31)
- March 2022 (33)
- February 2022 (21)
- January 2022 (27)
- December 2021 (36)
- November 2021 (34)
- October 2021 (25)
- September 2021 (25)
- August 2021 (41)
- July 2021 (36)
- June 2021 (29)
- May 2021 (29)
- April 2021 (31)
- March 2021 (33)
- February 2021 (28)
- January 2021 (29)
- December 2020 (38)
- November 2020 (40)
- October 2020 (41)
- September 2020 (35)
- August 2020 (38)
- July 2020 (36)
- June 2020 (46)
- May 2020 (42)
- April 2020 (37)
- March 2020 (60)
- February 2020 (38)
- January 2020 (45)
- December 2019 (35)
- November 2019 (35)
- October 2019 (42)
- September 2019 (45)
- August 2019 (56)
- July 2019 (44)
- June 2019 (35)
- May 2019 (40)
- April 2019 (48)
- March 2019 (61)
- February 2019 (39)
- January 2019 (30)
- December 2018 (29)
- November 2018 (51)
- October 2018 (45)
- September 2018 (29)
- August 2018 (49)
- July 2018 (35)
- June 2018 (31)
- May 2018 (39)
- April 2018 (31)
- March 2018 (26)
- February 2018 (33)
- January 2018 (30)
- December 2017 (26)
- November 2017 (24)
- October 2017 (30)
- September 2017 (30)
- August 2017 (32)
- July 2017 (27)
- June 2017 (32)
- May 2017 (26)
- April 2017 (37)
- March 2017 (28)
- February 2017 (30)
- January 2017 (27)
- December 2016 (29)
- November 2016 (24)
- October 2016 (32)
- September 2016 (31)
- August 2016 (27)
- July 2016 (24)
- June 2016 (26)
- May 2016 (19)
- April 2016 (30)
- March 2016 (37)
- February 2016 (27)
- January 2016 (33)
- December 2015 (25)
- November 2015 (23)
- October 2015 (16)
- September 2015 (28)
- August 2015 (28)
- July 2015 (6)
- June 2015 (1)
- May 2015 (2)
- April 2015 (1)
- February 2015 (3)
- January 2015 (1)
- December 2014 (1)
- July 2010 (1)
- October 1991 (1)
- August 1989 (1)
- January 1988 (1)
- December 1983 (1)