The second weekend of games from the Metropolitan FIDE Invitational are complete. The tournament was organized by Metropolitan Chess inside the California Market Center in downtown Los Angeles, and was sponsored by www.chess.com, LawyerFy, Fashion Business, Inc, Betty Bottom, Hippie Chips, Jason's Wine and Spirits, and Chess Lecture. The tournament was directed by Michael Belcher.

Final standings can be found below:

Despite the huge early lead of IM Zhanibek Amanov going into the last day, he was not able to take clear first. IM Enrico Sevillano through careful and consistent play was able to edge Amanov out with a final score of 7.5 out of 9.0 and a final respectable performance of 2604. The norm contenders needed 6.0 out of 9.0 to secure a norm, and going into the last day two players, Roman Yankovsky and Joel Banawa had norm chances, but both were eliminated in round 8 from chances when they were both dealt losses.

All the players expressed a fighting spirit and sportsmanship that is to be praised for a closed norm tournament with no game ending in a quick draw.

The IMs seemed to steal the show in the last few days of the tournament, and a picture of the three IMs representing the tournament are shown:

Left to Right. IM Enrico Sevillano, IM Zhanibek Amanov, IM Timothy Taylor. Photo Credit: Chris Roberts.

Below are a few games that chronicle Sevillano's come from behind to first. The first game is Taylor - Sevillano, where Taylor had a chance to win with the critical variation and sidelines briefly shown, and the second game is Amanov - Sevillano where Sevillano was able to leap into first place.

Also included below is a short puzzle/problem from the game Banawa - Taylor.

The games were viewable on chess.com throughout the tournament through the live chess function, and the last round of the tournament was broadcast on www.chess.com/tv with GM Melikset Khachiyan. For those of you that missed it, you can watch the playback via the on demand function.

All the games in PGN will be submitted to TWIC and eventually available from the TWIC website. Also, the games will be available on the Southern California Chess Federation home page, www.scchess.com.

In short unrelated news, Metropolitan Chess plans to sponsor a bonus at the American Open Scholastics for the category winners, occuring next week in Los Angeles, attempting to bridge the gap between scholastic players and masters by providing a free 3-2-1 hourly lesson package with FM Joel Banawa, the Southern California Co-State Champion. Full details of the American Open Scholastics and the American Open can be found at www.americanopen.org.

Metropolitan Chess plans to run these IM norm invitations every two months, and games plan to be relayed on www.chess.com in those tournaments. Look for us in the coming months!