Christmas Opens

There are various ways to spend the days between Christmas and New Year's Eve – instead of or after present-giving and family gatherings. Winter sports is one option, others like Levon Aronian prefer holidays in the tropics. But those who would rather play chess can choose between plenty of Swiss Opens – this report provides a quick overview of three events.

The North American Open in Las Vegas attracted players with a quite substantial prize fund – at least for first and second place – and maybe the opportunity to win (or lose) a few dollars between the rounds also played a role? Spanish top seed Francisco 'Paco' Vallejo secured clear first prize which turned out to be 9261$. Key games were holding a difficult position with white against Ivan Sokolov and then dismantling Shabalov's Sicilian; a rather straightforward last-round draw against second seed Akobian was enough to keep his lead. Other GMs were probably less satisfied: Shabalov missed a bigger chunk of the prize fund because he couldn't beat 19-year old untitled Roman Yankofsky (USCF rating 2500, Elo 2397) in the final round. Macedonian GM Mitkov lost against fellow Europeans Vallejo and Sokolov in the last two rounds, and fell back to 11th place but still got 363$ (minus the 150$ entry fee).

PGN file

Final standings (top 20)

Two Swiss Swisses in Zurich and Geneva had similarities and differences. In both events, two players were half a point clear of the field before drawing each other in the last round, but the final outcome was different. In both cases, most favorites finished at or near the top, but only in Zurich it was a relatively smooth ride. The "Zürcher Weihnachtsopen" was nominally stronger, but the "Open International de Genève" turned out to be more exciting.

In Zurich, top seed Grachev and fifth seed Kurnosov shared first place. As already mentioned, they drew their game in the final round but all four games in the chasing group were also drawn – which meant that others could catch up and 14 players shared third place. Also in earlier rounds, many games on the top boards were drawn – impossible to find out how much fight was involved because there was no live transmission and the pgn file provided on the tournament homepage only includes decisive games!

Final standings (top 20)

In Geneva, Campora and Khenkin were leading before the last round and drew their game when an unbalanced Trompovsky suddenly ended with a move repetition. Here all games in the chasing group were decisive. This allowed three others – Guliyev, Ivanisevic and Fier – to share first place. Rather uniquely, Swiss IM Gerber finished in sole(!) sixth place with 5/7. The "bumpy ride" of the favorites had started as early as round 2 when four of the eventual winners couldn't beat opponents who were roughly 300 points lower-rated: Campora drew against Campora (that's right, Argentinian GM Daniel H. Campora met his Spanish namesake Daniel Campora Perez, Elo 2169), Khenkin against FM Colmenares, Ivanisevic against IM/WGM Sedina, and Fier lost against FM Preissman – not a rising star but a senior born in 1950. Unfortunately, not all of these games are available.

PGN file

Final standings (top 20)