IM Vladimir Romanenko first in Manhattan

At the Manhattan Open in New York IM Vladimir Romanenko and GM Alex Shabalov finished tied at the top of the Open Section. Scoring his third GM norm, Romanenko was declared winner on tie-break after both players finished with an unbeaten 7/9. Despite a US $70,000 guaranteed prize fund, few European players participated.

The playing hall during the first round of the Manhattan Open | Photo © Heleen Schut The Manhattan Open took place August 17-21 at the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan, New York. There were different rating sections and day schedules, but the big event was the 'Open', a 9-round Swiss played over five days.

'Big money chess returns to the Big Apple!' This is how the organizers advertised their event, referring to the strong New York Open tournaments from the 80s and early 90s. However, for some reason this attracted a relatively low number of strong European players.

German GM Jan Gustafsson entered, and was the top seed. Besides, there were the Georgians Giorgi Kacheishvili, Tamaz Gelashvili and Mikheil Kekelidze, and Azerbaijani Eltaj Safarli. American GM Maurice Ashley played his first major tournament since the 2003 U.S. Championship.

No doubt the participants list would have looked more impressive if there hadn't been a strong open in Los Angeles at the same time. We'll have a separate report about that tournament.

Heleen Schut, whose husband Han and daughter Lisa played in the open, told us the following about the start of the tournament:

"It started with a speech by the tournament director. She said that instead of the USCF rules, the FIDE rules were in effect, which meant that you couldn't touch your rook first when castling. A lot of players didn't like this.

Because everyone had to bring his own board, pieces and clock, there was a lot of hassle to get all the clocks set right. [The time control in the Open was, for the first time, 40 moves in 90 minutes plus 30 minutes to finish the game with 30 seconds increment from move 1, because FIDE norms are no longer possible using a 5-second delay - CV.]

Suddenly the tournament had started. A typical, American tournament. In the last decade, nothing has changed."

IM Vladimir Romanenko and GM Alex Shabalov eventually finished in a tie for first place, both staying undefeated and scoring 7/9. As the official website writes, Romanenko led the tournament from start to finish and was only caught by Shabalov after he drew his final game with GM Giorgi Kacheishvili and Shabalov beat GM Alex Lenderman.

Romanenko was declared winner having a better tie-break. The strong Belorussian IM also secured his third GM norm, and will be declared grandmaster at the next FIDE Congress as his rating went over 2500 back in 2009.

Selection of games

Game viewer by ChessTempo


Manhattan Open 2011 | Round 9 (Final) Standings (top 30)

#	Name	Rtng	St	Tot	TB[M]	Prize
1	IM Vladimir Romanenko	2454	BLR	7.0	43.5	$5390.00
2	GM Alexander Shabalov	2577	PA	7.0	40	$5250.00
3	GM Jan Gustafsson	2634	GER	6.5	42	$1016.67
4	GM Giorgi Kacheishvili	2582	GEO	6.5	38	$1016.67
5	GM Tamaz Gelashvili	2616	GEO	6.5	37	$1016.67
6	IM Zhe Quan	2412	CAN	6.5	35.5	$2100.00
7	Parker B Zhao	2382	NY	6.0	40.5	$380.00
8	GM Sergey Kudrin	2547	CT	6.0	39.5	$380.00
9	IM Michael A Mulyar	2410	CO	6.0	39.5	$380.00
10	GM Alexander Stripunsky	2568	NJ	6.0	37.5	$380.00
11	GM Aleksandr Lenderman	2525	NY	6.0	37	$380.00
12	GM Gildardo J Garcia	2368	COL	6.0	31.5	$380.00
13	GM Eltaj Safarli	2622	AZE	6.0	23.5	$380.00
14	IM Irina Krush	2486	NY	5.5	41	$70.00
15	IM Jake Kleiman	2375	TN	5.5	37.5	$70.00
16	GM Joel Benjamin	2553	NJ	5.5	33	$70.00
17	FM Louie Jiang	2348	QU	5.5	31	$70.00
18	IM Greg Shahade	2446	PA	5.0	41.5	41.5
19	IM John Bartholomew	2442	MN	5.0	39.5	39.5
20	GM Mikheil Kekelidze	2452	GEO	5.0	38	38
21	FM Sean M Nagle	2379	MN	5.0	37	37
22	FM Kassa Korley	2326	NY	5.0	37	37
23	GM Maurice A Ashley	2465	NY	5.0	36	36
24	IM Jay Bonin	2323	NY	5.0	35.5	35.5
25	WIM Iryna Zenyuk	2222	PA	5.0	34	34
26	GM Nick E De Firmian	2522		5.0	28	28
27	Matan Prilleltensky	2090	NY	5.0	26.5	26.5
28	IM Yury Lapshun	2444	NY	4.5	27.5	27.5
29	FM Aleksandr Ostrovskiy	2294	NY	4.5	25	25
30	FM Alec Getz	2313	NY	4.5	24.5	24.5

Photos © Heleen Schut

Links

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