Shankland Wins Northern California Int'l
The 2012 Northern California International ran from 2-8 January at the NorCal House of Chess at Northwestern Polytechnic University.
The competition was a 9-round Swiss organised by Arun Sharma and Ted Castro, giving GM and IM title norm opportunities for the 60+ strong field, including some familiar names to Chess.com members!
The time control was 40 moves in 90 minutes, then 30 minutes to finish with a 30 second increment.
GM Sam Shankland (pictured) took clear first place with a score of 7 points and pocketed a prize of $3,000. His victory over ratings favourite Georg Meier in round seven was crucial.
The top standings:
| Name | Elo | Tot | |
| 1 | GM Sam Shankland | 2565 | 7.0 |
| 2 | GM Alejandro Ramirez | 2594 | 6.5 |
| 3 | GM Josh Friedel | 2523 | 6.5 |
| 4 | IM Marc Arnold | 2482 | 6.5 |
| 5 | GM Georg Meier | 2671 | 6.0 |
| 6 | GM Bartlomiej Macieja | 2617 | 6.0 |
| 7 | GM Yury Shulman | 2598 | 6.0 |
| 8 | GM Axel Bachmann | 2560 | 6.0 |
| 9 | GM Giorgi Margvelashvili | 2531 | 6.0 |
| 10 | IM Mackenzie Molner | 2449 | 6.0 |
| 11 | IM Daniel Rensch | 2401 | 6.0 |
| 12 | IM Greg Shahade | 2463 | 5.5 |
| 13 | IM Ricardo de Guzman | 2393 | 5.5 |
| 14 | IM Justin Sarkar | 2370 | 5.5 |
| 15 | WGM Tatev Abrahamyan | 2287 | 5.5 |
| 16 | NM Yian Liou | 2283 | 5.5 |
| 17 | FM Kayden Troff | 2257 | 5.5 |
| 18 | IM Enrico Sevillano | 2490 | 5.0 |
| 19 | IM Sam Collins | 2426 | 5.0 |
| 20 | IM Larry Remlinger | 2402 | 5.0 |
| 21 | SM Faik Aleskerov | 2362 | 5.0 |
| 22 | FM Teddy Coleman | 2356 | 5.0 |
| 23 | NM Damir Studen | 2248 | 5.0 |
| 24 | IM Adam Hunt | 2462 | 4.5 |
| 25 | IM Bryan Smith | 2460 | 4.5 |
| 26 | IM Max Cornejo | 2411 | 4.5 |
| 27 | IM David Pruess | 2395 | 4.5 |
| 28 | NM Tigran Ishkhanov | 2350 | 4.5 |
| 29 | IM Angelo Young | 2325 | 4.5 |
| 30 | FM Erik Santarius | 2276 | 4.5 |
| GM Alejandro Ramirez |
GM Josh Friedel |
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| IM Marc Arnold |
WGM Tatev Abrahamyan |
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Photos by Inga Gurevich from the official website. More photos here. The full standings with round-by-round results can be found here.
