HRIKRISHNA Finshes on 2nd Place, Laznicka Lifts World Open Title

Grandmaster Viktor Laznicka played a marathon game against Dutch Grandmaster Leok Van Welly in the final round game of the 38^th World Open 2010 which concluded on Monday here in Valley Forge, near Philadelphia. Van Welly tried hard to win the game to share the first prize but alas, the Czech grandmaster proved tough nut to crack and agreed for a draw.

Czech Grandmaster Viktor Laznicka finished at the top of the standings with 7½/9,
winning $17,413! Laznicka started the tournament with 6 wins, leaving him a clear point ahead of the field at that stage. Rounds 7 and 8 were fairly peaceful draws while the final half point needed to take the title was scored in a complex fight against GM Loek Van Wely in Round 9. Finishing half-point behind the leader were GMs Pentala Harikrishna, Ilya Smirin
and Luke McShane, who each won $5028.67 for their efforts.

GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly and GM Sandipan Chanda drew their games while GM P Magesh won his last encounter to take his score to 5 points. GM Sundaraja Kidambi wasunfortunate to loose against a lower rated FM.

 Under 2400 category IM C S Gokhle  finished with 7 points and came 2^nd jointly with 4 other players. A large number of Indian expatriates could be seen playing in different categories. 

 As many as 34 Grandmasters battled for 7 days in this biggest Chess event of the world having over  1500 chess players from all over the world participating in various categories.

Final Standing

1          GM      Viktor Laznicka       2636   CZE    7.5

2          GM      P Harikrishna          2660   IND     7.0

3          GM      Ilya Smirin                2634   ISR     7.0

4          GM      Luke McShane         2623   ENG   7.0

5          GM      Loek Van Wely         2653   NED   6.5

6          GM      Jan Gustafsson        2640   GER   6.5

7          GM      Vladimir Potkin         2634   RUS   6.5

8          GM    Aleksandr Lenderman 2598USA   6.5

9          GM      Francisco Vallejo     2703   ESP    6.0

10        GM      Gata Kamsky            2702   USA    6.0

11        GM      Sandipan Chanda   2640   IND     6.0

20        GM     Surya Sekhar Ganguly 2672   IND     5.5

33        GM      P Magesh                     2539  IND     5.0

44                     Deepak Aaron              2142  IND    5.0

46        GM      S Kidambi                     2520 IND     4.5

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