After five rounds of play at the Canadian Open, GMs Ni Hua, Michael Adams, Alexei Shirov, Victor Mikhalevski, Surya Ganguly and Mark Bluvshtein can be found at the top of the standings. At 4.5/5 they share the lead with IM Edward Porper and FMs Vladimir Pechenkin and Theo Hommeles.

This year's Canadian Open takes place July 11-19 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It's one big group, with 203 participants, and it's also one of the strongest open Swisses in the calendar because among the participants are 2700+ players Alexei Shirov, Ni Hua and Michael Adams. Besides, many top Canadian players participate, including GM Mark Bluvshtein.

The festival includes many side events like simuls and lectures by Adams, Bluvshtein, Ganguly Krush, Shirov and Zhao Xue as well as bughouse and blitz tournaments. Some video impressions of the event thus far, including an excursion to Fort Edmonton Park, were captured in the following video, created by Zeljka Malobabic of MonRoi.

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Mikhalevski, Ganguly, Bluvshtein and Ni Hua were the only players who kept a 100% score after four rounds, and yesterday they drew with each other at the top boards, allowing five more players to join them in the lead. The pairings at the top for today are:

1 IM Edward Porper - GM Alexei Shirov
2 GM Hua Ni - GM Mark Bluvshtein
3 GM Victor Mikhalevski - GM Michael Adams
4 GM Surya Ganguly - FM Theo Hommeles
5 FM Vladimir Pechenkin - GM Anton Kovalyov

Game viewer

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Alexei Shirov and Victor Mikhalevski play with an old chess set at Fort Edmonton Park...

...and pose before the camera

Simultaneous exhibitions by Michael Adams...

...Irina Krush...

...and Ni Hua

The lessons are done using a laptop and beamer - here Surya Ganguly, second of Viswanathan Anand but foremost a very strong player himself

Michael Adams at play

A cheerful Mark Bluvshtein

Ganguly ready to play, behind a beautiful chess set and using the Monroi device to record moves

Irinia Krush, also adjusting the opponent's pieces

Victor Mikhalevski - as fond of his king's bishop as Fischer was?

Ni Hua, one of the many super strong grandmasters from China these days

The same can be said of Zhao Xue!

All photos © Zeljka Malobabic of MonRoi published with permission.

Links

• Monroi's tournament website
• Games in PGN