Laznicka wins World Open
6 July 2010, 16.47 CET | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
Viktor Laznicka won this year’s World Open in Philadelphia. The Czech grandmaster was the only player to finish at 7.5/9, half a point more than Harikrishna, Smirin and McShane, and a point more than Van Wely, Gustafsson, Potkin and Lenderman.
Viktor Laznicka | Photo Brittle Heaven licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
The 38th World Open took place June 29-July 5 at the Valley Forge Convention Plaza of the Radisson Hotel Valley Forge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Many different tournaments over different rating sections were held, each over 9 rounds.
Norms were available in the Open and Under 2400 Sections, but it was also possible to go for a shorter gig, for example a 4-day option, with rounds 1-2 with 75 minutes in total on the clock, or even a 3-day option with rounds 1-5 at just 45 minutes. (This is what Nakamura chose last year, and got him a shared first place.) There was a guaranteed prize fund of US $175,000.
One of the participants was English grandmaster LukeMcShane, who played his first tournament in the United States. An interview with Chess Scoop (Jennifer Shahade and Dim Mak Films):
22-year-old Viktor Laznicka, who played the 5-day schedule, won this year’s World Open. Czech Republic’s second best player (behind David Navara) was leading the field by a point, and had the white pieces against Loek van Wely in the last round. As always, the Dutch GM went for a fight, this time trying the Benoni, but eventually he offered a draw in a worse position. Laznicka proved a true fighter himself by at first declining the draw (which would secure the first prize), but eventually the point was split anyway.
Selection of games
Game viewer by ChessTempo
Links
 ShareThis
|  Print
|
At what stage did van Wely offer a draw against Laznicka? Black (van Wely) declined a move repetition twice (moves 31 and 45).
Why do the numbers 17 till 19 recieve more monney then 9 to 16, while they all have got 6 points?
17-19 are all under 2500 raring & therefore , in addition to the prize money they share with all the other players on 6 points who are rated over 2500, they share between them prize money for the top FIDE Under 2500 or Unrated (which is I believe $2000 & $1000), MINUS something – top prize is supposedly $20 000 but for some reason there is a deduction of $2587 (is that FIDE taxing the prize money ???)
Ray Robson seems to be overrated