"Pinoy ties for 1st in Philadelphia chess"

A Touch Move Chess Club member and frequent player at the Evanston Chess Club gets notice in the international press.  Fom the Phillipine Daily Inquirer:

FILIPINO Rene Ancheta defeated American Raynard Simmons in the ninth and final round to finish tied for first place in the 39th Annual World Open Chess Championships last July 4 at the Sheraton Philadelphia in Race Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

The Makati City pride Ancheta, who is currently based in Chicago, tallied 7.5 points, the same output of Aaron Jing, Arnold Fuchs, Aakaash Meduri and Robby Hecht in the [Under 2000] Division.  All of them received $5,521.60.

And we're proud of him here in Chicago, too!

Sapozhnikov-Amanov, Round 2, World Open

It's official: Mesgen tied for third place. 

Too much of a good thing?

Congratulations to Eric Rosen for a very solid win against a phenomenally strong opponent.

Recall that Eric's opponent, Conrad Holt, had a phenomenal result in the World Open, including a win against GM Evgeny Najer.  Perhaps Conrad is "chessed out"? 

In a field this strong, however, it's inevitable that a couple strong players will have mediocre results.

Eric's loss yesterday was also interesting...hope to get to that later.

Kavalek annotates World Open

Good stuff.

World Open through Round 7

Earlier today, Jon Burgess updated the results of top Illinois players on the ICA Forum. 

Round 9 is already underway: Angelo Young lost to Mark Paragua, Mesgen Amanov drew.  As of now, I don't know how William Aramil or the other Illinois players did.  If you're onsite, an update in the comments would be welcome....

Angelo Young knocks off a GM

Last night, Angelo beat Colombian GM Alonso Zapata.  Right now, Angelo has White against fellow Filipino GM Mark Paragua (who's perhaps best known to Chicagoans for winning the 2000 Master Challenge as a teenager).  You can follow the game live at the World Open website.

World Open through round 5

Nice article by Jonathan Hilton for Chess Life Online!  There's a little color commentary on the Amanov-Robson game.

a cool game from the World Open

The field is so top-heavy at the World Open that GMs have been playing each other from Round 2.  Yesterday, Illinois Co-Champion Mesgen Amanov took down prodigy Ray Robson in a bizarre Botvinnik Semi-Slav sideline.