BOTW 2015.12.20

John Upper's picture
Submitted by John Upper on Sun, 12/20/2015 - 08:45

Welcome Back Qatar!
Dec 20-29, 2015

The second Qatar Masters makes another bid to be the world's strongest open tournament.

The 9-round Open Swiss boasts a $130,000 prize fund, and that (plus appearance fees?) has attracted many of the world's best, including: World Champion Magnus Carlsen, former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, World #1 woman Hou Yifan, and top 10 GMs Anish Giri, Wesley So and Sergey Karjakink, and a total of 17 players over 2700. Canadian IM Leon Piasetski is the only Canadian playing.

Round 1 started with several shocks:

  • Carlsen was held to a draw as White by Georgian IM Nino Batsiashvili (2498), see photo.
  • Wei Yi (2730) lost to Indian IM Shardul Gagare (2470),
  • Nikita Vitiugov (2727) lost to untitled Chinese player Yinglun Xu (2470), 
  • Vassily Ivanchuk (2710) was held to a draw by Chinese IM Zhonghan Ma (2463).

Games start at 3pm Qatar time (7am EST), except for the final round, which begins Dec 29 at 4am EST.

Live Commentary with GMs Peter Svidler (!!) and Alejandro Ramierz (!!)
http://www.qatarmastersopen.com/live/

Pairings
http://www.chess-results.com/tnr199261.aspx?lan=1&art=2&rd=1&flag=30&wi=821

Homepage
http://www.qatarmastersopen.com/english/

 

photo by  Alla Oborina

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