Laznicka Wins World Open 2010 - America's premier chess event

GM Viktor Laznicka

Hi Everybody!

Czech Grandmaster Viktor Laznicka has won the 38th World Open chess tournament in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The World Open is America's premier open event and attracts more than a 1,000 players from around the world for various tournament categories.

This year, about 1,200 players took part in the 10 sections of the World Open The top Open Section had 119 players with 35 grandmasters. Laznicka won six of the first rounds and drew the remaining three.

Laznicka finished on 7.5/9 which was half a point ahead of GMs Harikrishna, Smirin and McShane, and a point more than GMs Van Wely, Gustafsson, Potkin and Lenderman.

You can look up the official tournament website for details and results of all the sections. You can read a detailed news report here.

Meanwhile, here is a nice Shabalov-Laznicka game from the World Open. You can run it in our pgnplayer or watch it in flash below.

PGN: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 a6 5.Qc2 b5 6.b3 Bg4 7.Nge2 Nbd7 8.h3 Bh5 9.Nf4 Bg6 10.Nxg6 hxg6 11.Bb2 e6 12.c5 g5 13.O-O-O g6 14.Kb1 Bg7 15.g3 Qc7 16.Bg2 Kf8 17.g4 Re8 18.f3 e5 19.Qf2 Kg8 20.Rhf1 exd4 21.exd4 Nf8 22.Bc1 Ne6 23.Ne2 Nd7 24.f4 gxf4 25.Nxf4 Nf6 26.Nxe6 Rxe6 27.Bf4 Qe7 28.Be5 Ne8 29.Bg3 Nf6 30.Be5 Rxe5 31.dxe5 Qxe5 32.Rd4 Rh6 33.Rfd1 Nd7 34.b4 g5 35.a3 Rf6 36.Qa2 Rf4 37.Rxf4 gxf4 38.Qb3 Nf6 39.Ka2 Qe2+ 0-1

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com