The Canadian Open 2013 took place on 13-20th July at the National Hotel and Suites Ottawa in Ottawa, ON.
The tournament saw a very intense fight for first place with strong players such as Nigel Short, Lazaro Bruzon and Ivan Sokolov aiming to get a big payout. These strong GMs were joined by young and ambitious Canadian players, such as GM Eric Hansen and IM Aman Hambleton.
Former world championship challenger Nigel Short showed his class and finished the event with six wins and three draws, but he had to wait for the organizers to calculate the tiebreak scores to get the winner’s title, as GM Eric Hansen achieved the same score. Both players received the same money prize, $ 4.000.
Five players shared 3rd-7th place after getting 7 points: Lazaro Bruzon, Ivan Sokolov, Aman Hambleton, Edward Porper and Arthur Calugar. Full standings below.
Nigel Short – Eric Hansen
Chessdom talked with Eric Hansen, who transmitted his satisfaction with his performance at this event:
The tournament took place in our capital, a quiet city. Because there were not many distractions, I was pretty focused on my tournament games. I managed to play solid and take advantage of my opponents’ mistakes for most of my victories. This is my last tournament in Canada before moving to Spain so It’s nice to leave on a good performance. Now, I will focus all my attention to preparation for the World Cup.
Lazaro Bruzon – Ivan Sokolov
Aman Hambleton, who is a member of the Master Team that plays regularly at Chessdom Arena, was part of the organizing team, but this did not prevent him from getting a really good score at the tournament:
I was a part of the organizing team for the tournament, my job being the Elite Player Coordinator in charge of the foreign invitations, VISA’s, conditions, etc.
I thought the tournament was a great international look for Canada, with some near-2700 level participants (Nigel Short, Lazaro Bruzon, Ivan Sokolov).
Also, most of Canada’s young players (FMs, IMs) played the tournament so it was a nice chance for them to play with some different competition for a change :)
I found the tournament to have a nice schedule, very relaxing one game/day for the most part and it allowed time for most players to visit the many tourist sites in Ottawa, especially Parliament Hill. For me, it’s not an issue since I am living in Ottawa!
GM norms were possible, but unfortunately the GM’s in the tournament were not doing so well so even though I had 5.5/7 I only played an FM in round 8. I was close to making a GM norm, with performance near 2600 and 7/9 but I had only played 2 GM’s.
For a big Open of 200 participants, I think the Organization did a good job keeping the spectators up to date with pairings, as well as a very detailed Multimedia page with postmortem videos and pictures from the rounds.
Bruzon, Sokolov and Hambleton are among the players that traveled straight to Quebec to participate in the Quebec Open Chess Championship 2013.
Final Standings:
| 1 | GM Nigel Short(title on TB) | 2697 | 7.5 |
| 2 | GM Eric Hansen | 2587 | 7.5 |
| 3 | GM Ivan Sokolov | 2642 | 7.0 |
| 4 | GM Lazaro Bruzon Batista | 2758 | 7.0 |
| 5 | IM Aman Hambleton | 2580 | 7.0 |
| 6 | IM Edward Porper | 2494 | 7.0 |
| 7 | IM Arthur Calugar | 2418 | 7.0 |
| 8 | GM Elshan Moradiabadi | 2557 | 6.5 |
| 9 | IM Artiom Samsonkin | 2557 | 6.5 |
| 10 | GM Bator Sambuev | 2688 | 6.5 |
| 11 | IM Raja Panjwani | 2517 | 6.5 |
| 12 | IM Richard Wang | 2484 | 6.5 |
| 13 | GM Ioan Cristian Chirila | 2519 | 6.5 |
| 14 | IM Rodney Oscar Perez Garcia | 2464 | 6.5 |
| 15 | FM Roman Sapozhnikov | 2396 | 6.5 |
| 16 | GM Luis Manuel Perez Rodriguez | 2480 | 6.5 |
| 17 | IM Keaton Kiewra | 2423 | 6.5 |
| 18 | GM Eduardas Rozentalis | 2601 | 6.0 |
| 19 | GM Eugene Perelshteyn | 2571 | 6.0 |
| 20 | IM Leonid Gerzhoy | 2571 | 6.0 |
| 21 | GM Reynaldo Vera | 2514 | 6.0 |
| 22 | FM Kevel Oliva Castaneda | 2399 | 6.0 |
| 23 | GM Walter Arencibia | 2610 | 6.0 |
| 24 | IM Bindi Cheng | 2516 | 6.0 |
| 25 | FM Michael Dougherty | 2290 | 6.0 |
| 26 | Michael Song | 2390 | 6.0 |
| 27 | Evgeny Miller | 2234 | 6.0 |
| 28 | FM Victor Plotkin | 2394 | 6.0 |
| 29 | Alex Yam | 2367 | 6.0 |
| 30 | Kevin Pacey | 2223 | 6.0 |
| 31 | Stijn De Kerpel | 2157 | 6.0 |
| 32 | Agastya Kalra | 2130 | 6.0 |
| 33 | FM Jason Cao | 2239 | 5.5 |
| 34 | FM Michael Kleinman | 2367 | 5.5 |
| 35 | FM Eric Rodriguez | 2318 | 5.5 |
| 36 | IM Leon Piasetski | 2392 | 5.5 |
| 37 | Digeng Du | 2009 | 5.5 |
| 38 | Geordie Derraugh | 2297 | 5.5 |
| 39 | Mike Ivanov | 2252 | 5.5 |
| 40 | James Fu | 2257 | 5.5 |
| 41 | Steve Demmery | 2110 | 5.5 |
| 42 | Jonathan Yu | 2224 | 5.5 |
| 43 | William G Doubleday | 2166 | 5.5 |
| 44 | Ramon J Cova | 2077 | 5.5 |
| 45 | Qiyu Zhou | 2160 | 5.5 |
| 46 | Dmitry Chernik | 1918 | 5.5 |
| 47 | James Chan | 2184 | 5.5 |
| 48 | Saeid Sadeghi | 1978 | 5.5 |
| 49 | Martial Larochelle | 2232 | 5.5 |
| 50 | Yevgeni Nahutin | 2044 | 5.5 |
| 51 | WC Alexandra Botez | 2204 | 5.0 |
| 52 | Armando Valdizon | 2219 | 5.0 |
| 53 | Miladin Djerkovic | 2287 | 5.0 |
| 54 | Mate Marinkovic | 2231 | 5.0 |
| 55 | Kevin Wan | 2148 | 5.0 |
| 56 | Tanraj S Sohal | 2263 | 5.0 |
| 57 | Jason Kenney | 2159 | 5.0 |
| 58 | Vasil Khachidze | 2359 | 5.0 |
| 59 | David Itkin | 2151 | 5.0 |
| 60 | Ruining Ray Wu | 2117 | 5.0 |
| 61 | Butch Villavieja | 2275 | 5.0 |
| 62 | Mark Plotkin | 2223 | 5.0 |
| 63 | Adam Dorrance | 2185 | 5.0 |
| 64 | Paul Leblanc | 1839 | 5.0 |
| 65 | Diwen Shi | 2030 | 5.0 |
| 66 | Ismail Ibrahim | 2057 | 5.0 |
| 67 | John Doknjas | 2065 | 5.0 |
| 68 | Zachary Burrows | 2031 | 5.0 |
| 69 | FM Robert Hamilton | 2374 | 5.0 |
| 70 | Amos Kuttner | 1946 | 5.0 |
| 71 | Max Gedajlovic | 1875 | 5.0 |
| 72 | Danail Donev | 2023 | 5.0 |
| 73 | Joey Zhong | 2033 | 5.0 |
| 74 | Jeremy Hui | 1976 | 5.0 |
| 75 | James Currie | 1999 | 5.0 |
| 76 | Mateusz Dydak | 1975 | 5.0 |
| 77 | Gordon Giacomin | 1951 | 5.0 |
| 78 | Adam Adriaanse | 1924 | 5.0 |
| 79 | David Cohen | 1866 | 5.0 |
| 80 | Jeff Babb | 2211 | 4.5 |
| 81 | David Petty | 2161 | 4.5 |
| 82 | Yuetong Davy Zhao | 1873 | 4.5 |
| 83 | CM David Gordon | 2319 | 4.5 |
| 84 | Francesco Dunne | 2066 | 4.5 |
| 85 | Daniel Van Heirzeele | 2088 | 4.5 |
| 86 | Chris Felix | 1993 | 4.5 |
| 87 | Stephan Tonakanian | 2071 | 4.5 |
| 88 | Wenlu Yu | 2032 | 4.5 |
| 89 | Mike Sun | 2080 | 4.5 |
| 90 | Vitaliy Matytsyn | unr. | 4.5 |
| 91 | Vladimir Drkulec | 1988 | 4.5 |
| 92 | Nathan Farrant-Diaz | 1748 | 4.5 |
| 93 | Alex Y Lin | 1809 | 4.5 |
| 94 | David Forget | 1921 | 4.5 |
| 95 | Joshua Doknjas | 1848 | 4.5 |
| 96 | Benjamin Blium | 1927 | 4.5 |
| 97 | Guy Piche | 1745 | 4.5 |
| 98 | Brendon Lee | 1870 | 4.5 |
| 99 | Matthew Morabito | 1799 | 4.5 |
| 100 | Brian McKay | 1860 | 4.0 |
| 101 | Rod Hill | 1959 | 4.0 |
| 102 | Roger Lebrun | 1914 | 4.0 |
| 103 | Gilles Jobin | 1942 | 4.0 |
| 104 | Simon Kuttner | 1877 | 4.0 |
| 105 | Victor Itkin | 1707 | 4.0 |
| 106 | Gordon Ritchie | 1730 | 4.0 |
| 107 | Jeffrey Xu | 1862 | 4.0 |
| 108 | Lali Agbabishvili | 2099 | 4.0 |
| 109 | Patrick Scantland | 1838 | 4.0 |
| 110 | Michel Desjardins | 1996 | 4.0 |
| 111 | Robin Yu | 1751 | 4.0 |
| 112 | Jaime Solis | 1658 | 4.0 |
| 113 | Kai Richardson | 1626 | 4.0 |
| 114 | Wenyang Ming | 1851 | 4.0 |
| 115 | Michael Su | 1770 | 4.0 |
| 116 | Ryan Yang | 1911 | 4.0 |
| 117 | Rinna Yu | 1301 | 4.0 |
| 118 | Kajan Thanabalachandran | 1759 | 4.0 |
| 119 | Stanley Wu | 1741 | 4.0 |
| 120 | Luc Villeneuve | 1931 | 4.0 |
| 121 | Jill Ding | 1585 | 4.0 |
| 122 | Luc Gauthier | 1740 | 4.0 |
| 123 | Edward Selling | 1579 | 4.0 |
| 124 | Jean Bigras | 1762 | 4.0 |
| 125 | Doug Gillis | 1618 | 4.0 |
| 126 | Garland Best | 1603 | 4.0 |
| 127 | Ian Finlay | 1936 | 3.5 |
| 128 | David Kenney | 1936 | 3.5 |
| 129 | Mario Moran-Venegas | 1880 | 3.5 |
| 130 | Ashley Tapp | 1481 | 3.5 |
| 131 | Yinshi Li | 2081 | 3.5 |
| 132 | Mackenzie Hardie | 1838 | 3.5 |
| 133 | Lenard Grossmann | 1614 | 3.5 |
| 134 | Thomas Kurian | 1640 | 3.5 |
| 135 | Jacob Krolczyk | 1909 | 3.5 |
| 136 | Walter Macneil | 1655 | 3.5 |
| 137 | Robert Laszlo | 1753 | 3.5 |
| 138 | Melissa Lee | 1534 | 3.5 |
| 139 | Grant Schaper | 1647 | 3.5 |
| 140 | Kyle Creamer | 1838 | 3.5 |
| 141 | Marcel Laurin | 1625 | 3.5 |
| 142 | Robert J Armstrong | 1590 | 3.5 |
| 143 | Steven Faust | 1711 | 3.5 |
| 144 | Thomas Guo | 1608 | 3.5 |
| 145 | Alan Tomalty | 1764 | 3.5 |
| 146 | Clark Zhang | 994 | 3.5 |
| 147 | Rowan James | 1072 | 3.5 |
| 148 | Alex Reny | 1067 | 3.5 |
| 149 | Curtis Barlow Wilkes | 1861 | 3.0 |
| 150 | Norman Devine | 1631 | 3.0 |
| 151 | Alex Danilov | 1767 | 3.0 |
| 152 | Chris White | 1757 | 3.0 |
| 153 | Maurice Smith | 1494 | 3.0 |
| 154 | Fernando Echavarria Hidalgo | 1679 | 3.0 |
| 155 | John Remillard | 1633 | 3.0 |
| 156 | Kevin Low | 1484 | 3.0 |
| 157 | Francois Poitras | 1687 | 3.0 |
| 158 | Samuel Chen | 1339 | 3.0 |
| 159 | Richard Feng | 1364 | 3.0 |
| 160 | Aiden Zhou | 1136 | 3.0 |
| 161 | Konstantin Vlasenko | 1660 | 2.5 |
| 162 | Miles Duggal | 1231 | 2.5 |
| 163 | Brian Murray | 1459 | 2.5 |
| 164 | Conrad Macneil | 1598 | 2.5 |
| 165 | Ken Douglas | unr. | 2.5 |
| 166 | Vilas Karmalkar | 1604 | 2.5 |
| 167 | Daniel Du | 1038 | 2.5 |
| 168 | W Thomson Bruce | 1528 | 2.5 |
| 169 | Annika Zhou | 1045 | 2.5 |
| 170 | Simon Perkins | 1614 | 2.0 |
| 171 | Frank Lee | 1471 | 2.0 |
| 172 | Neil Doknjas | 1228 | 2.0 |
| 173 | Dee Wu | 1188 | 2.0 |
| 174 | Jeff Zhang | 1500 | 2.0 |
| 175 | Ethan Low | 1105 | 2.0 |
| 176 | Jatinder Dhaliwal | 1461 | 1.5 |
| 177 | Keven Eyre | 1536 | 1.5 |
| 178 | Nicholas Short | unr. | 1.0 |
