The 13th Bangkok Chess Club Open which is also the Thailand Open 2013 started today with 202 players in the Open section.
A total of 36 countries are represented including 68 titled players at this annual and long running event held at the beautiful Dusit Thani Resort in Pattaya from 14-21 April 2013.
Top seeded defending champion Nigel Short leads 24 other Grandmasters including yet another star attraction in forth seeded Koneru Humpy but strong challenges are expected from fellow 2600 club members Levente Vajda and Jan Gustafsson while those confident of their chances include Oliver Barbosa, Liu Shanglei, Sune Berg Hansen, Mark Paragua, Susanto Megaranto, and Zhao Zong-Yuan.
Live Games are at the Bangkok Chess Club website www.bangkokchess.com.
Update: It was smooth sailing in round one for the top seeds with no major upsets, but fighting chess was on display throughout the field with determined efforts bringing home the full point in many cases.
Notable half points dropped were by ‘local’ Grandmaster Gerhard Schebler who is often a slow starter and Indonesian Woman Grandmaster Irine Kharisma Sukandar who had a great fight with an equally determined young China girl in Xu Fei.
Round two is expected to be much the same with no alarming match-ups but with two rounds on the second day of play upsets are a real possibility in the afternoon session!
News and photo gallery by Peter Long (click on thumbnail for full size)
