GM MARK PARAGUA ran into 2 talented American youngsters as he began his campaign at the Philadelphia Open, and found himself in a group of 18 players with 1.5 points after the first 2 rounds. Paragua (2495), one of 10 grandmasters among the 83 players in the Open section, conceded a draw in the 1st round to untitled Craig Hilby (2181), who is ranked #7 among under-14 players in the United States, then beat untitled Praveen Balakrishnan (2138), who is #2 in the US and #7 in the world among under-12 players... Students in the US are on spring break and 4 of them are among the 10 early leaders with 2.0 points each. They are IM Samuel Sevian (2438, USA), #1 under-14 player in the world; IM Kayden Troff (2477, USA), #1 in the US and #5 in the world among under-16 players; IM Jeffrey Xiong (2421, USA), #2 under-14 in the world; and IM Luke Harmon-Vellotti (2399, USA), #2 under-16 in the US... Top seed GM Gata Kamsky (2714, USA) leads the pack of 2-pointers, among them GM Mikhailo Oleksienko (2618, #15 in Ukraine), GM Magesh Chandran Panchanathan (2557, #13 in India), GM Vladimir Dobrov (2511, Russia), GM Alexander Fishbein (2485, USA), and IM Farai Mandiza (2385, #2 in Zimbabwe)... Paragua will play FM Alexander Betaneli (2249, USA) in the 3rd round. The other GMs in the 9-round, Swiss system event are Giorgi Margvelashvili (2546, Georgia), Ioan Cristian Chirila (2520, Georgia), Alexander Shabalov (2501, USA) and Joshua Friedel (2500, USA)... This event is taking place over 5 days at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Philadelphia, with other competitions in 6 rating groups. There is a player in the under-2200 group named Robert J. Fischer (2087), from Virginia, who is obviously NOT the late world champion. There is another Filipino in the Open section, Jose Aquino Jr. (2244), who defeated Isaac de Leon of Ecuador in the 1st round but lost to Xiong in the 2nd... [All rights reserved.]
Posted on: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 06:23:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015