The World Open, the annual tournament in Philadelphia that always takes place around July 4th, often lives up to its name by attracting a world-class contingent of players. This year is no different as the field includes Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain, Surya Shekhar Ganguly of India, Loek Van Wely of the Netherlands, Luke McShane of England, Evgeny Najer of Russia, Viktor Laznicka of the Czech Republic and Ilya Smirin of Israel. It also includes many of the best Americans, among them Gata Kamsky, the United States champion, and Alexander Onischuk.
The players come because the tournament offers one of the biggest prize funds in the world. This year’s is guaranteed to be at least $175,000 and could rise to $250,000, depending on how many players enter.
Though the tournament has started, the field may not be set. The World Open has an unusual format that allows competitors to play over 7 days, 5 days, 4 days or 3 days. In the longer schedule, competitors play all their games at the slowest time control. As the schedules speed up, the first few games are played at a more rapid pace before all the schedules merge in the last few rounds. The multiple schedules allow players to enter (or re-enter if they do poorly in one of the slower schedules) even after the tournament has started.
In the 7-day schedule, Vallejo, Ganguly, Pentala Harikrishan of India, Van Wely, Chanda Sandipan of India and McShane were tied for first with 2.5 points each after three rounds. In the 5-day schedule, there was a large group of players, including Kamsky, Laznicka and Smirin who won their first two games.
Though the tournament always has a large field, it is not unusual for top players to meet in early rounds. That has happened this year, with several clashes between grandmasters in Rounds 2 and 3. Among the decisive games were an upset of Onischuk by McShane, a win by Vallejo over Jan Gustafsson, a Dutch grandmaster, a win by Harikrishna over Falko Bindrich, a German grandmaster, and a win by Ganguly over Alonso Zapata, a Colombian grandmaster.
The tournament runs through Monday, July 5.
