Since Mr. Goichberg has not posted the final official results of the 2006 World Open yet, here are my unofficial results of a 9-way tie for 1st:
GM Kamsky, Gata 7.0 (2736) WON BLITZ PLAYOFF! (I think Gata may break 2700 FIDE again after the WO)
GM Milov, Vadim 7.0 (2682)
GM Yudasin, Leonid G 7.0 (2676)
GM Kacheishvili, Giorgi 7.0 (2643)
GM Benjamin, Joel 7.0 (2605)
GM Ibragimov, Ildar 7.0 (2692)
GM Ehlvest, Jaan 7.0 (2685)
GM Ivanov, Alexander 7.0 (2660)
GM Wojtkiewicz, Aleks 7.0 (2615)
Congrats to Gata and all who tied with 7 points!
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
I hear Gata won the blitzoff for the title.
Womderfully strong showing of Grandmasters for this tournament. Maybe Goichberg will think about restricting the Open Section so the GM’s have more opportunity to spread out a bit better. a 9 way tie is a bit crowded.
Looks like the logjam was caused by a bunch of last-round draws. There were 5 finishers at 7/9 who drew the last round. If half of them had won, there would have been a 2 or 3 way tie for first. I assume the draws must have been hard-fought since there was a lot of prize money at stake.
Who was Kamsky’s opponent in the playoff blitz game?
Kamsky’s last round game was a 4 move draw.
Good job to all of those guys, but especially to Kamsky.
I didn’t know that Kamsky’s last round game was so short. How disappointing…
Kamsky explained on ICC that he almost hung a rook against Benjamin and decided he was in no shape to put up a fight in the last round.
It was an open tournament, not an invitation tournament, so there is nothing wrong with going for a short draw. I only mentioned that Kamsky’s last game was a 4-mover because someone had come to the conclusion that all the last round games between the leaders were hard fought, which isn’t true.