2024 Canadian Closed

[Hans Jung]

I thoroughly enjoyed this tournament just watching the live games. Thanks to the organizers and thanks to the players for their great performances.

[Hugh Siddeley]

Premiere Ist Place Vadim Razin with 6 Second place Hugh Siddeley 5.5

Congratulations to Hugh Siddeley for beating the Grandmaster!

That Hugh Siddeley - strong chess player!

Thanks for the compliment, Hans!

I think my Grandmaster opponent just had a bad day at the office. I guess they're humans after all! He blitzed out the opening and I already got a distinct advantage by move 8! He offered me a draw after playing his 18th move. I thought about it for a little while but came to the conclusion that it would be a sin to chess to accept it. I felt his position was so bad by that point that only an outright blunder by me could spoil it. Fortunately, his position proved to be irrecoverable.

I was the only one in the section to play both Ukrainians (the two highest rated players in the section by some margin)! Vadim played the Classical French against me and I played like a total idiot and succumbed meekly. He probably told Petro: "Just play the French, you'll beat him easily."

Here's the game:
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 b6 5. a3 Bf8 6. f4 Ba6 7. Bxa6 Nxa6 8. Qd3
Nb8 9. Nf3 g6 10. Be3 h5 11. g3 Qd7 12. Ne2 c5 13. c4 cxd4 14. Nexd4 Bc5 15. Nb5
Na6 16. b4 Bxe3 17. Nd6+ Kf8 18. cxd5 exd5 19. Qxe3 Nh6 20. Qd4 Nc7 21. O-O Kg8
22. Nh4 Rd8 23. Rad1 Rh7 24. f5 g5 25. Ne4 dxe4 26. Qxd7 Rxd7 27. Rxd7 gxh4 28.
Rxc7 hxg3 29. f6 gxh2+ 30. Kh1 Rh8 31. Rc8+ Kh7 32. Rxh8+ Kxh8 33. e6 fxe6 34.
f7 1-0

The chess.com Review of the game gave me an accuracy of 95.4! My opponent got an 85.7.

This was a nice game but you should see my round 5 game against Tony Bohan Bao! I'll post it tomorrow, it's a real beauty!

[John Brown]

Will there be a playoff for the Women's champion?

[Hans Jung]

Hi John, Apparently decided by tiebreaks in the order that the players appear on chess results. Maili-Jade Ouellet is 2024 Canadian Women's Champion.

[Hal Bond]

Alex Ferreira and his entire team at Hart House deserve a huge shout out for their awesome job. I followed the games every day and managed to attend one of the rounds in person. Simply wonderful!

Also a piquant contrast in the results of the two Zonals, one runaway and one photo finish. A delightful surprise.

[Hans Jung]

Thanks for the compliment, Hans!

I think my Grandmaster opponent just had a bad day at the office. I guess they're humans after all! He blitzed out the opening and I already got a distinct advantage by move 8! He offered me a draw after playing his 18th move. I thought about it for a little while but came to the conclusion that it would be a sin to chess to accept it. I felt his position was so bad by that point that only an outright blunder by me could spoil it. Fortunately, his position proved to be irrecoverable.

I was the only one in the section to play both Ukrainians (the two highest rated players in the section by some margin)! Vadim played the Classical French against me and I played like a total idiot and succumbed meekly. He probably told Petro: "Just play the French, you'll beat him easily."

Here's the game:
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 b6 5. a3 Bf8 6. f4 Ba6 7. Bxa6 Nxa6 8. Qd3
Nb8 9. Nf3 g6 10. Be3 h5 11. g3 Qd7 12. Ne2 c5 13. c4 cxd4 14. Nexd4 Bc5 15. Nb5
Na6 16. b4 Bxe3 17. Nd6+ Kf8 18. cxd5 exd5 19. Qxe3 Nh6 20. Qd4 Nc7 21. O-O Kg8
22. Nh4 Rd8 23. Rad1 Rh7 24. f5 g5 25. Ne4 dxe4 26. Qxd7 Rxd7 27. Rxd7 gxh4 28.
Rxc7 hxg3 29. f6 gxh2+ 30. Kh1 Rh8 31. Rc8+ Kh7 32. Rxh8+ Kxh8 33. e6 fxe6 34.
f7 1-0

The chess.com Review of the game gave me an accuracy of 95.4! My opponent got an 85.7.

This was a nice game but you should see my round 5 game against Tony Bohan Bao! I'll post it tomorrow, it's a real beauty!

Ive never seen a grandmaster play that badly, correspondingly you played well. He was paralysed at the end. Congratulations. You now join the club of those who have beaten grandmasters. I never have, at least at classical time controls.

[Hans Jung]

Mullings, Musings, and Wishful Thinking

Shiyam scored 9 out of ten so a performance of 2715. Imagine how high that performance would have been had his four opponents, two of them in the 2100's and two of them 2200's, seriously underrated, been rated normally (say around 2400)

Shiyam gained 40 rating points which puts him back almost 2400. He was previously, in 2022, over 2400.

I would have loved to see Shiyam paired against Razvan Preotu in the last round. Then we could have lobbied Fide for a grandmaster norm for Shiyam. In my mind deserved by great play.

[Hans Jung]

Samuel Zhang did not play in the first three rounds and then won six in a row (after an initial loss) Interesting.

[Hans Jung]

A very tough tournament for many players even though it was a large field.

[Hans Jung]

All the grandmasters lost rating points and were superbly challenged.

[Hans Jung]

As you can see I like to look at large crosstables of great tournaments. This is one of them.

[Hans Jung]

There could be a good case for Sergei Noritsyn scoring an IM norm.

Gained 55 rating points.

[Hans Jung]

Zachary Hankun Liu - good tournament for seasoning. He's only 11 or 12 years old.

[Hans Jung]

Calix Marchand - good tournament for seasoning. He's only 11 or 12 years old.

[Hans Jung]

Dzmitry Kalinin largest rating gain 121 points