2025 Toronto Open

[Salim Belcadi]

Annex Chess Club is honored to host the GTCL's 2025 Toronto Open.

Date and time: Saturday August 30 - Monday Sept. 1 2025. Two rounds daily at 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.

Format: six-round Swiss tournament, with the following sections: Crown, U2200, U1900, U1600, U1300.

Time control: 90 minutes + 30 second increment

Rating: CFC + FIDE for Crown, U2200 and U1900. A valid CFC membership is required. Section eligibility determined by highest of CFC rating, FQE rating or FIDE rating.

Location: St. Casimir's Parish Hall, 156 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON

Chief Arbiter: IA Uttam Dhungel

Prizes: Prize fund of $7000 (based on 250 entrants), prizes for top three in each section.

Entry Fee:

• Early bird $90 before August 1 2025
• Regular $110 Aug. 2 through Aug. 25
• Last-minute $130 after August 25.
• $20 discount for ACC members, seniors (60 and over) and juniors (18 and under). (Please use the coupon code AGETO25 at checkout ONLY if you qualify for an age-based discount.)

Registration: https://2025-toronto-open.square.site
Registrations close on Friday August 29 , 2025 at 8:00 p.m.
Free entry to GM/IM/WGM/WIM

Byes: Half-point byes are available for rounds 1-4, zero point byes for rounds 5 and 6. Please email tournaments@annexchessclub.com for bye requests.

Play-up: Players may play up a section if they are within 100 points of the rating floor of the next section, based on their rating as of August 28 2025. The play-up fee is $20, payable on arrival to the tournament. All play up requests must be emailed to tournaments@annexchessclub.com.

[Heidi Gay]

7 seats remain, and registrations close at 8pm Eastern today. There will be no onsite registrations.
Play up requests and round 1 bye requests are also due at 8pm Eastern today.

List of players here.

Broadcast will be here.

[Heidi Gay]

Annex Chess Chess would like to thank the Greater Toronto Chess League with awarding the bid to host the 2025 Toronto Open as well as Black Diary Investments for sponsoring this event. ACC would also like to thank Hart House Chess Club and Chess Institute of Canada for supporting this event with equipment.

With a prize fund of nearly $8000, here are the winners of the 2025 Toronto Open (final standings linked in each section):

Crown

1st - IM Atanasov, Anthony $1500 (6/6!)
=2nd - IM Vettese, Nicholas $466.67
=2nd - FM Plotkin, Victor $466.67
=2nd - GM Golubka, Petro $466.67

Top Woman - WFM Deepak, Laksshana $200
Top Senior - IM Cummings, David $200
Top Junior - Malakar, Saarthak; NM Yang, Larry $50 each
Top Girl - WCM Xie, Irene $100

U2200

1st - WCM Ghomi, Parnian $625
=2nd - Zhao, Jeffrey $350
=2nd - Yin, Zeming $350

Top Woman - WFM Li, Yilin
Top Girl - WCM Park, Haneul
Top Senior - Chernik, Dmitry
Top Junior - Li, Triston; Yao, Henry
Top ACC Member - Mittal, Aashwin; Lukinykh, Slava; Mammadov, Nihad

U1900

=1st - Hovhannisyan, Narek
=1st - Li, Yuming
=1st - Krivykh, Daniel

Top Woman - Todd, Adie
Top Senior - Bordas, Gyula
Top Junior - Ma, Quentin; Tian, Dylan; Bolandnazar, Korosh
Top Girl - Chen, Qianyu
Top ACC Member - Allahverdi, Umid

U1600

1st - Kutuzyan, James
=2nd - Cecchini, Sam
=2nd - Bhattal, Angad
=2nd - Ahmad, Sheraz

Top Woman - Taylor, Grace
Top Senior - none
Top Junior - Divadalage, Sanul
Top Girl - Yuan, Arianna
Top ACC Member - Velazquez, Alex

U1300

1st - Chauhan, Kshitij (TJ)
=2nd - Lalzad, Humayun
=2nd - Michailov, Benjamin

Top Woman - Takeuchi, Nobuko
Top Senior - Natanasundaram, Muthukumaran
Top Junior - Wu, Jingchen; Swain, Harshil; Harish, Arnav; Wang, Benjamin
Top Girl - Strugach, Victoria
Top ACC - Shon, Kathryn

[Heidi Gay]

ACC would also like to thank IA Uttam Dhungel for running a smooth event as chief arbiter and the arbiter team (in no particular order): FA Michael Corrie, NA Peter Lambert, NA Crystal Cao, NA Lily Liu, NA Deepanshi Matai, NA Shawn Liu, and WFM-elect Hancy Jiang; as well as our volunteers, Clara Dolderman and Caitlin Denning with setup and teardown; and Keith Denning, the chief organizer for this event.

Last but not least, we would like to thank all the players for coming out and making this annual Labour Day tradition such a wonderful event on the Toronto chess calendar.

[Erik Malmsten]

Winning all of one's games really distorts the rating performance. Anthony had a performance rating of 3025! I wonder if someone can extract from the CFC's database the top 25 performance ratings and where is this one on that list.

Congrats also to Parnian and Narek, who have been conquering in blitz get togethers.

[Victor Plotkin]

Excellent event, thanks to organizers/arbiters. Starting rounds without any delays, many digital boards, internet transition worked most of the time, comfortable temperature in the tournament hall, enough space for players.

You don't ask for too much, but it's very rare you get all of important details for great tournament.

[Michael]

Victor Plotkin must be congratulated for finishing tied for second in a very strong local tournament. Victor tied with GM Petro Golubka and IM Nicholas Vettese. First place was dominated by IM Anthony Atanasov with a perfect 6/6 score.