Canadians in Charlotte 2025

[Michael]

Razvan Preotu is currently leading the 2026 Charlotte Open, which is a 6 round weekend swiss event. Razvan won his first 4 games against lower rated opponents, but he will get a real test in tomorrow's games. Pairings aren't posted yet for round 5, but I expect Razvan will play Awonder Liang, who is rated 2713 FIDE.

Games can be watched at https://www.chess.com/events/charlotte-open-2026/games

[Hans Jung]

Congratulations to Anthony and Shawn! A special shoutout to all Canadians who took part. That was a tough field. I enjoyed the games.

[Michael]

Often the last round of a tournament has lots of quick draws as players are eager to leave and go home, but that wasn't the case for the top Canadian players today. Instead, all of them had decisive games with Shawn and Anthony being victorious and Razvan and Sai were on the losing end of their games. Overall, it was a good tournament for these players and they all be bringing back some rating points with them.

[Michael]

Shawn and Razvan bot lost tricky end games in round 8. Sai Krishna drew against a 2641 GM to keep his GM norm chances alive. Now, Shawn, Razvan and Sai have 6 points after 8 rounds. Anthony Atanasov won his game to get to 5.5 points. All 4 of these players will have tough pairings in the last round of the tournament.

[Hans Jung]

Love it! Keep up the good news posts!

[Michael]

In round 7, Razvan and Shawn both won to move to a tie for first place with 6 points. Sai Krishna drew with black against a 2649 rated GM and now has 5.5 points after 7 games. Rohan Talukdar drew against a slightly higher rated IM and Anthony Atanasov lost to a GM to round out the scores for the top Canadians in this tournament. Rounds 8 and 9 will be extremely interesting tomorrow.

[Hugh Brodie]

Don't forget Sai Krishna (on board 2 round 7) - along with Shawn (board 3) and Razvan (board 4).

(sorry - missed the msg two posts before).

[Hans Jung]

Fantastic results by Canadians! Congratulations to Shawn and Razvan and Anthony and Rohan!

[Michael]

Shawn and Razvan both won in round 6 to get to 5 points and a tie for second place. Rohan also won and now has 4 points. Sai Krishna and Jonathan Wu had tough pairings and were beaten by GMs. Chess.com and the Charlotte Chess Club pairings show Sai winning the game, but he was in a lost position, so I assume the result will be changed. If the results stays and Sai did win, that would be a great result. Three rounds remaining, so things are getting down to crunch time.

Edit to add that Anthony Atanasov also won in round 6 and is now at 4.5 points.

Sai Krishna did win in round 6, so I don't know what happened at the end of the game. Sai's reward for winning in round 6 is he gets to play Jeffery Xiong in round 7. Sai is on board 2 while Shawn is playing on board 3 and Razvan is on board 4. Anthony Atanasov is on board 12. All 4 of those Canadians are playing GMs.

[Michael]

Shawn and Razvan both won in round 6 to get to 5 points and a tie for second place. Rohan also won and now has 4 points. Sai Krishna and Jonathan Wu had tough pairings and were beaten by GMs. Chess.com and the Charlotte Chess Club pairings show Sai winning the game, but he was in a lost position, so I assume the result will be changed. If the results stays and Sai did win, that would be a great result. Three rounds remaining, so things are getting down to crunch time.

Edit to add that Anthony Atanasov also won in round 6 and is now at 4.5 points.

[Michael]

Round 5 was a time for the Canadian GMs to step forward and Shawn and Razvan won their games to get to 4 points after 5 rounds. IMs Krishna and Atanasov drew against GMs. Sai Krishna joins Shawn and Razvan at 4 points and should get a good pairing in round 6. Anthony Atanasov drew against a GM rated 2591 and is at 3.5 points and is staying in contention.

[Michael]

The Canadian IMs came through in round 4, with Sai Krishna and Anthony Atanasov both coming through with wins. IM Rohan Talukdar is still playing as I type this. Not only do the IMs get a point for the win, but they should also get a higher rated opponent in the next round, which will help their norm chances. Shawn settled for a quick draw, so he will be fresh for the afternoon game. Jonathan Wu was also victorious in round 4 to get to 2.5 / 4

Edit: Rohan also won his game, so the IMs went 3 / 3 in round 4.

[Michael]

Round 3 was a good one for the Canadians. Razvan remains with a perfect score and I expect he will be paired against Jeffery Xiong in round 4. Xiong is rated 2649, so it will be a good test for Razvan, if he does get that pairing. Shawn is also undefeated with 2.5 points after 3 rounds and is climbing up the leaderboard after a first round draw. Sai Krishna is also at 2.5 points after 3 rounds. Unfortunately, Sai has played 3 lower rated players, so he will need some favourable pairings and some great results to be eligible for a GM norm. Rohan Talukdar abd Jonathan Wu are at 1.5 points after 3 rounds.

[Michael]

Razvan and Anthony Atanasov are the only 2 Canadians with 2 wins after 2 rounds. Anthony is paired against a GM in round 3.

[Hans Jung]

I feel bad for Shawn. The evaluations showed +3 and rightly so. A moments distraction (maybe) or an automatic move (Rxb7) and the advantage gone. With a few seconds extra thought he would have found Qe3 easy.

In the Razvan game all eyes on the knight. Razvan has turned into an endgame virtuoso. But even as a young lad he was good in the endgame.