Tweet
The 4th Edmonton International chess festival has now come to an end.
It all started on December 16, as GM Josh Friedel gave a lecture about a recent game which he played. In it, he illustrated some decisions that he made and how those might differ from someone with a more positional approach, such as GM Jesse Kraai.
That was immediately followed by a 10 board clock simul with GM Victor Mikhalevski. Victor was unrelentless and destroyed us (that includes yours truly) 10-0!
Another side event was the WBX team tournament. This annual event runs before every Christmas and this year it coincided with the International. The tournament took place on December 19-20 and attracted a total of 6 teams made up of 3 players each (and a few substitutes). Aaron Sequillion ran this event which despite a few last minute trouble with finding people who could replace others, ran very smoothly.
The main event started on December 17 and lasted until the 21st. It seemed to be quite an experience for some players who were not used to the cold climates, to play in Edmonton in December.
In general the weather last weekend was relatively mild and never seemed to go beyond -20. In fact we all had to do quite a lot of convincing to make sure that GM Jesse Kraai doesn't follow up with his plan and tries to go into the North Saskatchewan river!
In the end there was a 2 way tie for first, but GM Friedel took home the ttle of the 4th Edmonton International as he beat GM Mikhalevski in their game which was used as the tie-breaker.
I would like to thank Tony Ficzere for running the tournament, the DGT boards and just in general being a really productive MR. ACA!
I would also like to thank Aaron Sequillion for running the team tournament, Terry Seehagen for helping with the set-ups, financing and many other activities, Micah Hughey who was always available to do some banking and drinking! I would also like to thank "Rocket" Rob Gardner for picking up some GMs from the airport, Bruce Thomas for lending a couple of DGT boards and Vitaly Motuz for setting up the website.
The next Edmonton International Chess Festival will take place on the first weekend of August, 2010.
I hope to see you there.
Vlad Rekhson
Head Organizer
4th Edmonton International
It all started on December 16, as GM Josh Friedel gave a lecture about a recent game which he played. In it, he illustrated some decisions that he made and how those might differ from someone with a more positional approach, such as GM Jesse Kraai.
That was immediately followed by a 10 board clock simul with GM Victor Mikhalevski. Victor was unrelentless and destroyed us (that includes yours truly) 10-0!
Another side event was the WBX team tournament. This annual event runs before every Christmas and this year it coincided with the International. The tournament took place on December 19-20 and attracted a total of 6 teams made up of 3 players each (and a few substitutes). Aaron Sequillion ran this event which despite a few last minute trouble with finding people who could replace others, ran very smoothly.
The main event started on December 17 and lasted until the 21st. It seemed to be quite an experience for some players who were not used to the cold climates, to play in Edmonton in December.
In general the weather last weekend was relatively mild and never seemed to go beyond -20. In fact we all had to do quite a lot of convincing to make sure that GM Jesse Kraai doesn't follow up with his plan and tries to go into the North Saskatchewan river!
In the end there was a 2 way tie for first, but GM Friedel took home the ttle of the 4th Edmonton International as he beat GM Mikhalevski in their game which was used as the tie-breaker.
I would like to thank Tony Ficzere for running the tournament, the DGT boards and just in general being a really productive MR. ACA!
I would also like to thank Aaron Sequillion for running the team tournament, Terry Seehagen for helping with the set-ups, financing and many other activities, Micah Hughey who was always available to do some banking and drinking! I would also like to thank "Rocket" Rob Gardner for picking up some GMs from the airport, Bruce Thomas for lending a couple of DGT boards and Vitaly Motuz for setting up the website.
The next Edmonton International Chess Festival will take place on the first weekend of August, 2010.
I hope to see you there.
Vlad Rekhson
Head Organizer
4th Edmonton International
Comment