World Chess Beat (December 2008)

Pearl Spring Super-GM Tournament (December 10th-22nd, Nanjing, China)

China will host its first super-tournament and strongest ever held on the continent with the Pearl Spring in Nanjing, China. The field will feature world’s top-ranked Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Sergei Movsesian (Slovakia), Peter Svidler (Russia), and Bu Xiangzhi (China).

Main Site (Chinese): https://www.chess-pearlspring.com/
Main Site (English): https://www.chess-pearlspring.com/yindex.htm
ChessBase: https://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5061

FIDE Grand Prix (December 13th-29th, Sochi, Russia)

This 3rd Grand Prix tournament was had to overcome a few defections including big names such as Magnus Carlsen, but is still a powerful lineup. The field of 14 is as follows:

Sd Surname Name Nation Rating
01 Radjabov, Teimour (AZE, 2751)
02 Leko, Peter (HUN, 2747)
03 Jakovenko, Dmitry (RUS, 2737)
04 Wang Yue (CHN, 2736)
05 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar (AZE, 2731)
06 Eljanov, Pavel (UKR, 2720)
07 Grischuk, Alexander (RUS, 2719)
08 Alekseev, Evgeny (RUS, 2715)
09 Bacrot, Etienne (FRA, 2705)
10 Gashimov, Vugar (AZE, 2703)
11 Cheparinov, Ivan (BUL, 2696)
12 Akopian, Vladimir (ARM, 2679)
13 Kasimzhanov, Rustam (UZB, 2672)
14 Inarkiev, Ernesto (RUS, 2669)

Main Site: https://elista2008.fide.com/

Fred Cameron Open (December 20th-21st, Kingston, Jamaica)

The island of Jamaica will hold their Fred Cameron Open during the holidays. The event hopes to attract all the nation’s top brass after a successful Olympiad. FM-elect Jomo Pitterson won last year’s event by upsetting GM Maurice Ashley.

More information here!

North American Open (December 26th-29th, Las Vegas, USA)

One of the premier tournaments on the west coast of the US, this tournament is located in the tourist haven of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is a modest tournament typically drawing top U.S. players. Past winners have been Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Shabalov and Walter Browne (1st winner in 1991). This year’s field will be significantly weakened the a number of other competing tournaments and many of the top players playing overseas. Nakamura is in Europe, however, Shabalov will return and past winner Jaan Ehlvest will be among the hopefuls.

Standings

Eastern Open (December 27th-30th, Washington DC, USA)

Those who did not want to deal with the notorious holiday travel in getting to the North American Open, the Eastern Open is an option. The event is held by the U.S. Chess Center.

Information: https://www.chessctr.org/eo.htm

Pan-Am Intercollegiate (December 27th-30th, Dallas-Ft.Worth, USA)

This long-running team tournament will feature the nation’s top collegiate teams including perennial powers host University ot Texas-Dallas, University of Maryland-Baltimore Miami-Dade Community College, Duke and Stanford. Other schools to make an impression will be Harvard, University of Toronto and Texas Tech.

Information: https://chess.utdallas.edu/2008panam.html