2010 City of Montreal Open Chess Championships

Playing venue scene.  Beautiful surroundings.

It's official!  2010's Championnat has surpassed last year's mark with 198 players (my count based on R2 pairings, but there are 200 names listed in the R1 standings).  Our Club Ahuntsic friends are very happy.  There was (as last year) a surge of last minute on-site registrations but I believe Round 1 started on time - lots of byes were handed out.

Here are R1 standings.

Official website. 

Here are the R1 games that you can play through for the top 3 boards - I don't know how long they will be available.

Bernard Ouimet, our Ahuntsic contact, reported that at the conclusion of his game, GM Alex Lenderman wandered into the commentary room and surprised the heck out of the fellas giving commentary and everyone present by offering to go over his game, which happened to be on the big screen at the time - this is what Bernard writes (it will appear on the official website's blog but will only be in French):

A RARE SPECTATOR TREAT – Spectators in the live commentary room were spoiled during round one when Grandmaster Alexandr Lenderman casually walked in after winning his game. Seeing that the main screen showed the final position of his game, he offered his own commentaries on it. Offer accepted on the spot. Alex.then dazzled the audience with his in-depth view of the game, answering questions from the audience (many of them from his victim of the day). It was a great moment for the spectators. Alex certainly made many friends with his generous attitude.


WIM Yuan Yuanling (Open) drew her R1 game with Felix Dumont.  Kelly Wang (Group B) won her R1 game with Jeremie Gauthier.

Here's Don McLean, our Gchess reporter, tinkering at the baby grand piano I just knew had to be somewhere on these premises - Don has an instinct for finding keyboards. He played keyboard and guitar with a couple of bands back in the day and continues to compose.