2016 Grand Pacific Open

Our 10th anniversary!

The 10th Annual Grand Pacific Open drew a blowout record 152 players from around the world: Brazil, France, 6 states and 7 provinces.   Turnout for all tournaments organized by Victoria Chess this last year was at record numbers and it became clear to us back in February that this year's GPO was going to continue the trend but even so, we underestimated the final turnout.  A fitting turnout for our 10th anniversary (and check out the fabulous birthday cake above that the hotel gave us for our awards ceremony!)

The player list was headed by pre-tournament favorite GM Alexandr Fier,  IM Bindi Cheng, and a number of FMs, NMs, a WGM, and the usual suspects from the local BC chess playing scene.   Players of a certain age will remember the Ross brothers, IM Dave and FM Paul, who apparently were using the GPO as a warmup event prior to their participation in this year's World Senior Team Championship.

Although the clear favorite rating wise by a wide margin, GM Fier had his scored nibbled away by NM Robert Sasata with a round 3 draw and a round 5 draw with BC Champion Jason Cao.   In the end, Fier tied for first with Cao and FM Kevin Gentes with Cao taking the trophy on tiebreak.

The full standings for the main even can be found here:

There were a number of side events starting with a set of simuls against WGM Nino Maisuradze and GM Alexandr Fier.   As is the usual case in such events, the featured players scored heavily winning all but one of the games against the roughly 26 players with only Andrew Hempstapat holding a draw against Fier.

Next up was the VYCC (Victoria Youth Chess Championship), a qualifying event for juniors to the national Youth Chess Championship.   Full standings are available here:

The Event report is in progress and will be updated over the next few days.

Final standings are here:

Congratulations on the 2016 GPO winner Victoria native FM Jason Cao who took the trophy on tiebreak over GM Alexandr Fier (Brazil) and FM Kevin Gentes (Manitoba)

While you are waiting for this report to be updated, enjoy this fabulous cake the Hotel presented us with for our 10th anniversary.