It was a typical first round of an open tournament at the 18th Bangkok Chess Club Open Championships being held at the Regent Cha-Am Beach Resort from 13-21 April 2018.

All the leading contenders went through relatively comfortably with perhaps third seeded Jan Gustafsson making his task the most difficult.

There is a difference between strong grandmasters knowing how to win tournaments and the experienced amateurs and even the up and coming young talents, and in the end, even when playing well within themselves, their class showed.

• Full results and pairings are at chess-results.com
• Live Games at: chess24.com and on the Follow Chess App.

The 18th Bangkok Chess Club Open Championships is now underway with nearly 200 players from 37 countries.

With 39 entries, India has the largest number of participants and there are a total of 66 titled players including 15 grandmasters, 4 woman grandmasters, 12 international masters and 3 woman international masters.

Top seeded is first time Armenia’s Hrant Melkumyan and the second seed is defending and three time champion Nigel Short from England.

German Jan Gustafsson is now a regular and this is one of the few tournaments the popular third seed plays each year and the fourth seeded and remaining 2600 GM present is Argentine Diego Flores.

Blindfold King Timur Gareyev who plays for the USA is the fifth seed.

The Asian challenge is young and led by Australia’s Anton Smirnov, Vietnam’s Tran Tuan Minh and Iran’s Shahi Lorparizangeneh while IMs Karthikeyan P from indian and Kevin Goh Wei Ming from Singapore are looking to complete their GM title requirements.

• Full details at: chess-results.com
• Photos at facebook
• Live games at chess24

Both tournaments have been registered with Chess-Results.com. Please check here for your name on the list:

• Challenger
• Open

300 players have registered for the 18th edition of the renowned Bangkok Chess Club international open chess tournament, including 22 grandmasters, and hailing from 47 different countries. There is still time to register and join veterans like GM Nigel Short and GM Alexander Morozevich, and rising stars  like juniors GM Anton Smirnov and IM Cyrus Low.