Grandmasters Dominate at Bangkok Chess Club Open

The 17 visiting Grandmasters showed why they are a class above by scoring 16.5 points in the third round of the Bangkok Chess Club Open on Monday. Thailand has no Grandmasters yet but one of our players, Poompang Wiwatanadate, played a draw against English Grandmaster Nigel Short on Sunday.

On the third day of the BCC Open at the Centara Grand Hotel in Central Plaza, only one Grandmaster was held to a draw: Hungarian Jozsef Horvath against Malaysian Looi Xin Hao. On the first board German Grandmaster Jan Gustafsson had a hard fight before defeating India’s Anup Deshmukh.

Before today there were two Thai players leading the tournament but Wisuwat Teerapabaisit, who has played six Chess Olympics for Thailand, lost to Australia’s Moulthun Ly, and Faris Rashid Alriyami, only 12 years old and by far the lowest rated player to reach the tie for first place after two rounds, was defeated by Woman International Master Phuong Hanh Luong from Vietnam.

Nigel Short, who finished second in a World Championship match in 1993, bounced back from his upset draw against Wiwatanadate to brilliantly defeat Alekhine Nouri of the Philippines. Mr Short said that he had played 13 World Champions in his career but was not sure if a win against Alekhine meant that he had played a 14th. Short has now moved up into 15th place.

Today also saw the first round of the Challengers Tournament with 100 players, bringing the total number at the 2019 BCC Open to 301.

The fourth round of the Bangkok Chess Club Open will begin on Tuesday at 11.00am and will be broadcast live on the chess web site Chess24.com.

For results and games, please visit chess-results.com

All material in the press release may be used and photos credited to Bangkok Chess Club.