So dominated NAO

Wesley So dominated North American Open
Dec 31, 2014

Grandmaster Wesley So has won another strong tournament in Las Vegas, by claiming the top section of the 24th Annual North American Open that was held from 26-30th December at Bally’s Casino Resort.

Wesley So competed the race with 8,0/9 points to earn 9700 USD top prize. In October he won the inaugural Millionaire Chess Open, also in Las Vegas.

Grandmasters Xiangzhi Bu 2691 CHN, Julio J Becerra 2546 FL, Alex Yermolinsky 2519 SD and Vladimir Georgiev 2517 MKD shared the second place with 6,5/9 points each, quite some distance behind the winner. They earned 2300 USD apiece.

Atulya Shetty, Alexander Kretchetov and Safal Bora have scored IM norms, while Ramya Krishna Inapuri achieved a WIM norm.

Replay games with analysis

The 24th North American Open had 7 sections: Open, Under 2300, Under 2100, Under 1900, Under 1700, Under 1500 and Under 1250. The total prize fund was slightly under 120,000 USD.

Open section final standings:

1. GM Wesley So 2762 MN – 8,0

2-5. GM Xiangzhi Bu 2691 CHN, GM Julio J Becerra 2546 FL, GM Alex Yermolinsky 2519 SD and GM Vladimir Georgiev 2517 MKD – 6,5

6-16. GM Sergey Erenburg 2601 VA, GM Jianchao Zhou 2587 CHN, GM Maxim Dlugy 2494 NY, IM Akshat Chandra 2489 NJ, GM Nikola Mitkov 2482 MKD, IM Chen Wang 2473 CHN, GM Enrico M Sevillano 2465 CA, WGM Qian Huang 2464 CHN, IM Roman Yankovsky 2436 RUS, FM Safal Bora 2379 MI and IM Joshua Ruiz 2377 COL – 6,0

17-26. GM Tsegme Batchuluun 2525 MGL, IM Yang Shen 2475 CHN, IM Andres Gallego 2411 COL, FM Daniel Gurevich 2365 GA, IM Ryosuke Nanjo 2348 JPN, FM Kostya Kavutskiy 2332 CA, FM Atulya Shetty 2307 MI, FM Awonder Liang 2266 WI, FM Alexander Kretchetov 2234 RUS and Joshua Colas 2220 NY – 5,5 etc (95 players)