Open tournaments patronized by elites

Open tournaments are the most common in chess and do not usually attract an international cast. Even the major opens of big chess countries usually attract mostly local players.

The reason is the amount of prizes. The champion usually wins $5000 - $10,000 only and the organizers mostly expect the registration fees to cover most of the expenses.

Of course there are exceptions and the most notable is the Millionaires Open . The first Millionaire Chess Open that took place from Oct. 9, 2014 and was held at Las Vegas.

It attracted 1,200 entries from more than 40 countries. It was organized by Maurice Ashley and super-entrepreneur Amy Lee.

The unprecedented prize fund electrified chess fans around the world and brought international media attention in a way rarely seen by any chess event.

The winner of the Open section with the highest prize of $100,000 was GM-Wesley So. The prize fund also consisted of $40,000 for the 1st place finishers in the U2200, U2000, U1800, and U1600 sections and $24,000 for the U1400 section. The registration fee averaged $1,500 defending on when you register.

Another super-open is the on-going Gibraltar tournament with 248 players from 53 countries in the Masters section, 71 of them are grandmasters. The tournament will lasts until Feb. 3. It is considered the “finest “Open in the world.

This is an extremely strong tournament.The top 10 players are Fabiano Caruana - 2827 [USA], Maxime Vachier-Lagrave2796 (France), Hikaru Nakamura - 2785 (USA), Vassily Ivanchuk - 2752 (Ukraine), Michael Adams - 2751 (England), Peter Svidler - 2748 (Russia), Veselin Topalov - 2739 (Bulgaria), Boris Gelfand - 2721 (Israel), and Hou Yifan - 2651 (China).

If you were to take the top ten seeds of this tournament, it would be as strong as an elite round-robin event! The average rating of the top ten seeds is a whopping 2758! There are also 32 players above 2600.

First place is £23,000, or $28,500 USD) and a total of £44,000 for top ladies.

Scrabble. There will be a scrabble tournament tomorrow, Saturday, at Robinsons Cybergate Fuente. Format is Modified King of the Hill and six rounds for the elementary and high school and seven rounds for college and professional participants. It starts at 10 a.m.

There will also be a CEPCA Blitz tournament tomorrow for Class B players and our monthly tournament on Sunday both at Knight Attack Chess Café at Robinsons Galleria. It Starts at 130 p.m.