The 25th Annual Pittsburgh Chess Open was held from 26-28th July at the Doubletree Green Tree in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
The event had five sections: Major (for players rated over 1900), Under 2100, Under 1800, Under 1500 and Under 1200. The top two sections are FIDE rated.
The tournament format was 5-round Swiss with the time control 40/80, SD/30, d30 (2-day option, rounds 1-2 G/60 d10).
The main Major Section had 21 players. Grandmaster Awonder Liang took a clear first place with 4.5/5 points, earning the top prize of $1400. Liang immediately proceeds to compete in the US Open Chess Championship in Norfolk. Recently he won the strong World Chess Open in Philadelphia.
Under 2100 section had 49 participants. Pierre J Vachon 2017 and Nathaniel Joseph Des Ruisseau 1635 shared the first place with 4.5/5 points each.
Under 1800 section had 38 participants. Benjamin Koo 1699, Charles Kiesling 1696, Pranav Eswar Jayaganesh 1646 and Maxwell Chung 1532 shared the first place with 4/5 points each.
Under 1500 section gathered 26 participants. Ghanishth Prabhakar Awasthi 1407 won with the perfect 5/5 score.
Under 1200 section had 35 players. Dominic Paladina 1161 and Jacob Rothrauff 1056 shared the first place with 4.5/5 points each.
Major Section final standings:
1 GM Awonder Liang 2732 – 4.5
2-3 FM Erick Zhao 2471 and FM Gabriel Petesch 2425 – 4.0
4 Andrew T Feng 2155 – 3.5
5-8 CM William Hongyu Li 2284, Sharath Radhakrishnan 2263, Brian Tay 2210 and WFM Roza Eynula 2170 – 3.0 etc
21 players
The event had a $13,000 guaranteed prize fund.
