Home Page arrow Chess Life Online arrow 2011 arrow December arrow GMs So & Shulman Join Field at Northern California International
GMs So & Shulman Join Field at Northern California International Print E-mail
By Arun Sharma   
December 8, 2011
GM Yury Shulman, Photo Betsy Dynako
The Northern California International is shaping up to be one of the strongest tournaments recently held in the US. The field will include ten GMs, three of whom are rated at least 2650, along with eighteen IMs, so the competition should be extremely fierce.  

The event should also be somewhat unique for having a much larger overall percentage of high rated players than the vast majority of US events. With about half the field rated at least 2350 FIDE, heavyweight clashes should start early on.  This will also ensure the event has a much higher average rating than most tournaments which should make norm opportunities plentiful for those pursuing them, and with the event now also having twenty one players of non-US Federation, it has reached the "Super Swiss" status.  

This will completely relieve the usual requirement that so often plagues players in US events of needing to play at least four foreigners in nine rounds to be eligible for a norm.  There is still time to sign up if you would like to take part in the event.  Anyone interested should contact organizers Arun Sharma and Ted Castro.  Spending New Year's in the San Francisco area should also make for a great experience along with the tournament.  But we are less than a one month away so plan soon if you would like to play. 


November FIDE Rating Federation
1. GM Georg Meier 2659 GER
2. GM Wesley So 2659 PHI
3. GM Sergey Tiviakov 2650 NED
4. GM Yury Shulman 2598 USA
5. GM Sam Shankland 2560 USA
6. GM Axel Bachmann 2551 PAR
7. GM Giorgi Margvelashvili 2531 GEO
8. GM Josh Friedel 2523 USA
9. IM Marc Arnold 2504 USA
10. GM Darwin Laylo 2502 PHI
11. GM Denes Boros 2482 HUN
12. IM Bryan Smith 2460 USA
13. IM Greg Shahade 2459 USA
14. IM Adam Hunt 2458 ENG
15. IM Mackenzie Molner 2455 USA
16. IM Marc Esserman 2450 USA
17. IM Darwin Yang 2442 USA
18. IM John Bartholomew 2437 USA
19. IM Sam Collins 2426 IRL
20. IM Sasha Kaplan 2419 ISR
21. IM Daniel Rensch 2416 USA
22. IM Zhanibek Amanov 2411 KAZ
23. IM Larry Remlinger 2409 USA
24. FM Farai Mandizha 2404 ZIM
25. IM Max Cornejo 2399 PER
26. IM David Pruess 2395 USA
27. IM Angelo Young 2350 PHI
28. NM Tigran Ishkhanov 2350 USA
29. FM Eric Rodriguez 2344 USA
30. SM Faik Aleskerov 2339 AZE
31. FM Teddy Coleman 2310 USA
32. IM Leon Piasetski 2305 CAN
33. FM Konstantin Kavutskiy 2303 USA
34. FM Shivkumar Shivaji 2295 USA
35. NM Yian Liou 2283 USA
36. FM Kayden Troff 2279 USA
37. FM Erik Santarius 2276 USA
38. FM Alex Betaneli 2266 USA
39. WGM Tatev Abrahamyan 2264 USA
40. FM Bela Evans 2262 USA
41. IM Ray Kaufman 2261 USA
42. FM Michael Kleinman 2256 CAN
43. FM Richard Lobo 2251 ENG
44. NM Damir Studen 2248 USA
45. FM Andy Lee 2244 USA
46. WIM Viktorija Ni 2225 LAT
47. FM Dale Haessel 2211 CAN
48. NM Adarsh Jayakumar 2197 USA
49. NM Hayk Manvelyan 2183 USA
50. NM Daniel Gurevich 2180 USA
51. NM Ben Gershenov 2173 USA
52. WFM Uyanga Byambaa 2118 MGL
53. FM Jeffrey Xiong 2056 USA
54. Daniel Liu 2049 USA
55. Steven Gaffagan 2047 USA
56. Udit Iyengar 1995 USA