Washington International Kicks Off, Field Includes Kamsky, Onischuk
By Michael Regan   
July 27, 2012
WashingtonDCLogo.jpgThe inaugural Washington International starts this weekend. Three of the top four players residing in the US will be playing (Kamsky, Gareev, and Onischuk). The current overall field for the tournament includes 10 GMs and 11 IMs. The 9-round tournament will award $17,000 in guaranteed prizes and runs from July 28 till August 1st in Rockville, MD The top four boards will have the games broadcast live at http://washintl.mdchess.com. Rounds are at 11am and 6pm Saturday through Tuesday and at 10am on Wednesday.

Running concurrently with the Washington International will be the Platonov Memorial Tournament. This is a six-player round robin tournament dedicated to the memory of GM Igor Platonov. The players planning to attend this tournament are GMs Lev Alburt(USA), Boris Gulko(USA), Gregory Kaidanov(USA), Sam Palatnik (USA), Mikhail Gurevich (Turkey), and Adrian Mihalcisin (Slovenia). The tournament will coincide with the release of the new book, Platonov's Academy, by Lev Alburt and Sam Palatnik. All the games from this tournament will also be broadcast live at Platonov Memorial Tournament. Games will be at 2pm Saturday through Tuesday.

On Friday there will be an opening reception and the Washington International Blitz. This blitz tournament will be a 5/0 FIDE blitz rated tournament and is open to anyone.

These three tournaments are the centerpieces of five tournaments that the Maryland Chess Association is running over a period of 15 days, the Maryland Chess Summer. Following these tournaments the last one is the Potomac Open from August 3 - 5. All the tournaments will be at the Rockville Hilton, and all of them will have pairings, standings and live game coverage on mdchess.com and at the above links.