Four Lead at the Philadelphia International
By Jennifer Shahade   
June 27, 2009
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GM Timur Gareev and Jiri Stocek are among the leaders after four rounds of the Philadelphia International
After four rounds of the Philadelphia International (June 25-29), four players lead with 3.5/4: GMs Timur Gareev and Jiri Stocek and IMs Jacek Stopa and Sam Shankland. Access the standings here and see more information about prize money and schedule.

Here is one of Stocek's win, against one of the many Canadians participating in the event.

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Look for more games and info on the tournament after its conclusion on Tuesday. Starting on July 1, World Open games will be live on monroi.com.

Because many of the 42 players in the International are IMs and GMs, who are more likely to forget or neglect to bring along chess sets, there was a deficit of equipment in the early rounds. In round two, Timur Gareev and Daniel Yeager were only able to find this defective chess board, which amused IM Daniel Fernandez in the photo below. The letters and numbers were on the wrong side of the board-forcing them to either play with a black right corner square or to set the board up with lettered ranks and numbered files. Luckily, a replacement was located, but I hope this was chess board was not part of a large print run! 

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