4th Metropolitan IM Norm Invitational Midway Report

Metropolitan Chess is hosting an International Master norm round robin tournament from April 6th to 10th of 2011. The tournament is sponsored by California Market Center, Fashion Business, Inc, MonRoi, Chess.com, LawyerFy, and Betty Bottom Showroom.

This tournament is being held in Suite C998 of the California Market Center on 110 East 9th Street, Los Angeles 90079. The tournament is organized by Ankit Gupta, the chief arbiter is Randy Hough, and the deputy arbiter is Michael Belcher. The participants include: IM Zhanibek Amanov (KAZ), IM Timothy Taylor (USA), IM Andranik Matikozyan (ARM), FM Pedram Atoufi (IRI), FM Joel Banawa (USA), FM Michael Casella (USA), SM Roman Yankovsky (RUS), NM Yian Liou (USA), NM Alessandro Steinfl (ITA), Vadim Kudryavtsev (RUS). Photos of the tournament leader is shown below:

FM Joel Banawa. Photo Credit: Chris Roberts

FM Joel Banawa (USA) leads the tournament (pictured above) with an impressive 5.5 out of 7.0. FM Pedram Atoufi (IRI) follows slightly behind with 5.0 out of 7.0. 6.5 out of 9.0 is necessary for an International Master norm.

Standings will be updated regularly on the schedule section of the Metropolitan Chess website (http://metrochessla.com/schedule.php). Current standings are available. Simply go to the schedule section and click on the red bar titled '4th Metropolitan Chess FIDE Invitational' to view a complete crosstable with standings.

Included below are two games, briefly annotated by FM Joel Banawa.

The tournament will be a 10 player round-robin (all play all), with rounds scheduled as follows – 6th: 7:00 PM, 7th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 8th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 9th: 11:00 AM & 5:00 PM, 10th: 10:00 AM & 4:00 PM. Spectators are welcome and encouraged to come to watch the games in person at the tournament site. There will be a grandmaster commentary day live on-site. This commentary will also be viewable on www.chess.com/tv

 Commentary will be at 5:00 PM on April 10th for the 9th round of the tournament. Grandmaster Melikset Khachiyan will be commenting for both of the commentary day. Local players/spectators are welcome to come to the tournament site to hear the commentaries live -- talk to the security in the lobby of the building to be directed to the proper room.

Because of a technical difficulty we were unable to run the broadcast on the 9th of April. However, commentary on the 10th of April, will resume as normal.

Metropolitan Chess will also be hosting a GM/IM/WGM/WIM norm event in August. This will be the first swiss format event that Metropolitan Chess runs. More details about that event can be found here.