New England Masters 2008

GM Leonid Kritz top seeded at the chess competition

The New England Masters 2008 is a 9 round FIDE rated chess tournament that will be held at the Blackstone Chess Academy, Pawtucket (near Providence), Rhode Island, USA, from August 11-15, 2008. The tournament will offer good GM and IM norm opportunities but will only be open to the first 50 players that confirm their entries. The event is the third in a series of Masters events following in the footsteps of the successful Las Vegas Masters 2006 and New England Masters 2007.
This year's event will be part of the Blackstone Chess Festival. The New England Masters will be followed by the Blackstone Open that will be held on the weekend of August 16-17.

Last years winner GM Leonid Kritz will be top seeded at the event. He will participate at the New England Masters right before he goes to the Spice Cup 2008

The time control for all games will be 40 moves in 2 hours followed by an additional 30 minutes to complete the rest of the game on the completion of move 40. All clocks will be set with a 5 second delay per move, in effect from move 1. Byes will not be allowed in the tournament. Norm seekers should note that it is necessary to play all 9 rounds to be eligible for norms. Should a player have to miss a round and wishes to remain in the tournament, a zero point bye will be awarded.

The FIDE rule of immediate forfeit will be enforced for a player having a cell phone or other device that makes an audible sound during tournament play.

A player is eligible for GM norms if he plays against at least 4 different federations (a maximum of 5 from any one federation) and 7 rated players, 5 of whom must be titled players and at least 3 GMs. For IM norms you have to play against at least 4 different federations (a maximum of 5 from any one federation) and 7 rated players, 5 of whom must be titled players and either 2 GMs, 2 IMs and 1 GM or 3 IMs.

New England Masters participants

1 GM Kritz, Leonid GER 2610
2 GM Gareev, Timur UZB 2570
3 GM Erenburg, Sergey ISR 2563
4 IM Friedel, Joshua E USA 2524
5 GM Arkell, Keith C ENG 2506
6 Sammour-Hasbun, Jorge PLE 2463
7 IM Vovsha, Eli ISR 2461
8 IM Stopa, Jacek POL 2440
9 IM Sarkar, Justin USA 2416
10 IM Vigorito, David USA 2382
11 FM Kleiman, Jake USA 2353
12 Shmelov, Denys UKR 2349
13 FM Schuyler, James USA 2346
14 IM Dominguez, Jose M. DOM 2321
15 FM Castaneda, Nelson USA 2314
16 FM Bournival, Braden USA 2303
17 FM Critelli, James USA 2296
18 Hansen, Eric CAN 2268
19 WFM Melekhina, Alisa USA 2265
20 Enkin, Max USA 2262

More about New England Masters

Official website

Letter from Chris Bird - Organizer, New England Masters 2008