The 34th Annual World Open took place in the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center Hotel, Philadelphia from June 28 to July 4, 2006. It was a nine round Swiss, with 40 moves in 2 hours and then the rest in one hour. The total prize fund for the event was $300,000 guaranteed. The top prizes for the Open Section were $28,000, $13,000, $7,000, $3,000, etc. Since nine players tied for first place, the prizes were evenly split and everyone basically got $6,000. In addition the World Open awards two qualifying spots for the 2007 US Championship.

We counted 237 players in the final table of the World Open, and that included 46 GMs, 26 IMs and 5 WGMs (all Indian). The following table gives the points of the top 100 – the rest can be found here.

• All available games (369, in zipped PGN). The organisers have announced that they will be providing additional pictures on their download page in a few days.

There was a nine-way tie for first, and the official web site tells us that that "GM Gata Kamsky wins the Tie Break Blitz Game over GM Vadim Milov!!!" (their exclams).

Kamsky,G (2671) - Milov,V (2625) [C10]
34th World Open Blitz Playoff Philadelphia USA (1), 04.07.2006
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Nxf6+ Nxf6 7.c3 c5 8.Ne5 a6 9.Qa4+ Bd7 10.Nxd7 Qxd7 11.Qxd7+ Kxd7 12.dxc5 Bxc5 13.Be2 Kc7 14.a4 Rad8 15.Bf4+ Bd6 16.Bg5 h6 17.Bxf6 gxf6 18.Bh5 Rd7 19.g3 Rg8 20.f4 f5 21.Ke2 f6 22.Rad1 Rgd8 23.Rhf1 Bc5 24.Rxd7+ Rxd7 25.b4 Bf8 26.a5 b6 27.Ra1

27...e5 28.Bg6 exf4 29.gxf4 Rg7 30.Bxf5 Rg2+ 31.Ke3 Rxh2 32.axb6+ Kxb6 33.Bd3 Rh3+ 34.Kd4 Bd6 35.Rxa6+ Kc7 36.Ra7+ Kb6 37.Rf7 Rh4 38.Kd5 Bxf4 39.Rxf6+ Kb7 40.Rf7+ Kb8 41.c4 Be3 42.Be4 Rf4 43.Rh7 Rg4 44.c5 Rg8 45.Kc6 Rf8 46.Kb5 Bd2 47.Bc6 Rf4 48.Kb6 Rf8 49.Ra7 1-0.

Remarkable is the 38th place of FM Yoshiharu Habu (6/9). Why? Because Habu is not really a chess player, but the world's leading Shogi champion, who has taken a casual interest in chess.

Yoshiharu HABU, the undisputed champion of Shogi (a complex game which is the Japanese equivalent of chess), is a top celebrity in Japan. Ever since he joined the Professional School of Shogi at the age of twelve, Mr Habu, who is now 35 years old, has been known as the one of the most gifted player in the history of this ancient game. He is the only player to have ever won the seven most prestigious titles successively and he has an outstanding record of 74% of victories over the entire span of his career. Since 1995, he has taken a keen interest in chess, and notwithstanding the little time he has had to study our game, he has already scored an International Master norm.

Philadelphia is normally hot but beautiful and celebrating July 4 in a big way. This year the city, in fact all the Northeast USA was hit by thunder storms and massive rain fall. Many streets in the city were closed because they resembled rivers, rather than roads. But that has not deterred about 1500 chess players from coming here to play in this tournament.

GM Artur Jussupow at the World Open in Philadelphia

Zeljka instructs GM Magesh Panchanathan on how to use the handheld

• Official web site of the 2006 World Open