Svitlana Demchenko finishes second at Canadian Women’s Zonal

by ChessBase
4/3/2024 – Together with Arne Kähler, Canadian WIM Svitlana Demchenko (photo) regularly entertains and trains readers of our website on the Svitlana’s Smart Moves show. The 20-year-old from Ukraine also made smart moves at the Canadian Women’s Zonal tournament in Toronto, which ended at the beginning of April. She started as number 5 in the seeding list and ended up in a tie for first place with 7½/9 points. She finished second on tiebreaks behind rating favourite Maili-Jade Ouellet. | Photo: ChessCanada Facebook page
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The Canadian Zonal Tournaments — Open Zonal Tournament and Women’s Zonal Tournament — were played from 27 March to 4 April at Hart House Chess Club, the official chess club of the University of Toronto. At stake in the zonal tournaments were the title of Canadian Champion, a place on the national team for the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest and qualification for the 2025 World Cup.

The programme was tight: 10 rounds were played according to the Swiss system in the open tournament and 9 rounds in the women’s tournament.

The open tournament was dominated by IM Shiyam Thavandiran, who won with 9 points from 10 games (8 wins, 2 draws) and a Tournament Performance Rating of 2715 to secure the title of Canadian Champion.

Final standings after 10 rounds

Rk. SNo Name FED Rtg Pts.  TB1   TB2   TB3 
1 10 IM Thavandiran, Shiyam CAN 2347 9 58 62 55,75
2 6 FM Atanasov, Anthony CAN 2407 7 58,5 62 41,25
3 1 IM Rodrigue-Lemieux, Shawn CAN 2506 7 58 63 41,50
4 2 IM Panjwani, Raja CAN 2468 7 57 61 36,75
5 3 GM Preotu, Razvan CAN 2467 7 50,5 55,5 38,50
6 7 IM Sai, Krishna G V CAN 2404 6,5 57 60 32,25
7 29 Noritsyn, Sergey CAN 2191 6,5 55,5 59,5 32,00
8 14 Dorrance, Adam CAN 2276 6,5 53 56 28,25
9 9 FM Ivanov, Mike CAN 2374 6,5 45 47,5 26,00
10 4 GM Sambuev, Bator CAN 2462 6 57 59,5 30,50
11 5 IM Noritsyn, Nikolay CAN 2451 6 55 59 29,25
12 17 FM Dukic, Zachary CAN 2266 6 55 58,5 30,75
13 11 IM Plotkin, Mark CAN 2344 6 53 57 30,00
14 30 FM Doknjas, John CAN 2190 6 48,5 52 25,00
15 50 CM Saha, Ananda CAN 2022 6 46 49,5 23,75
16 45 Zhang, Samuel CAN 2085 6 39 42 21,50
17 26 IM Vettese, Nicholas CAN 2206 5,5 59,5 63 29,50

...64 players (Source: Chess-Results)

Concentrated: IM Shiyam Thavandiran | Photo: ChessCanada Facebook page

The women’s tournament was much more competitive, and after nine rounds three players were finished sharing first place with 7½ out of 9 points: Maili-Jade Ouellet, ChessBase author Svitlana Demchenko and Li Yunshan. Ouellet was declared the winner on tiebreak criteria and thus became the new Canadian Women’s Champion.

Final standings after 9 rounds

Rk. SNo Name FED Rtg Pts.  TB1   TB2   TB3 
1 1 WGM Ouellet, Maili-Jade CAN 2267 7,5 49,5 53,5 42,75
2 5 WIM Demchenko, Svitlana CAN 2141 7,5 48,5 52,5 41,25
3 2 WIM Li, Yunshan CAN 2262 7,5 47,5 52 42,50
4 3 WIM Pham, Bich Ngoc CAN 2206 6,5 48 52,5 35,00
5 7 Li, Yilin CAN 1897 6 46 50 30,25
6 6 WFM Mills, Morgen CAN 2018 6 44 47 26,75
7 10 Jiang, Kate Yuhua CAN 1884 5,5 45 47,5 25,00
8 13 D`souza, Carina CAN 1825 5,5 44 48 27,75
9 4 WFM Golubeva, Oksana CAN 2158 5,5 43,5 48 27,00
10 28 Sreekumar, Gauri CAN 1635 5,5 41 44 22,75
11 12 WCM Zhong, April Yunwei CAN 1841 5,5 39,5 43 24,25
12 31 Mok, Gillian Xi-Lin CAN 1623 5,5 37 39,5 21,75
13 9 Zhang, Michelle CAN 1885 5,5 36,5 40 22,75
14 11 WCM Laksshana, Deepak CAN 1871 5 46,5 49,5 23,00

...49 players (Source: Chess-Results)

Svitlana Demchenko | Photo: ChessCanada Facebook page

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