The Canadian Transnational (CTN) Blitz and Rapid Tournaments were held over the June 3-4, weekend, at St. Casimir's Parish Hall, located in the charming Roncesvalles neighbourhood about 1.5 kilometres from Toronto's downtown core. St. Casimir's provided an intimate setting for 94 players and numerous friends and spectators to compete, observe games being played, and also mix and mingle between rounds and at lunch. This was speedy chess at its finest!

In the Crown Section, 40 titled chess players participated, including 18 Grandmasters and 4 Women's Grandmasters.  This was one of the strongest fields ever assembled for a Canadian chess tournament. In the General Section, another 54 chess players participated. All players competed for cash prizes and rating points in their respective sections.

Saturday's 7-double round Blitz tournament had a short time control of 3 minutes plus a 2 second increment. The Rapid tournament had a longer time control of 15 minutes plus a 5 second increment, and was distributed over Saturday (3 evening rounds) and Sunday (8 daytime rounds).

More pics are available below and here.

Below are the results of the two tournaments, including player details, ratings, scores and total and individual prizes:

CTN Blitz - CROWN SECTION (Max of 14 pts.) - $1,500

• 1st place - Marin Bosiocic (GM, CRO, FIDE 2576) - 11 pts. - $750
• 2nd place - Awonder Liang (GM, USA, FIDE 2508) - 10.5 pts. - $500
• T3rd place - Mateusz Bartel (GM, POL, FIDE 2521) - 9.5 pts. - $84
• T3rd place - Cristhian Cruz (GM, PER, FIDE 2502) - 9.5 pts. - $83
• T3rd place - Shawn Rodrigues-Lemieux (IM, CAN, FIDE 2502) - 9.5 pts. - $83

CTN Blitz - GENERAL SECTION (Max of 14 pts.) - $500

• 1st place - Ethan Moon (CFC 2024) - 11 pts. - $250
• Top U1600 - T14 - Joshua Bakradze (CFC 1535) - 8 pts. - $75
• Top U1600 - T14 - Ryan Puri (CFC 1155) - 8 pts. - $75
• Top Jr. (U12) - T2nd - Aaron Reeve Mendez (CM, CFC 2331) - 10.5 pts. - $50
• Top Woman - T2nd - Cindy Qiao (CFC 1986) - 10.5 pts. - $50

CTN Rapid - CROWN SECTION (Max of 11 pts.) - $2,050

• 1st place - Awonder Liang (GM, USA, FIDE 2508) - 8.5 pts. - $1,000
• T2nd/3rd place - Razvan Preotu (GM, CAN, FIDE 2532) - 8 pts. - $525
• T2nd/3rd place - Shawn Rodrigues-Lemieux (IM, CAN, FIDE 2532) - 8 pts. - $525

CTN Rapid - GENERAL SECTION (Max of 11 pts.) - $950

• 1st place - Richard Douglas (CFC 2116) - 9 pts. - $500
• Top U1600 - T18 - Arya Sen (CFC 1524) - 6 pts. - $100
• Top U1600 - T18 - Ademar Gonzales (CFC 1265) - 6 pts. - $100
• Top Jr. (U12) - T2nd - Aaron Reeve Mendez (CM, CFC 2331) - 8.5 pts. - $100
• Top Woman - T11th - Cindy Qiao (CFC 1986) - 6.5 pts. - $100
• Top Unrated - T36th - Jayson Whiteford (CFC UNR) - 4 pts. - $50

Congratulations to all the winners. Monetary prizes will be distributed soon.

CTN Classic Starts Soon in Montreal

The CTN Classic Tournament starts soon in Montreal as close to 60 titled players gather together for 9 rounds of classic chess from June 6 to 11. Most of the GMs, WGMs and other titled players that played in the Toronto events will travel from Toronto to Montreal by train or car for this event. They will be joined in Montreal by another 20 or so additional titled players that did not attend the Toronto events. The non-GMs will  be playing in the Classic with the hope of earning a Grandmaster (or an International Master) norm through a strong performance against higher titled players.

In addition, 100 or more non-titled players are expected to compete for prizes and rating points in the accompanying General Section for 5 rounds of classic chess from June 9-11. Registrations are still open for the General Section. Please visit our annexchessclub.com main home page to register and for further information.

Links, Pics and Thanks

We have posted pics from the two Toronto events here.

Twitch Streamer, WGM Qiyu Zhou (akaNemsko) has posted her streamed CTN Blitz games on Twitch along with some commentary about the event.

Here is a link more pics on our Facebook page, including John Upper's pics of the Rapid and Salim's pics from the Classic.

Here is a link to the CTN Rapid games stored on Lichess.

Here is a link to the Crown Players' List.

Links to Chess-results.com may be found on our main home page.

Thanks to everyone who participated — the talented and friendly players, our superb Arbiter team (with their yellow ACC hats), our Organizers/Board members and volunteers, and also the staff at St. Casimir's. You all did a great job in making the CTN Blitz and Rapid Events an enjoyable experience for everyone!