Canadian Open Chess Winners

#	Year	Place	Winner	Players
1	1956	Montreal	Larry Evans William Lombardy	88
2	1958	Winnipeg	Elod Macskasy	44
3	1960	Kitchener	Anthony Saidy	40
4	1962	Ottawa	Laszlo Witt	48
5	1964	Scarborough	Pal Benko	76
6	1966	Kingston	Larry Evans	116
7	1968	Toronto	Bent Larsen	164
8	1970	St. John's	Bent Larsen	55
9	1971	Vancouver	Boris Spassky Hans Ree	156
10	1973	Ottawa	Duncan Suttles	235
11	1974	Montreal	Ljubomir Ljubojevic	648
12	1975	Calgary	Leonid Shamkovich	215
13	1976	Toronto	Nick de Firmian Lawrence Day	408
14	1977	Fredericton	Jan Green-Krotki	166
15	1978	Hamilton	Gyula Sax	185
16	1979	Edmonton	Abe Yanofsky	135
17	1980	Ottawa	Lawrence Day	212
18	1981	Beauport Quebec	Igor Ivanov	148
19	1982	Vancouver	Gordon Taylor	148
20	1983	Toronto	Kevin Spraggett Bozidar Ivanovic	330
21	1984	Ottawa	Igor Ivanov Brett Campbell Denis Allan Dave Ross	146
22	1985	Edmonton	Igor Ivanov Brian Hartman	91
23	1986	Winnipeg	Artur Yusupov Viktor Kupreichik	146
24	1987	Toronto	Kevin Spraggett	208
25	1988	Scarborough	Lawrence Day	201
26	1989	Edmonton	Vladimir Tukmakov	181
27	1990	Edmundston	Georgi Timoshenko	59
28	1991	Windsor	Walter Browne	120
29	1992	Scarborough	Alexei Barsov Bryon Nickoloff	254
30	1993	London	Kevin Spraggett	128
31	1994	Winnipeg	Vladimir Tukmakov	187
32	1995	Toronto	Kevin Spraggett Eduardas Rozentalis Ron Livshits Bryon Nickoloff Deen Hergott	303
33	1996	Calgary	Kevin Spraggett	147
34	1997	Winnipeg	Julian Hodgson	188
35	1998	Ottawa	Dmitri Tyomkin Michael Oratovsky Evgeny Prokopchuk Kevin Spraggett	223
36	1999	Vancouver	Kevin Spraggett Georgi Orlov	204
37	2000	Edmonton	Kevin Spraggett Jonathan Rowson Joel Benjamin	193
38	2001	Sackville, NB	Larry Christiansen Anthony Miles	169
39	2002	Montreal	Jean-Marc Degraeve Pascal Charbonneau Jean Hébert	326
40	2003	Kapuskasing	Alex Moiseenko	141
41	2004	Kapuskasing	Dimitri Tyomkin Alex Moiseenko	125
42	2005	Edmonton	Vassily Ivanchuk Alexei Shirov Mark Bluvshtein Viorel Bologan SR Chowdhury	222
43	2006	Kitchener	Walter Arencibia Abhijit Kunte	198
44	2007	Ottawa	Bu Xiangzhi	280
45	2008	Montreal	Alex Moiseenko Eduardas Rozentalis Victor Mikhalevski Matthieu Cornette	325
46	2009	Edmonton	Mark Bluvshtein Edward Porper	202
47	2010	Toronto	Luke McShane	265
48	2011	Toronto	Walter Arencibia, Joel Benjamin, Dejan Bojkov	277
49	2012	Victoria	?	?

Links in the # column (e.g., 33 to 40) are the rating crosstables at the Chess Federation of Canada site. For the 2003 edition, that crosstable is not in finish order, so try my crosstable--the official one! An error in clicking CFC links is not necessarily permanent! New (2011) website of the CFC protocol now followed. I hope they don't change the formula again. Links in the third column are to the original tournament website. If a link is dead (so many things can happen: domain unrenewed, page erased, page moved...), try the Wayback Machine. I was able to bring back the 2003 and 2004 information that way.

Summary by Place

Place	times	Average	Years
Toronto*	10	249	64 68 76 83 87 88 92 95 10 11
Ottawa	6	191	62 73 80 84 98 07
Edmonton	6	171	79 85 89 00 05 09
Montreal	4	347	56 74 02 08
Winnipeg	4	141	58 86 94 97
Vancouver	3	169	71 82 99
Calgary	2	181	75 96
Kapuskasing	2	133	03 04
Kitchener	2	119	60 06

* Toronto includes Scarborough in this table. Plus Kingston (66), St. John's (70), Fredericton (77), Hamilton (78), Québec (81), Edmundston (90), Windsor (91), London (93), Sackville (01),--once each. Some notable cities which have never hosted the Canadian Open: Victoria, Saskatoon, Regina, Trois-Rivières, Saint John, Charlottetown, Halifax.

Kevin Spraggett won or tied for first 8 times, and between 1993 and 2000 was absent from the winners' circle only twice.

I took part in #s 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17 and 19, directing #23 which was a multi-section event, #40 with a new pairing system, and #44 with the S.A.D. pairing system. In general, Canadian Opens have been one-section events. With finite time for chess, I've chosen to play in events with a more consistent level of opposition. In a one-section event, it is like a yo-yo. If you're lucky, you beat players rated 200 to 600 points lower, and then if you're realistic, you lose and draw to players 200 points higher. You rarely meet an opponent within 200 points!

Twice in a final round I came close to winning the Canadian Open; in 1977 we were the leaders, I went down in a blaze of glory (a draw would have guaranteed us both a 4-way split of first) to Jan Green-Krotki; in 1982 I was half a point back but was unable to get more than a draw against Gordon Taylor.

Send email to: Jonathan Berry, web-butler jberry@islandnet.com

URL: This web page is: http://members.shaw.ca/berry5868/canop.htm
Last modified August 18, 2011