The 2011 Berkeley International tournament is taking place on 2-8th January 2011 at the Berkeley Chess School, in Berkeley, USA. 58 players are taking participation, and among them 11 Grandmasters: Loek van Wely 2676 NED, Timur Gareev 2605 UZB, Sergey Erenburg 2600 ISR, Robert Hess 2572 USA, Axel Bachmann 2548 PAR, Davorin Kuljasevic 2545 CRO, Dejan Bojkov 2544 BUL (winner of Groningen Open), Magesh Panchanathan 2537 IND, Jesse Kraai 2516 USA, Anatoly Bykhovsky 2510 ISR and Josh Friedel 2508 USA.

Additional side events:
January 1, 2:00 PM - Simultaneous exhibition by NM Kayden Troff, the silver medalist from the World Youth Under 12 Championships in Greece in November 2010.
January 5, 3:00 PM - One hour lecture by IM Daniel Rensch.
January 8, 5:30 PM - Blitz tournament with prizes in all categories
January 9, 2:00 PM - Simultaneous exhibition by Timur Gareev who is rated over 2600 FIDE.

Official website


Update:

Dutch Grandmaster Loek Van Wely (NED 2676) took the first place with 8 points from 10 rounds. He also earned 3000 USD for the effort. Second place for GM Sergey Erenburg (ISR 2600, 7.5 points), who was joint leader with Van Wely earlier, but then stumbled against Denys Shmelov in the penultimate round. Erenburg takes 1500 USD and the third-placed GM Magesh Panchanathan (IND 2537, 7 points) takes 1000 USD.

Lots of title norms were fulfilled! IM Sam Shankland (2498, final norm), Denys Shmelov (2357) and FM Keaton Kiewra (2337) made Grandmaster norms. FM Conrad Holt (2388) and FM Daniel Naroditsky (2419) are netting IM norms. This is second norm within only two weeks for Naroditsky, who also fulfilled one in Groningen Open.

WFM Tatev Abrahamyan (2327) achieved a WGM result.