Chess Galore in Philly! 18 Rounds of The Delightful Game | Road to FM
Hello all! Today I'm writing to you to introduce a new blog series! I am currently participating in not one, but two(!) 9-round OTB tournaments in Philly (Philadelphia, USA). In this series, I'll be covering all 18 of the games I played and taking you through what happened during both tournaments. I will most likely cover 2-3 games in each blog post, and I hope you, as the reader, will be able to feel what I felt during this phenomenal experience of playing two back-to-back long tournaments. So without further ado, let's introduce the two tournaments I'll be covering: 
1. The Philadelphia International
The smaller of the two, the Philadelphia International had approximately 120 players this year. I participated in the stronger of the two sections: The Premier Section (Premier is for players rated 2200+ USCF or 2100+ FIDE, and the other section is the Expert section, for which I do not know the rating limits). Both tournaments took place at the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown Hotel, which looks like this:
Overall, this tournament was filled with strong players, with me being one of the weakest players in the field, despite being a national master. I was pleased to see many familiar names there, especially one of my favorite streamers, Sean Senft - more commonly known by his username, @Road2GM3000. At the time of writing, I have just finished playing in this tournament, but you'll have to wait to see how I did!
Sean Senft was one of many participants in the Philadelphia International. I'm a huge fan, so I thought I'd mention him! 
2. The World Open
The World Open is one of the most famous and popular tournaments, at least in the USA. In past years, there have been over 1200 participants! This year, for obvious reasons, there were slightly fewer participants, but as of now, over 1000 people have signed up. This tournament starts today at 7 pm EST, and you can find more information about it here: http://chessevents.com/WorldOpen/ (You can watch the games live! ) Many top players such as Illia Nyzhnyk, Aleksandr Lenderman, Jeffrey Xiong, and Emilio Cordova are going to play, as well as some popular figures (also very strong) such as Hans Niemann, Brandon Jacobson, Andrew Tang, and Ben Finegold.
A singing arbiter!? Steve Emmitt, the Chief Director of this tournament, has been known to sing the National Anthem during this tournament. Looking forward to seeing that!
I'm really looking forward to playing in this prestigious tournament for the very first time! As always, I will be playing in the top section, the Open Section; once again, I am one of the very worst players there, but I will try my best! 
Thanks for following my journey to FM! I hope this "adventure" of a blog series will not only be very interesting and enjoyable but also educational and a great way to learn. Thanks again for reading, and stay tuned for Part 1 of this series, coming up soon! 
Chess Galore in Philly
Part 1: ?????
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