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Ten players tied for first at the World Open with 7 points. The winners included: GMs Jaan Ehlvest, Joel Benjamin, Igor Novikov, Gregory Serper, George Timoshenko, Alex Yermolinsky,
Vladimir Akopian, Boris Gulko, Alexander Shabalov, and Alexander Fishbein. The last major game of the tournament was between GM Alexander Ivanov and GM Akopian. A win by Ivanov would have made
him the tournament's sole winner but he pushed too hard and lost in a complicated struggle. After much debate, seven of the winners agreed to participate in a round-robin speed chess playoff
that ended with GMs Gulko and Serper tied for first. A final one-game match (with draw odds for Black) was played. Serper (with Black) emerged with the draw and thus became the 1999 World Open Champion.
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