Israeli championship

GM Victor Mikhalevski won Israeli championship with 7/9.

He played a lot in different Canadian tournaments, including some Canadian Opens. He also used to be a coach for many strong Canadian players, like R.Panjwani, M.Song, S.Thavandiran and others. Great personality!

Nowadays, it's nice to see a normal OTB national championship with 30+ players, including many GMs. Hopefully, one day we'll have something similar in Canada.

COVID - wise, the number of deaths/1 m population is similar in both countries: about 600 (compare to 1600+ in USA, 900 in Germany, 1800+ in UK).

The big difference, however, is a number of vaccine doses: in Israel 104 for 100 people (!!!), in Canada - 8, (compare to 33 in USA, 11 in Germany, 39 in UK). Probably, it's a main reason why this tournament was successfully organized in Israel.

Yes, I believe that Israel has been "first-in-class" with vaccine deployment!!