The first event featured 875 participants. Some of the top contenders in most Grand Prix events like GMs Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave all failed to qualify.
In the playoffs, Peter Svidler managed to defeat Sam Sevian, who missed a sneaky mate threat.
In the playoff, the story was Parham Maghsoodloo's wild games. He reached the semi-finals by defeating Tang and then won a convincing opening game against Zierk. However, needing only a draw to reach the finals, Maghsoodloo fell into a lost position and way behind on the clock. Yet, somehow he kept his cool, complicated the game, and his opponent was the one who lost on time, chess.com reported.
In the finals against Alekseenko, Maghsoodloo again started with a win as Black before running into trouble when he only needed to draw as White.
The win brought Maghsoodloo tournament victory for him in Iran.