On our final Saturday before the US Ametaur Team East, we simultaneously hosted two tournaments: the weekly Glen Rock Quads, and the Monthly ICA Open. We had 46 participants in the Quads and 22 in the Open to maintain last week’s tally of 68 participants.
Two of our players who have built up their skills and reputations in our Quads (and have featured in a large portion of my reports) received the opportunity to participate in their first ever ICA Open. The first player is Mark Kogan, who, in his first round, played against a player 150 points higher rated. After his opponent castled king-side, Mark pushed his g-pawn. Eventually, with the help of his h and f pawns, he broke through the defense. His opponent was eventually left with no choice but to give up his bishop, which led to Mark easily winning the endgame.
After a draw in the second round, Mark faced his toughest test yet: Top Senior and NM Yefim Treger! Despite his initial nerves, Mark played a solid game (except for one move where Yefim could have gained a significant advantage after a rook sacrifice - view my latest lichess study to view!) and was able to claim a draw, taking his final tally to 2/3, and allowing him to remain undefeated in his first ever Open!
Our other player, Angelo Valentino, rather than finishing the Open against a senior elite like Mark, started the event against just as intimidating Roman Malyshev. Like Mark’s game, this game was far from a classic, with both players prioritizing structure and control. Therefore, a draw was the fair result. This gave both players the confidence needed to win their next two matches and finish in joint second place. Although a second place finish is not new for Roman, this was, after all, Angelo’s first ever Open and first ever tournament in 6 weeks!
In Round 2 of the Open, we had a battle between two coaches: Justin Rosales as white, and Ekeoma “Peter” Osondu as black. As the saying goes, the winner writes the history. Therefore, I let Peter write the commentary of this game: the game followed the tartakower variation of the Caro Kann. White created queenside play by pushing his pawns, but black maneuvered to the kingside, eventually gaining a bishop pair advantage on move 17. When the queens came off, black stood better and created a passed pawn on the queenside. In the end, Peter won two out of three, only losing to eventual winner Timothy Xie!
Now, onto the Quads. The wholesome moment of the day goes to John “Lucas” Ketcham who, after a month long hiatus, won all three of his games in Section 6! When I asked him what he wanted to include in the report, rather than crediting himself, he, instead, thanked his opponents for giving him good battles. He gave the most credit to Justin Galitskiy for keeping the fight going in the final round despite being low on time and material. Lastly, he wanted to use the example of his match against Rayan Zarineh as an example to all. Lucas lost to Rayan in a previous tournament and, even this weekend, underestimated his abilities. However, after snapping out, he was able to overcome Rayan and demolish the rest of his section!
In Section 1, we had two winners: Ray Chakraborty and Nicholas Ferrone! The game that I will highlight is between Ray (white) and Elian Sonnenberg (black). This really was a case of one person having a plan throughout, and another trying to react.
For instance, after Elian castled king-side and Ray castled queen-side, both players tried to pawn storm. However, while Elian only had two pawns to work with, Ray had four! Therefore, Ray was able to maneuver more pieces to the upper-right corner of the board and suffocate Elian.
Finalmente, quiero hablar sobre Ana Vazquez. Hace una o dos mesas, su familia ha movido a los Estados Unidos de Cuba. Esta semana era la primera vez que Ana jugaba al ajedrez en los EEUU. Ella pierda los primeros dos juegos. Sin embargo, fue un juego más. Ella juega contra Goktug Bas y, después de un error, Ana tome la reina de Goktug, y gane el juego; ¡felicidades! Yo quiero ver el progreso de Ana en los próximos concursos.
Congratulations to all winners! Click to view rating reports for OPEN or QUADS.
Due to the Ametaur Team East tournament, we will NOT be having any tournaments next week, our next Quads will be February 25, and our next Open will be March 25.
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