It seems as if there is lots of Deja Vu in this tournament compared to last week. Just like last week, we had 10 sections. This time around Section 2 was the Swiss. Not only that: we had seven players in that Section, meaning one person would get a bye each round. We will get to this section later as there are a few games and results that I would like to highlight.
The theme of last week's report was blunders. Lots of our players played carelessly, regardless of the section. Although the quality of the chess was much better this time around, the amount of times I had to walk up to a game and add two minutes for an illegal move is laughable. By the end of the day, I think I added a cumulative 20 minutes of illegal moves!
The bottom section, Section 10, had an interesting storyline as one of our newest employees, Veda Nukala, lost all of her games after performing well in an administrative role during the day. As a punishment, I made her interview the section winner, James Mikayelyan. Regardless, he stayed humble: he admitted to Veda that his defending in the second match was not good: the only reason he won was because his opponent blundered in the end. With this self-critical mentality, its only a matter of time before he breaks the 1000 mark!
After two rounds of Section 3, only two players were left in the running: Ido Alkin and Leon Shevelenko. Conveniently enough, they played each other in the final round! While Ido could afford to draw and win the prize, Leon had to win since he drew the first round. But Leon was able to generate momentum from the second round, where he sacrificed his knight for two pawns. He then used those extra pawns, which became passed pawns, to win an exchange, and, eventually, the game.
When I went to look at the match between Leon and Ido, although the position was equal, whilst Ido had six minutes left on the clock, Leon only had two seconds! This meant he had five seconds per move: a nightmare situation. After a slip-up from Ido, however, Leon was able to maneuver his king towards the root of Ido’s pawn chain and win the crucial pawn. From there, even with two seconds left, the match became easy and Leon won the game, and the section!
Section 2, our seven person section, had many interesting duels: by the end, our section winner finished with 2.5 points and three competitors finished with 1.5 points. By the end of the second round, Jody Chen and Saveley Lopez were tied for first place at 1.5 points, making their clash a winner takes all. Although Jody was nervous, he saw this as an opportunity for revenge as he lost to Saveley once before.
Jody (white) played the London System as Saveley (black) fianchettoed his black-squared bishop. Although they traded knights and bishops, Jody was up two pawns that were looking to be promoted on the queenside. Although Saveley pinned his bishop and his king was trapped in the corner, he could not do anything to stop the pawns from promoting. And after Jody played Rb5 on move 40, the match was over as a contest.
But the main reason Jody was in Section 2 as opposed to Section 1 is because his older brother, Choco Chen was in Section 1. As a result, somebody had to be moved up. In this case, the lucky player was Parth Raha. Conveniently enough, his first match was against Choco.
After an even start to the game, Parth (white) played a discovered attack with the knight. This made Choco sacrifice a queen for a rook so that he would not be down a full piece. Unfortunately, this decision did not pay off, as Choco ended up resigning a few moves later! After a thrilling blitz victory in the second round and a draw in the final round, Parth was able to win Section 1!
Congratulations to all winners: click HERE to view rating reports!
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