After a light day last week, today we had 82 participants competing in our Glen Rock Quads and ICA Open! When looking at the results, there were no clear upsets: Justin Lee, the heavy favorite to win the Open, convincingly won with 3/3 points. Roman Malyshev and Shahryar Siamdoust won two and drew one to finish on 2.5/3 points. Yefim Treger won two out of two before having to catch a train to also finish with 2.5/3. In addition, Yefim was able to come away with the Top Senior Prize! But the other player who finished with 2.5/3 was an underdog. Despite having a monthly rating of 1668, Jordy Leon was able to defeat two higher rated players, including ICA Coach Igor Yeliseyev, to tie for second place! In addition, Jordy won the Top Junior Prize!
Looking down the table, I was really excited to see the outcome of the match between Goktug Bas and Angelo Valentino. While Angelo began competing in Open tournaments at the start of the year, this was Goktug’s debut in the competition. Both players, who were able to develop and rise through the sections at the Quads, had a point to prove being the newest additions to the Open!
Goktug (white) started the game on the front foot after taking substantial space on the right side of the board. However, Angelo struck back in the middle with 14. ... d4 because after 15. cxd4 cxd4; 16.exd4 nxd4 Goktug cannot take back because his knight is pinned. Instead, he played Rc1, hoping to regain the pawn after 16. ... dxe3. However, Goktug followed that up with 17.Be4, which was a mistake because after 17. ... Nc5. There is too much pressure on the white pieces on the back row. After a few more moves were played, it was clear Goktug could no longer come back, and so he resigned, handing Angelo the victory in what will be the first of many battles between the two!
There is a saying that whoever wins the war writes the history. Three of our quad winners, Ansh Shamdasani of Section 8, Rishit Bhoopathi of Section 4, and Kahan Shah (who got his fourth section win from five tournaments!) of Section 3 all wanted to be featured in the report. And so they will be.
In all three of Ansh’s games, rather than finding a brilliant tactic, Ansh was able to capitalize on his opponent’s mistakes to win the matches.
For example, after playing the advanced French with the queen on b6, the opponent played bishop e3 and instantly lost the b2 pawn. As expected, Ansh requested to be pushed up to a higher section for the next tournament. However, he must be warned: as was the case for him last week, his opponents will be much more ruthless and much less careless!
Meanwhile, Rishit was excited to share his final match, where the entire game was equal until he pinned the rook to the king, winning the exchange. Although Rishit was able to capitalize, the question begs: after trading queens, why did white not castle! Although kings are the most important pieces in the endgame, there were too many pieces around for the king to wander. And white paid: after wandering around the back line, the rook got pinned to the king and the game was lost.
But that was not the end of the story: although Rishit was able to promote his pawn, he only had less than a minute of time left! But not to worry, white came to the rescue to save his opponent again. Two illegal moves in two minutes meant Rishit gained four minutes. From there, there was no looking back.
Lastly, Kahan was able to, once again, win his section despite being pushed up! So, naturally, I had to do something about it. After Kahan’s third win, I spotted Andrew Goldfarb and asked him to “go and break Kahan’s win streak.” And so he did, in under five minutes!
Congratulations to all winners: click to view rating reports for QUADS or OPEN!
We will NOT have Quads next weekend due to the Memorial Day Weekend. We will resume June 3rd: Click HERE to register!
Our next open will be held Saturday, June 17. Click HERE to register!
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