Today, we had 38 participants split into 9 sections. Today was a finale in many senses. First, Manchester City defeated Inter Milan in the Champions League Final. Second, this will be my final tournament that I will direct until mid August. This was also supposed to be the final day that one of our players would be rated under 1600 (more on that later!)
Today was also a day of firsts: after getting 2/3 points in his past several tournaments, Justin Galitskiy finally won all three games in Section 3! Justin’s most memorable game was his third where, although he blundered a piece, he managed to make an epic comeback and win the game. With this win, Justin will finally be rated over 1000 and, as a result, he will be playing much tougher competition (as Kahan Shah found out the hard way today)...
Allegedly. Two competitors in the so-called “tougher section” are Liam Shah and Andrew Goldfarb. They played each other in the first match. Andrew was up a piece but blundered a sequence which led Liam to an easily winning position. Liam then pushed a pawn which gave a lot of the advantage away as he was supposed to give a check first. Even after the pawn push Liam had an easy to play position but after another mistake Andrew was better.
Liam offered Andrew a few draws which he declined. Andrew then blundered a pawn and went into a king and pawn endgame which was easily winning for Liam. Liam then hung a pawn and was completely losing but Andrew did not calculate at all and decided to offer a draw which Liam hastily accepted. Immediately after the game, Goktug, who wrote this analysis, explained to both players how to play this endgame.
Section 1 saw the return of Andrew Cerami and Harlan Kim. Andrew, in particular, was only a few rating points away from the elusive 1600 mark and just needed a good performance today to cross the line. And he played well in the second round, beating a rapidly improving Luke Shin. But the question begged: could Andrew remain composed against Harlan, who played as if he was under no pressure at all against Leon Shevelenko.
At this point in the second round between Leon (white) and Harlan (black), although the material was equal, Harlan was slightly more active. And after Leon played h4, Harlan was able to pounce, bringing his rook in to win the h-pawn. This allowed him to slowly advance his pawn, king, and rook until he finally promoted.
And so the final match was set: Harlan (white) would play Andrew (black).
In terms of the chess, there were no big moments during the game to analyze. Both players played very well, canceling each other out. There was one moment where Andrew could have taken the initiative after Harlan played 15. d5. If Andrew would have captured with the c-pawn instead of the e-pawn, he would have been able to bring his rook onto the e-file and win the pawn. Other than that, however, the players completely canceled each other out ...
... With one exception: although the players achieved a draw game, the clock suggests anything but. Although Harlan had three minutes, Andrew only had eight seconds! All Andrew had to do was move his bishop to stop any progress and not worry about any sort of counterplay. However, if we are continuing with the theme of the Champions League Final, no composure was shown in the biggest moment. After Harlan pressed the clock, 13 seconds went by (5 second delay + 8 seconds left) without Andrew making a move. And so the flag went up, and Andrew tried slamming the clock without making a move. However, the result was already confirmed: Harlan won all three games, and the 1600 mark still evades Andrew.
Congratulations to all winners: click HERE to view rating reports!
Even though I will not be here during the summer, we will still be running weekly tournaments! Our next Quads will be held next Saturday, June 17. Click HERE to register!
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