It’s yet another busy Saturday at ICA with a horde of chess players converging on not just one, but two events: the renown Glen Rock Quads and the Open Championship.
The Quads are not restricted to children, but most of the players do tend to be on the young side, so there’s always a bit of noise, chaos, and unpredictable fun. Today was no exception.
In quad 7, for example, Alex Amintzah pushed time management to the limit with not one but two wins with less than a minute remaining on his clock. We encourage players to use their time thinking, Alex, but you might want to be careful how far you push it.
We had eleven unrated players in this tournament as well -- Max, Justin, Ali, Alexander, Arjun, Janes, Michael, Jake, Michael, Oleksandr, and Jerry. Unrated players are always something of a wildcard, in that unrated players are new (or at least newish) to rated tournaments, but aren’t necessarily lacking in skill. For example, based on his performance as an unrated player in this and two other recent tournaments, Alexander Romans is set to jump from unrated to over 1000 on July 1st when the next rating supplement goes into effect. Not too shabby!
Speaking of strong players, the Open section was arguably the strongest competition we’ve had in years, if not ever. We had two players rated over 2300 plus several more national masters. The competition was absolutely brutal. ICA’s own coach Chris Welcome managed 2 points, which won him the Top Over Age 55 and tied him for Top Under 2000. Kudos to you, Chris.
At the end of the day, there’s always a winners list. Here are the winners of the 12 quads…
Quad 1 - Colin Hu
Quad 2 - Juno Moon
Quad 3 - Surya Raghavan
Quad 4 - Achyut Manoj, Liam Shah, and Justin Galitskiy (tie)
Quad 5 - Rishith Bhoopathi
Quad 6 - Sudarshan Samudrala
Quad 7 - Alex Amintzah and Benjamin Gorenburg (tie)
Quad 8 - Blake Chang and Ryan Lim (tie)
Quad 9 - Liam Kelly and Pranav Aggarwal (tie)
Quad 10 - Samuel Liang and Max Bergman (tie)
Quad 11 - Alexander Romans
Quad 12 - Jake Schaadt
… and the winners of the open section.
1st - 3.0 points - Dmitriy Volkov, Justin Lee, Gary Lechinsky (tie)
Top under 2200 - 2.5 points - Chenxuan Ling
Top under 2000 - 2.0 points - Chris Welcome, Anson Leong, Michael Kang (tie)
Top under 1800 - 2.0 points - Dzmiry Kharchykau
Top under 1600 - 2.0 points - Jordy Leon
Top 2.0 pounder age 13 - 2.0 points - Chenxuan Ling
Top over age 55 - 2.0 points - Chris Welcome
All in all, a fun and enjoyable day. A good time was had by all, especially the ICA staff who hope to see you on June 24 for the next Glen Rock Quads, and on July 22 for the next ICA Championships.
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