Booster Section Report by Director Diana Tulman
In the booster section, we had eight participants battling for promotion to Steppingstone 5. In the end, Harshavardan won all four games whilst Rudransh won three out of four, only losing to Harshavardan in the second round. Congratulations to both for gaining promotion to Steppingstone 5!
On Sunday July 9th, the Steppingstone 5 section had an impressive field. There were 12 total players, some old faces, some new ones, all with the same goal at the start: gain at least 3/4 points to gain a norm towards a Category 5 title.
The round 1 match highlight goes to Aaron K vs. Yan H. On the fourteenth move of the game, Aaron played an excellent move: 14. Nc7+. It was a 3-in-1 move: a check, discovery attack, and a pin. Aaron went on to win this match.
In round 2, the match highlight goes to Ashton G vs. Ryan L. On the thirty-third move of the game, Ashton used the Queen's power in the endgame to take advantage of Ryan's undefended rooks: 33. Qc8+ Kh7 34. Qf5+ g6 35. Qxc2. Nice fork Ashton. He goes on to win this one.
The round 3 match highlight goes to Arjun M vs. Filippe L. On the twenty-second move of the game, Filippe wastes no time and takes on f2: 22... Qxf2+, leading to a swift end to the match. Well done Filippe.
The round 4 highlight goes to Ryan L vs. Joshua G. On the eleventh move of the game, Ryan made a checkmating move with a knight: 11. Nc7# The tournament director likes to see stylish mates like these.
Now, onto the winner's circle! In Third Place with 3/4 points is Ryan Lim! In Second Place with 3/4 points is Ashton Gershengoren! With a perfect score of 4/4, let's extend a huge Congratulations to our First Place winner: Aaron Kustanovich! All three of you gained 1 norm towards your category 5 title.
In one of our largest Steppingstone 4 sections to date, we had eight participants. Christopher R was not only able to win all four games in the hardest section, but he did so by defeating the second, third, and fourth place players! Our section highlight, however, went to second place player Taisei A. TD Luke Mulvey was able to provide an in depth analysis of his third round match against Yuvantika S.
Congratulations to Christopher Rao and Taisei Amemiya for achieving their first norm towards the category 4 title!
Thank you all for playing and we hope to see all of you in our next tournament in August!
Steppingstone 5 Report by TD Jesse
Steppingstone 4 Report by TD Luke
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