65th Ohio Chess Congress Report

Kristopher Meekins

New Ohio Chess Champion

65th Ohio Chess Congress Report

OPEN SECTION

After 6 rounds of hard fought chess, National Experts (NE) Kristopher Meekins and Matthew Marsh (from Tennessee) were tied for first place in the 65th Ohio Chess Congress. NE Meekins, an Ohio resident, is our new state Chess Champion. Congratulations Kris! Way to go!

Meekins – Driver – Marsh

At the end of four rounds of chess the final results were not yet clear – not at all.

Only two players had more than 3.0 points – Matthew Marsh and Sinan Baughman with 3.5 points each. Then came a group of players with 3.0 points National Master’s (NM) Carl Boor and John Stopa along with Kris Meekins and John Hughes (who earned a NE rating at this event).

So in round 5, Marsh and Baughman played and Marsh won; Boor was paired with Meekins and Stopa was paired with Hughes. Meekins got an upset win against the tournament favorite and Stopa put an end to Hughes’ run. Also in round 5 NE’s Sylvester Smarty and Michael Vilenchuk were paired – both had 2.5 points. NE Smarty won.

Going into round 6, NE Marsh sat alone with 4.5 points, NM Stopa and NE Meekins both trailed by one half point with 4.0 points. Behind them was one player with 3.5 points – NE Smarty. Marsh and Stopa were paired* and the result was a hard fought draw with Marsh with 5.0 points finishing in first place and Stopa with 4.5 points ended up in third place. Meekins and Smarty were paired and Meekins won the full point and tied for first with 5.0 points becoming Ohio’s new Chess Champion. It was a terrific and hard fought finish by all the players.

*The pairing in round 6 between Marsh and Stopa resulted in the only technical question put to the TD during the tournament. The question was why Stopa got the color rotation and not Marsh, the player with the higher score. A fair question and one that has come up a few times before due to the rule changes between the 4th and 5th editions of the Official Rules of Chess. Both players had the same number of blacks and whites in previous rounds and both players were due the same color. In the 4th edition of the rules, the player with the higher score would get the due colors. That is no longer true unless both players had experienced the same color rotation in each round prior. They had not so priority for assigning color was based on the latest round in which their colors differed. This resulted in Stopa receiving the color rotation.

Finishing one half point behind NM Stopa were three NM’s – Carl Boor, William Wright, and Tom Britt – plus one NE Daniel Gurevich who took first place U2200 as the top two NE’s finished tied for first place overall. Right behind NE Gurevich were NE’s Smarty, Baughman and Class A player John Miller who tied for second place U2200 with 3 wins in the last 4 rounds – after starting with a half point bye.

THE TOURNAMENT

There was some disappointment due to the low turnout (the poor economy has finally impacted chess). However, once play began at the chess boards all disappointment disappeared and the chess battles went hammer and tong.

Results for all sections of the Congress may be found at http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200909079331.0 and the Open Section was also FIDE rated which may be seen at http://ratings.fide.com/tournament_report.phtml?event16=46443.

Concerning FIDE rated sections – we also wanted to have the U2000 and U1700 sections FIDE rated. It was not to be as FIDE requires 2 FIDE rated players for a section to be rated. The U2000 had 6 FIDE players with none rated and the U1700 had 4 FIDE players with 1 rated.

CONGRESS QUICK CHAMPION

We also had two side events at the Congress – a Congress Quick Championship (G/25) on Friday just prior to the actual Congress. Kris Meekins won this event as well. The crosstable may be found at http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200909048411.

Ohio Quick Champion: NE Kris Meekins!

CONGRESS BLITZ CHAMPION**

There was also the Congress Speed Championship where you played each opponent twice. It was 6 rounds long and took a little over two hours to complete. Kris Meekins did not win this one, although he did compete. NM Ananth Pappu won this event Saturday night after 10.5 points out of 12.0. Ananth was dinged for one point by Michael Vilenchuk in round 1, but only gave up a draw after that.taking 2 points Alex Wasdahl, Les Whorton, William Wright, and Kris Meekins – then 1.5 points from Matthew Marsh. Matthew finished two points behind Ananth to take clear second. Clear third went to William Wright with 8.0 points. Matthew’s brother Corry Marsh took the U1800 prize with 6.5 points. Ohio Blitz Champion: NM Ananth Pappu.

**Crosstable at end of report

U2000 Section

The U2000 section was won by Les Whorton with 5.0 points – a full point ahead of the four who tied for second with 4 points: Joe Fogarty, Walter Bornack, Brandon Mason, and Timothy Tootle.

Driver – Whorton U2000 Winner

After 5 rounds only Les Whorton and Brandon Mason had 4.0 points, but could not play as Les had lost to Brandon in round 2. Next were Timothy Tootle and Richard Mercer with 3.5 points each. Les had just defeated Timothy in round 5 so he played Richard Mercer and won. Brandon had played Tootle earlier and lost, so he had to play Joe Fogarty who had 3.0 points and lost so both finished with 4 points. Tootle played Corry Marsh and they drew. Walter Bornack and Carl Boor (Sr.) both with 3.0 points faced off and Walter won, tying for second place.

U1700 Section

Howard Dixon won the U1700 section by defeating the two players who tied for second, defeating one player who tied for fourth and drawing the other. Clearly he earned his win against the competition.

Driver – Dixon U1700 Winner

However that does not alleviate the error made in pairing him in round three against a player who had requested a bye resulting in a full point for him. It was after that he played those who finished third, fifth, and fourth in the section. He clearly still earned his win.

Tying for second were Louis Budziak and Kevin Huang with 4.5 points when they drew in round six.

U1400 Section

Divyesh Salamurali played a perfect tournament finishing with 6 wins! The only player in the tournament to accomplish this. He did it defeating those who finished second, fourth, fifth, and sixth in his section – no small feat. Way to go Divyesh!

Driver – Salamurali U1400 Winner

Driver – Kulkarni U1400 2nd

Clear second was taken by Anagh Kulkarni with 5.0 points who won against everyone except Divyesh.

These two dominated along with clear third place finisher Noah Keating-Adams with 4.0 points.

65th OHIO CHESS CONGRESS BLITZ CHAMPIONSHIP

#	Name/Rating		R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R61
1	Annanth Pappu		9	11	5	2	6	10
	2173 12609243		1.0	3.0	5.0	7.0	9.0	10.5	First
2	William Wright		10	7	6	1	9	8
	2150 12462971		2.0	4.0	6.0	6.0	7.0	8.0	Third
3	PLN Murthy		11	9	4	14	13	16
	2146 11038824		1.0	1.5	1.5	3.5	4.5	6.5
4	David Friedman		12	15	3	9	11	5
	2108 12488564		0.0	1.0	3.0	3.0	5.0	6.0
5		Les Whorton	13	8	1	15	10	4
		2104 13628701	2.0	3.0	3.0	5.0	5.0	6.0
6		Kris Meekins	14	12	2	8	1	9
		2061 12910828	2.0	4.0	4.0	6.0	6.0	7.0
7		Drew Hollinberger	15	2	12	10	8	14
		2006 20070967	2.0	2.0	4.0	4.0	4.0	6.0
8		Sylvester Smarty	16	5	9	6	7	2
		2004 12684922	2.0	3.0	4.0	4.0	6.0	7.0
9		Michael Vilenchuk	1	3	8	4	2	6
		1859 12811395	1.0	2.5	3.5	5.5	6.5	7.5
10		Matthew Marsh	2	14	13	7	5	1
		1851 12843523	0.0	2.0	4.0	6.0	8.0	8.5	Second
11		Alex Wasdahl	3	1	15	16	4	12
		1844 12834765	1.0	1.0	1.0	3.0	3.0	3.0
12		Mark Kellie	4	6	7	13	1 6	11
		1824 12416871	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	4.0	6.0
13		Joe Fogarty	5	16	10	12	3	15
		1782 221029198	0.0	2.0	2.0	4.0	5.0	5.5
14		Chris Bechtold	6	10	16	3	15	7
		1580 12762512	0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
15		Corry Marsh	7	4	11	5	14	13
		1577 12843522	0.0	1.0	3.0	3.0	5.0	6.5	U1800
16		Abbey Gillett	8	13	14	11	12	3
		1090 12988772	0.0	0.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0