'06 Finals Rd 5

SDCC Championship & Reserve Finals, Lasker Open March 22nd, 2006

 

AT 5-0 IT'S LOOKING LIKE A CORONATION

RON BRUNO DOMINATING THE FIELD AND EARNING RESPECT

By Rick Aeria and Chuck Ensey

Club Championship

Board 1  Hart - Bruno 0-1 

The Longest Game of the Night, but still done by about 11:00 PM, which is early for TLGOTN.   

This was the pivotal encounter of the night. Nothing else really mattered. Just the result of this one game. Many of us, while wishing tournament leader Ron Bruno well, harbored secret desires that David Hart would halt Bruno's rampage through the ranks of the SDCC finalists.

Hart had his chances but Bruno's counterattack proved more potent and Hart suffered his first and only defeat, thus far, in this championship. For the man who would be champion, as Rich Jensen so appropriately put it, "A Fischeresque performance".

Bd 2  Wagner - Aeria 1-0

Carl Wagner played with great elan converting his space and time advantage. In the melee, Carl also demonstrated his multi-facetedness by employing a poker bluff 23. Ke4!  After the game, the Ancient Wonder looked at the result on board one and realistically said, "The real battle now is for second." (Chuck here - This game won the weekly Best Game Prize of $10. It was a tough choice between this game and Bruno's game. The game picked may not always technically be the "Best" game, but it is the most interesting one. We look for fighting spirit first and interesting combos and tactics second. Or if a really good positional game is played, that is cool too. I hope people view this as a free chess lesson, having all these wonderful games posted on the website, especially since the workshop has been temporarily suspended during the Championship. Cyrus Lakdawala will annotate the game here later.) See game with Cy's added notes here.    

Bd 3  Smith - Corper 1/2-1/2

Wait a minute... This guy is our last chance to stop Bruno?? Current Club Champion Adam Corper!

A painful draw for Adam Corper, the defending champion. As he falls two points behind Bruno with two rounds to play. For Todd Smith, a solid performance. I have never seen a draw put Adam in such a gloomy state before.

Bd 4  Funderburg - Garamendi 0-1

 

John Funderburg strikes a pensive pose in an earlier round

After a slow start Alejandro Garamendi has reeled off three-in-a-row and is contending for a high finish. The Thunderbird's game is in a deep funk after a dazzling start. Can he pull out of this nose-dive?

Bd 5  Borgan - Sussman 0-1

The precocious Chris Borgan falls to the wily veteran Leonard Sussman. Borgan seems to be suffering under the "Geezer Syndrome" - having trouble with the older players in the field. Next week, he'll have his hands full of Carey Milton!

Bd 6  Betancourt - Salz 0-1

Brad Salz has found his groove and made it two in a row by beating up-and-coming Alex Garcia-Betancourt.

Bd 7  Sainz - Milton 0-1

Carey Milton finally breaks through and scores his first win in the finals.

Reserve Championship

Bd 8  Sagart - Ensey 1-0

5 of the 7 boards in the Reserve Championship can be seen here. Rodriguez & Mathe took byes in Rd 5 

Perry Sagart unceremoniously muscled Chuck Ensey out of first place. A melancholy Chuck wore a distant look as he joined us for a midnight repast at Bennigan's. (Chuck here) Perry played well, but I made a few inexplicable blunders, the worst being 52...Rg2?? when I should have played 52...Rxb2, keeping me in the game. Now I have to hope Tony Whitt (and/or someone else in Rd 7) can slow down Perry's drive for the trophy. (Andrew here) I initially liked 23. ... Bf5 !? for you when I looked at the game and it seems to give Black a slight edge (gxf5 and then activate the king to f5 after f4...) but then again "all rook endgames are drawn".

Bd 9  Robles - Whitt 0-1  Tony won the Rook & pawn endgame shown below against Fausto.

 

 

Fawsi Murra Sr had good reason to smile in Round 5, this picture was taken earlier.  Ed Baluran, the leader of the Lasker Open is in the background.

Bd 10  Fawsi Murra Sr - Oakes 1-0  Kevin was winning, but moved too fast and made a bad mistake which got his King and Queen forked unnecessarily. Both players had a good laugh, it was an exciting game.

  

Bd 11  Marquis - Fair 1-0   You can see that Damani is in "dire straits" in this ending with a single Queen trying to fight off 2 Rooks, a Knight and an advanced pawn 

Bd 12 Rocio Murra - Borges 0-1   Fred gets revenge for his loss to the younger sister Mayra in the Markoswki Open by beating up on the older one, (but still young and innocent) Rocio. What?? Call in the crime dogs!!

 

Mayra Murra was smiling in Round 4 as her family was lauded for playing - todos unitos!  

Bd 13 Mayra Murra - Sweitzer 0-1  Shaun, the veteran club player, took Mayra, the newbie, to school.

Bd 14 Harbone - Lawless 0-1  Anthony can't seem to catch a break and record a win - even against the lowest rated player in the Reserve Championship, Mark Lawless, who does notch his first win, and it was a quick one too!  

Lasker Open

Bd 15  Baluran - Fawsi Murra Jr 1-0  The Balladeer keeps racking up wins. Will the Bell toll for him next week?

Bd 16  Saponara - Sinaee 0-1  Ramin shows that David is still not back to peak form. Rust never sleeps...

This was one of the few games turned in. Remember to share your game with us! See this one here.

Bd 17  Bell - Amodeo 1-0  Andrew is one of our better players and a good analyst & writer too! 

Bd 18  Hooker - Soelberg 0-1  Kwame finally found someone he couldn't bamboozle... Jerry is unflappable!  

Bd 19  Fries - Barquin 0-1 Big Ben scores an important victory over a very tough guy to beat, Tom Fries 

Bd 20  Delgadillo - Rezendes 1-0  David is rude and disrespectful to our President (no not really, he just beat him!)

Bd 21  Malowney - Falchi 1F- 0F  I couldn't understand John's garbled phone message, I thought he was playing 

Bd 22  Draper - Batchelor 0-1  Bob says he is playing like dog poop lately (it's the curse I put on him)

Bd 23  Dolan - Newell 0-1 Carl gets his first win against a house player, Rob Dolan, but it was oh so close.

Bd 24  Edwards - Barboo 1/2-1/2 Dead draw but Patrick wants to fight on with a single Rook pawn. Sorry, book draw, Patrick, one of these days you will have to read a chess book!

Lasker Reserve Section

Bd 25  Samuel - Guy 1-0   David Hall was supposed to play Bob, but he did not show up. Apparently he had asked for a bye and there was some mix-up. Caleb Guy from the Jedi Knights stepped in as a replacement. 

 

Morgan Fox and Jacquelyn Egger are due to meet next week. See Pairings Page for expected matches.

Bd 26  Egger - Kaufman 1-0

Bd 27  Fox - Diaz 1-0

Bd 28  Kuhn - Tyrell 1-0

Bd 29  Colon - Ness 1-0

Bd 30 Soltan - Aranda 1/2-1/2

Bd 31 Maria Murra - Burke 0-1