'06 Senior Open

2006 Southern California Chess Federation Senior Open

Carey Milton & Mike Nagaran Share First Place 

 

Everyone knows frequent player Carey Milton, but some of our members may not be as familiar with Expert Michael Nagaran, who plays mostly in Escondido.

20 seniors jousted for prizes and glory at this annual event which has now been held in San Diego for 3 years in a row. Bill Conrad was the only non-local player to attend. Despite a fairly large prize fund ($500 1st Place and  $300 for 2nd; $1,600 overall and 100% guaranteed!) and plenty of advertising, we can't seem to entice players to make the drive down from Los Angeles. All I can say is that the players who did attend had a great time.

 

Bill Conrad has become the Senior's best friend by donating generously to the prize fund the last two years. Here he plays the 2004 Champion Ed Baluran (standing).

The only snag was a severe lack of parking on Saturday due to a March of Dimes event in Balboa Park that was much bigger than anticipated. After a brief delay of about 30 minutes to allow everyone to arrive, everything went smoothly from there on out. We only had one walk-up, everyone else had pre-registered, so it is possible some players might have intended to play, but were discouraged by the lack of parking and gave up, we will find out more later on as the stories trickle in. The rare parking problems like this only come up two or three times a year and are really the only negative issue we have with our well situated central location (well, besides the leaky roof). 

Carey Milton (4) and Michael Nagaran (4) won $400 each and are SCCF Senior Co-Champions. Carey won his first four games, including wins over Bruce Baker (3 1/2), Michael Nagaran, Chuck Ensey (2 1/2)  and Rick Aeria (3 1/2) before finally losing in the last round to Leonard Sussman (3 1/2). Rather than playing for a draw to clinch first place, Carey played all out for a win in the last round, but his attack faltered against the solid defensive play of Lenny, who took a Knight for a couple pawns and hung on for the win.

See Carey's win over Bruce in Round 1 here.  This game won the Best Game Prize. Also see Cyrus Annotates for a nice game by Mike Nagaran, just recently turned in and annotated by Cy.

Bruce and Rick tied for Third Place ($75 each) while Leonard Sussman and John Rinaldo (3 1/2) split the Best U2100 prize for $100 each.

Bruce and Rick played in the last round and if one of them had won the game, there would have been a 3-way tie for first place, but the very long struggle ended in a draw.

Ben Barquin (3) and Ed Baluran (3) finished with plus scores, but out of the money because there was no U2000 prize, just U2100 and U1900; next year we will try to rectify that.

 

Raoul Crisologo was surprised when John Rinaldo correctly claimed a draw by 3 position repetition. See game here. 

Chuck Ensey was BU1900 ($150) and Arthur Taylor (2 1/2) was BU1700 ($150), both with break-even scores against a tough field of  hardened veterans (1 Master, 5 Experts, 9 Class A and 5 Class B). Jerry Soelberg (2) was 2nd U1900 ($50) and Rolando Salenga (1 1/2) was 2nd U1700 ($50).           

 

John Rinaldo in Round 1 versus Chuck Ensey. A horrible blunder later on cost him a clear win.

Chuck Ensey also won the Biggest Upset prize of $25 for a rather lucky win over Expert (and former Master) John Rinaldo, who was just about to Queen a pawn, or go up by piece, except that there was a mate in one John had overlooked. I almost didn't see it myself and then couldn't believe my eyes when I did finally notice it. Oh, gee, why don't I play Bc4 checkmate, sorry about that John!  See this monstrosity here.

Wall Chart    This event is rated 

	Name/Rtng/ID	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Rd 4	Rd 5
10	Carey Milton	B 1	W 5	B 17	B 2	W 4
	1959  2012  1st Place tie $400	1	2	3	4	4
5	Michael Nagaran	W 14	B 10	W 8	B 15	W 3
	2048  2061  1st Place tie $400	1	1	2	3	4
2	Rick Aeria	B 11	W 7	B 3	W 10	B 1
	2112  2120  3rd Place tie $75	1	2	3	3	3쩍
1	Bruce Baker	W 10	B 14	W 19	B 4	W 2
	2230  2222  3rd Place tie $75	0	1	2	3	3쩍
4	Leonard Sussman	B 13	W 9	bye	W 1	B 10
	2080  2091 U2100 tie $100	1	2	2쩍	2쩍	3쩍
6	John Rinaldo	B 17	W 13	B 9	W 3	W 11
	2027  2024 U2100 tie $100	0	1	2	2쩍	3쩍
8	Ben Barquin	B 20	W 3	B 5	W 18	B 9
	1974  1975	1	1	1	2	3
7	Alejandrino Baluran	W 18	B 2	W 15	B 19	W 12
	1981  1974	1	1	1	2	3
3	Raoul Crisologo	W 12	B 8	W 2	B 6	B 5
	2081  2073	1	2	2	2쩍	2쩍
17	Chuck Ensey	W 6	B 15	W 10	B 11	W 19
	1737  1759  U1900 $150	1	1쩍	1쩍	1쩍	2쩍
11	Thomas Victory	W 2	B 21	bye	W 17	B 6
	1906  1903	0	1	1쩍	2쩍	2쩍
20	Arthur Taylor	W 8	B 12	W 14	B 21	W 15
	1637  1672  BU1700 $150	0	쩍	쩍	1쩍	2쩍
9	Robert Arnold	W 21	B 4	W 6	B 14	W 8
	1970  1955	1	1	1	2	2
15	Jerry Soelberg	bye	W 17	B 7	W 5	B 20
	1814  1801  2nd U1900 $50	쩍	1	2	2	2
12	Thomas Fries	B 3	W 20	B 18	W 13	B 7
	1902  1900	0	쩍	1	2	2
14	Bob Defore	B 5	W 1	B 20	W 9	B 13
	1829  1823	0	0	1	1	1쩍
13	Alfredo Deleon	W 4	B 6	W 21	B 12	W 14
	1899  1878	0	0	1	1	1쩍
19	Ronaldo Salenga	bye	W 16	B 1	W 7	B 17
	1683  1685  2nd U 1700 $50	쩍	1쩍	1쩍	1쩍	1쩍
21	Anthony Harbone	B 9	W 11	B 13	W 20	B 18
	1600  1600	0	0	0	0	1
18	Bill Conrad	B 7	bye	W 12	B 8	W 21
	1685  1666	0	쩍	1	1	1
16	Chris Wonnell	----	B 19	----	----	----
	1811  1794  (House)	0	0	0	0	0

Total Prizes $1,600