April Gambito Opens (#415, #416 and #417)

Gambito #417  4/25/09

There was no Gambito last week due to the Senior/Junior Open. Nice turnout for this Gambito with 25 players. Cyrus Lakdawala won this one with a 4-0 score, dispatching the #5, #4, #3 and #6 rated players in that order. That would be Jorge Balares, David Hart, Ali Morshedi and Paul Agron. The #2 rated player, Bruce Baker withdrew after a loss in the first round to young upstart Expert Alan Tsoi. Alan won the BU2400 prize of $60 with 4 1/2 points, bested only by Cy and Ali Morshedi with 5 points for Second Place (also $60). We used the our standard McMahon pairing system where Masters and Experts start with 2 points so that they mostly play each other. Class A players start with 1 point while B's and below get no bye points. For a short tournament this is an effective system, as most players get games with players in thier own rating class or close to it. This time there was a rare 6-way tie for BU2200/2000 between Jorge Balares, James Mahooti, Kyron Griffith, Jamieson Pryor, Paul Agron and Leonard Sussman, all with 4 points. Anthony Arciga won BU1800 ($60) with 2 1/2 and Jason Ma was BU1600 ($50) with 2.             

Gambito #416  4/11/09

Turnout was good at 24 players, enough so we could use a 3 point McMahon where Master & Experts started with 3, A=2, B=1 and C=0. The long weekend probably helped boost attendance. Cyrus Lakdawala won once again, but the "kids" were the stars of the day. Daniel Grazian defeated TWO masters (David Hart and Bruce Baker), one Expert (Rick Aeria) and lost only to Peter Graves in the first round. Alan Tsoi won BU2200 with wins over Ben Barquin and Roberto Aiello and losses to Cyrus and Bruce. Jason Ma won the U1600, getting a draw with Aaron Householder and wins over Mike Herzog and Matt Souza. Here are the prize winners:

First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (7), $100      BU2400: Daniel Grazian (6), $60

Second Place: Peter Graves (5 1/2), $50    BU2200: Alan Tsoi (5), $60

BU2000: Roberto Aiello (5), $60   BU1800: Chuck Ensey (3 1/2), $50

BU1600: Jason Ma (2 1/2), $50

No Gambito Next Week!!

It's the Senior/Junior Open (2 sections, over 50 and under 50 years old)

Total Prizes: $430       

 

Gambito #415  April Super Gambito  4/04/09

30 players, 15 in Open Section, 15 in Reserve Section. NM Ali Morshedi probably would have won this event had he accepted a draw from Cyrus Lakdawala in Round 3, but he decided to play it out, being in a slightly better position and hoping for glorious win againnt the IM, but it didn't work out that way as Cyrus went on to win the game. Cy had already allowed a draw to Rick Aeria in Round 2, so by offering the draw to Ali, he was "giving him the tournament on a silver platter" as he later put it, but the offer was spurned. Cyrus says he understands why, that maybe Ali didn't care about the First Place prize and was more interested in getting a win against him, but still it might have been prudent to take the draw. But as they say, no guts, no glory... Ali still won clear Second Place. Hin Tsang beat Expert Raoul Crisologo in an exciting last round game, in fact it was the last game to finish and it won him the U2000 prize (sorry Roberto, I was wrong, you didn't win that prize!) In the Reserve Section, 8 year old Aaron Householder swept through the field with a perfect 4-0 score. Very impressive! Chris Calbat took the U1600 prize, showing no rust despite not having played for a while. Here are the prize winners:

Open Section:

First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (3 1/2), $125     Second Place: Ali Morshedi (3), $75

U2400/2200/2000: Rick Aeria (2 1/2), Leonard Sussman (2 1/2), Hin Tsang (2 1/2), $75 each

2nd U2400/2200/2000: Alan Tsoi (2), Paul Agron (2), Roberto Aiello (2), $25 each

Biggest rating increases (estimated): Hin Tsang +14 to 1961, Rick Aeria +13 to 2108   

Reserve Section:

First Place: Aaron Householder (4), $75

Second Place: Carlos Martinez (3) and Aaron Ibarra (3), $12 each

BU1600: Chris Calbat (2), $50

2nd U1600: Anthony Arciga (1 1/2), Tom Kuhn (1 1/2), Scott Householder (1 1/2) and Michael Herzog (1 1/2), $5 each

Best Game Open Section, Ali Morshedi, $15 for game Morshedi-Tsoi

Best Game Reseerve Section, Mike Friedel, $15 for game Arciga-Friedel

Bigest rating increases (estimated): Aaron Householder +66 to 1716

Total Prizes: $700