February Gambito Opens #456, #457, #458

Gambito #458  2/27/10

Another rainy day, not a good thing when you have a leaky roof. Average turnout of 21 players today. 2 Masters (Lakdawala and Baker) 4 Experts (Sussman, Crisologo, Lozano and Barquin), 9 Class A (Arutyunov, Pryor, Aiello, Vajapeyam, Wonnell, Sagart, Berkman, Aaron Householder and Souza), 3 Class B (Ensey, Harbone, Sofianos) 3 Class C (Benarieh,Cleveland and Ricca). 3 house players also filled in at times: Klass, Kuttruff and Whitten. We used a 2 point McMahon (M/E=2, A=1, B/C=0) Here were the prize winners:

First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (5 1/2), $100  Cy drew with Bruce in Rd 3

BU2400: Bruce Baker (5), $50

2nd Place/BU2200: Raoul Crisologo (4), Ben Barquin (4) and Mariano Lozano (4), $27 each

Lozano beat Sussman in the last round to get into the money. 

BU2000: Jamieson Pryor (4) and Madhavan Vajapeyam (4), $25 each         

BU1800: Tal Benarieh (2 1/2), $50  

This new player is provisionally rated 1376, but based only on a few games and he is clearly more like a 1700 or maybe even better, it hard to say, but with a name like Tal, he has a lot of promise! Tal owns a hot air ballon company and doesn't get to play much. Nice guy, friend of James Sofianos.  

BU1600: Fred Cleveland (2), $40

Fred beat Donald Klaas (on time!) in an unclear position and also beat newcomer John Ricca (unrated) in the last round. John beat Anthony Harbone in the first round, so he is no neophyte. Nice to win your first rated game! 

Total Prizes: $370   Next week: March Super Gambito on 3/06/10 

Gambito #457  2/20/10

Very low turnout today, only 14 players, probably a hangover from the 3 day Amateur Team West event last weekend. We used a "mini-McMahon" pairing system with M/E/A = 1, B/C = 0. Players: Cyrus Lakdawala (2554), Bruce Baker (2329), Peter Graves (2220), Kyron Griffith (2193), Leonard Sussman (2125), Nikolay Arutyunov (2002), Ben Barquin (1986), Jacoby Johnson (1931), Chris Wonnell (1919), Jason Arbeiter (1768), Chuck Ensey (1753), Anthony Harbone (1649), Tom Kuhn (1582) and Fred Cleveland (1301). Here are the prize winners:

First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (4 1/2), $75

BU2400: Kyron Griffith (4), $40  Kyron became a master today, broke well over 2200!!

BU2200: Leonard Sussman (3), $25, tied with

BU2000: Ben Barquin (3) and Jacoby Johnson (3), $25 each

BU1800: Jason Arbeiter (2 1/2), $27, tied with  BU1600: Tom Kuhn (2 1/2), $27

Total Prizes: $245

Gambito #456  2/13/10

20 players today, many of our regulars were up in LA at the Amateur Team Championships. Here are the players in rating order: Cyrus Lakdawala (2553), Bruce Baker (2304), Ali Morshedi (2300), Leonard Sussman (2117), Hin Tsang (2092), Nikolay Arutyunov (2046), Jim Humphrey (2019), Carey Milton (2007), Jacoby Johnson (1943), Madhavan Vajapeyam (1939), Daniel Long Quan (1894), Roberto Aiello (1894), Reyes Lopez (1827), William Delaney (1779), Chuck Ensey (1743), Sean McNeely (1700), Anthony Harbone (1685), James Mitchell (1637), Alexander Blank (1374), Fred Cleveland (1273). McMahon pairings with M/E=3, A=2, B/C=1. We were going to have C = 0, but there weren't enough Class C players, just two.   

Wecome back to Ali Morshedi, who has been out of action for a while, but we hope to see him more frequently now. Also a rare appearance by Jim Humphrey, he was going to play in LA, but his team kind of fell apart when a key player got sick, so he decided to play in the Gambito. Jim is a strong blitz player, so I don't know why he doesn't play in the Gambito more often, he is well suited to it. Also welcome to new player Daniel Long Quan from the UCSD chess club, he is quite strong and only a narrow loss to Lenny kept him out of the money today. He beat Reyes, Nikolay and drew with Hin before his last round loss. Cyrus was impressed with his play. Alexander Blank had a nice day, defeating Anthony and Mitch. He now goes up to Class C, congratulations young man! Bruce Baker drew with Cyrus in round 2, beat Lenny in Rd 3 and then won a really nice game against Ali in the last round. Roberto Aiello also had a good day, defeating Madhavan, Nikolay and Carey, losing only to Jim in Rd 2.     

and the prize winners:

First Place tie/BU2400: Cyrus Lakdawala (6 1/2) and Bruce Baker (6 1/2), $75 each 

BU2200: Leonard Sussman (5 1/2), $50  BU2000: Roberto Aiello (5), $50

Second Place: Ali Morshedi (5) and Jim Humphrey (5), $10 each

BU1800: Chuck Ensey (3 1/2), $50  BU1600: Alexander Blank (3), $40

Total Prizes: $360