Gambito #478 7/31/10
25 players, good turnout. We used a 3 point McMahon with M/E=3, A=2, B=1, C/D=0 Here were the players in rating order :
3 Masters: Cyrus Lakdawala, Ali Morshedi, Bruce Baker.
7 Experts: Peter Hodges, Raoul Crisologo, Paul Agron, Alan Sebeckis, Leonard Sussman, Aaron Wooten and Daniel Grazian. (Ed Baluran filled in for 1 game as a house player and he defeated new SD County Champ Peter Hodges).
5 Class A: Madhavan Vajapeyam, Carey Milton, Chris Wonnell, Aaron Householder and Chuck Ensey.
4 Class B: Edgar Lopez, Scott Householder, James Mitchell and Anthony Harbone.
6 Class C and below: John, Carson, Fred Cleveland, Rex Pimentel, Amado Ancheta, Kevin Ren and Alan Richardson. The last 2 were unrated. Kevin Ren, a new young player, won his first rated game over Fred Cleveland and also defeated Scott Householder, that's pretty good for a first effort!
Cyrus drew with Ali in Rd 2 and also defeated Crisologo, Grazian and Baker. Morshedi drew with Cy and also with Paul Agron, then defeated Wooten and Hodges. Grazian drew with Vajapeyam, defeated Agron, lost to Cy and defeated Wooten. Sebeckis drew with Hodges, lost to Wooten, then defeated Agron and Crisologo. Milton beat Aaron Householder, lost to Crisologo, but then beat Vajapeyam and Sussman. James Mitchell lost to Edgar Lopez, but then beat Ren, Carson and Ensey. Fred Cleveland lost to Ren, but then beat Richardson, Amado Ancheta and Carson.
The biggest upsets were Mitchell over Ensey (230 point differential), Carson over Scott Householder (179 points), and Aaron Householder over Vajapeyam (127 points). For draws there was Agron's draw with Morshedi (131 points), Sussman's draw with Baker (102 points) and Morshedi's draw with Lakdawala (100 points)
Here were the Prize Winners:
First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (6 1/2), $100 Second Place: Ali Morshedi (6), $60
U2400/2200: Daniel Grazian (5 1/2) and Alan Sebeckis (5 1/2), $60 each
U2000: Carey Milton (5), $60 U1800: James Mitchell (4), $60
U1600: Fred Cleveland (3), $50
Total Prizes: $450
No Gambito Open on 7/24, due to San Diego County Championships (see that blog page for details)
Gambito #477 7/17/10 10:30 AM
Light turnout as expected due to the Gay Pride Parade. 9 players, "mini-McMahon" format with M/E=1, A and below=0.
First Place: Kyron Griffith (5), $50
BU2200: Eric Montany (3) and Ben Barquin (3), $20 each
BU2000: Reyes Lopez (2 1/2), $35 BU1800: Kenneth Xu (2), $20
Total Prizes: $165
Gambito #476 7/10/10
Excellent summer turnout of 31 players, strong field, tough competition. We used a 3 point McMahon with M/E=3, A=2, B=1, C/D=0. Here are the players in pre-tournament rating order:
5 Masters: Cyrus Lakdawla, Elliott Liu, Jeff Arnold, Ken Arnold, Kyron Griffith
4 Experts: Montany, Krishnan, Sussman, Grazian
7 Class A: Hodges, Vajapeyam, Wonnell, Aiello, Milton, Ensey, Dagamat
6 Class B: Ma, Mitchell, Xu, E. Lopez, Van Wyk, Kuhn
4 Class C: E. Ancheta, Khanna, Cleveland, Arone
5 Class D: Siddiqi, Choi, Pimental, Vanderpot, A. Ancheta
Jeff Arnold (2349 now going to ~2361) had a nice day with a draw against Varun, a win over Kyron, a win over his brother Ken and finally a draw with Cyrus. Cy drew with Kyron, beat Varun, beat Elliott and drew with Jeff. Kyron drew with Cy, lost to Jeff, beat Peter Hodges and then also beat Elliott Liu. Tough day for Elliott, but we were so glad to see him and I'm sure he will bounce back. Ken Arnold beat Daniel Grazian, drew with Elliott, lost to Jeff and beat Eric Montany.
Prize Winners:
First/Second Place: Jeff Arnold (6) and Cyrus Lakdawala (6), $87 each
BU2400: Kyron Griffith (5 1/2) and Ken Arnold (5 1/2), $37 each
BU2200: Varun Krishnan (5) and Eric Montany (5), $37 each
BU2000: Peter Hodges (5), $75
BU1800: Kenneth Xu (4), Jason Ma (4) and Edgar Lopez (4), $25 each
BU1600: Pratik Khanna (3), $75 BU1400: Haziq Siddiqi (2) and Jay Choi (2), $10 each
Total Prizes: $570
Gambito #475 (July Super Gambito) 7/03/10
Open Section
Another great turnout of 36 players, 19 in the Open and 17 in the Reserves. Some of our regular players were up in LA at the big Pacific Southwest Open, so it was good to still get so many participants.
19 in Open in rating order: 2 Masters (Lakdawala and Baker), 4 Experts (Montany, Tsang, Sussman, Orlowski), 12 Class A (Barquin, Vajapeyam, Milton, Escobedo, Pryor, Aiello, Defore, Ensey, R. Lopez, Berkman, A. Householder, Dagamat) and 1 Class B playing up (Ma).
First Place/Second Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (3 1/2) and Bruce Baker (3 1/2), $115 each
BU2400/2200: Eric Montany (3) and Hin Tsang (3), $80 each
2nd U2400: Jesse Orlowski (2 1/2), $30
BU2000: Madhavan Vajapeyam (2 1/2), $80
2nd U2200/2nd U2000: Aaron Householder (2), Chuck Ensey (2), Ben Barquin (2), Jamieson Pryor (2), Robert Defore (2) and Charlie Berkman (2), $10 each
Plus Best Game Prize: Jason Ma, $15, for win over Carey Milton
Carey Milton (1967) - Jason Ma (1738) Round 3 Ruy Lopez Steinitz Defence
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 4.0-0 Nf6 5.d4 Bd7 6.Bxc6 Bxc6 last book move 7.d5 Bd7 8.Re1 Bg4 9.h3 Bh5 10.Qd3 Qd7 11.c4 c6 12.Bg5 Be7 13.Bxf6 Bxf6 14.Nc3 0-0 15.Rad1 Rad8 16.dxc6 Qxc6 17.Nd5 Kh8?! 18.g4+- (one of Carey's signature moves, it's actually good in this position, often he plays it speculatively. Here he threatens g5! winning the dark squared Bishop if 18...Bg6) Qd7 19.Nxf6? (better was 19.gxh5 Qxh3 20.Nh2 Qxh5 21.Qf3) 19...gxf6 20.gxh5 Qxh3= 21.Nxe5 Qxh5 22.Nxf7+ Rxf7 23.Kf1 Rg7 24.Qe3? an uncharactersitic move for Carey, underestimating his young opponent's threats. Sometimes Carey does ignore his own King's safety in the belief he can get out of anything or swindle his opponent if lost, so he concentrates on the attack and not so much on the defence. Necessary here was 24.Qd5 Rg5 25.Qd4=) 24...Rdg8! (the obvious but crushing move) 25.f3 Rg2 26.Qf2 (the only way to avoid mate from Qh1+) 26...Rxf2+ 27.Kxf2 Qc5+ 28.Ke2 Qxc4+ 29.Ke3 f5 30.Rc1 f4+ 31.Kxf4 Qd4 32.Red1 Rf8+ 33.Kg3 Qe3! 34.Kh2 Qf2+ 35.Kh1 Rg8 0-1 Analysis by Fritz, comments by Chuck Ensey
Honorable mention to Charlie Berkman for another win over Carey and also to Eric Montany for a nice Queen sac against Roberto Aiello. Usually it is not too hard to pick out the best game, but this time there were quite a few really nice games, thanks everyone for contributing and playing so well. I will post these games later on.
Reserve Section
17 players in rating order: 10 Class B (Arbeiter, Sarceno, S. Householder, Klaas, Harbone, Kuhn, Krooskos, Mitchell, E. Lopez, Charnov), 4 Class C (Ancheta, Sturtevant, Khanna, Cleveland), 3 Class D (Choi, Siddiqi, Pimentel)
First Place: Dante Sarceno (3 1/2), $80 Second Place: Jason Arbeiter (3), $30
BU1600: Fred Cleveland (3), $80 2nd U1600: Pratik Khanna (2 1/2), $30
BU1400: Haziq Siddiqi (2), $15
Plus Best Game Prize: Jason Arbeiter ($15) for a Rd 3 win over James Sturtevant
Total Prizes $825
Remember you can see reports on last week's Gambito (and many others) on the previous blogs...