Simul with a Grandmaster! 1/27 & 1/28

Two Simuls with GM Dejan Bojkov

1/27 (Thursday) & 1/28 (Friday)  7 PM 

San Diego Chess Club

Try your luck against a Grandmaster from Bulgaria, rated 2544 FIDE. He recently placed first at the Golden State Open in Corcord CA, tying with Daniel Bryant. This is his first trip to the US and we hope he is having fun and will be back soon!   

Thursday night was the first go around for this event and we had 19 participants, a few less than expected but not a bad turnout. It was a small field, but fairly strong, with over one half the players rated over 2000. It started promptly at 7 PM and GM Bojkov got right after it after a few brief announcements. Here were the players in rating order:

2 Masters: Bruce Baker and Kyron Griffith

8 Experts: Dimitry Kishinevsky, Nikolay Arutyunov, Alejandrino Baluran, Alan Tsoi, Jesse Orlowski, Bill Whitney, Antonio Gonzalez and Robert Defore. 

3 Class A: Buddy Morris, Chuck Ensey and Carl Newell.

5 Class B: Edgar Lopez, Jim Krooskos, Frank Arias, Steve Perry and Leonardo Villaverde.

1 Class C: Fred Cleveland 

Buddy Morris was the first to go down in flames - he transposed a move order and blamed it on being tired. Antonio Gonzalez was the next to drop as he tried to replay a blitz game he had had some success with Dejan yesterday. I (Chuck) was the next to drop, but just before I did, Bill Whitney had earned a draw!! I had to leave at that point, but it looked like Alan Tsoi had a won game, up the exchange and a pawn, and Bruce had drawing chances in a Rook and pawn ending, down a pawn, but it was doubled. Update: Yes Alan Tsoi won and Bruce Baker drew, as did Kyron Griffith. So, final score was 1 win, 3 draws and 15 losses for the home team. A repectable showing for both sides.  

So Friday night we did it all over again, but the turnout was much lower, really hardly enough to hold a decent simul. There were a few kids from the Jedi Knights, plus 4 Experts (Arutyunov, Gonzalez Humphrey and Whitney), plus a few Class players (Morris, Perry, Vajapeyam). No one got a win or even a draw under these conditions.