SDCC Blog: Markowski 06 Rd 1

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Markowski 06 Rd 1

1/04/06, The Markowski Open, Reported by Chuck Ensey & Rick Aeria

70 Players Start The Quest For The Club Championship In the 2006 Markowski Open

There were no upsets in the first round and only two draws. But with such big rating differentials, these draws can be considered as major upsets! Shaun Sweitzer earned a draw with Rick Aeria and Robert Samuel earned a draw with Ben Barquin. All other games went according to the expected result from ratings.

Carl Wagner and Todd Smith are the only two qualifiers already seeded into the Club Championship. They are playing an informal match while the rest of us duke it out for the remaining 14 qualifying spots. Also the top 16 players under 1800 will qualify for the Reserve Championship. The Club and Reserve Championships will begin February 22 and will consist of another 7 round Swiss featuring the best 16 players to qualify (32 in all, in two separate sections, Championship and Reserve). The last round on April 4th will decide who is the Club Champion.

But first we must find out who are the qualifiers in the 7 round Markowski Open, where the whole club plays in one huge section. Here is your chance for BIG UPSETS, some of the rating differentials were as high as 500 points in the first round! And even in the later rounds 300 points will not be unusual!

Last's Year Club Champion Adam Corper has to qualify again! Next year the Champion won't...

Winners in the first round, in rating order, included Bruce Baker, Robert Richard, David Hart, Adam Corper, Dimitry Kishinevsky, Leonard Sussman, Ignacio Sainz, Alex Garcia-Betancourt, John Funderburg, Carey Milton, Brad Salz, Jesus Orozco, Maksim Gusev, Fawsi Murra Jr (that's the current top 14 players),

Expert Alex Garcia-Betancourt on move in Round 1 of the Markowski Open...

and Ed Baluran, Phillip Roth, Mario Amodeo, Thomas Fries, Ron Rezendes, Ramin Sinaee, Buddy Morris, Thirunathan Sutharsan, Ron Soto, James Malowney, Dayne Freitag, Gary Tuttle, David Delgadillo, Esteban Escobedo, Nikolay Arutyunov, Angelo Esposito and Rocio Murra.

More players will join next week, including some rumored very strong players, so the top 14 will get tougher and tougher to be in.

The first order of business was the awarding of the 2005 Class Championship Trophies...

Karen Kaufman was pleased to win a nice engraved trophy for the Best Class D Player. She actually tied for 1st with Helmut Keil in the combined Class C & D section, but Helmut won the C trophy on tiebreaks, even though she beat him in the last round...