NTC Super G (#262)

March 4, 2006 at NTC!   Gambito #262    March Super Gambito  4 rounds at G/30

WOW! WOJO GOES 4-0!

49 Players Tie the "Gold Rush" Record

Reported by Chuck Ensey and Rick Aeria

Revised September 29th, 2008   I very rarely try to a revise of a reported event but this singular Gambito event has so much significance for the San Diego Chess Club history and heritage.  This event was made special by the participation of Grandmaster Aleks Wojtkiewicz.  Just about the only U.S. Championship participant from a galaxy of chess stars that were available on this tournament rest day. Sadly, this was a farewell performance from a brilliant chess troubadour as Grandmaster Aleks Wojtkiewicz succumbed to a perforated intestine and massive bleeding on the evening of  July 14th later that same year.  Here is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksander_Wojtkiewicz  on Aleks, a very special chessplayer   Picture of Grandmaster Aleks Wojtkiewicz

Under brilliant sunny skies amid cool breezes and a plethora of chess talent with the participants to the 2006 US Chess Championship mingling between autograph signings, simuls, chess instruction, blindfold chess exhibitions and photo ops - the 262nd running of the Gambito series, a Super G, was held outdoors at the NTC Promenade. Only one lone representative was dispatched from the ranks of the US Championship participants, grandmaster Aleks Wojtkiewicz but that seemed to be sufficient as "Wojo" plowed through his opposition for a perfect 4-0!

 

 Standing in the "dusk"

IM's Enrico Sevillano & Cy Lakdakwala

Left standing in the dust and sharing 2nd and 3rd prizes were the two regular Gambito paladins, IM's Cyrus Lakdawala and Enrico Sevillano with 3 1/2 - 1/2. A strange quirk in the computer pairings had the former Polish  grandmaster avoid playing either of them although they were paired (and drew).

Super expert John Byrant gave Cyrus some stiff competition in their encounter and the game was a thrilling crowd-pleaser as Cyrus unravelled from complications to deliver mate.

Fellow website contributor Andy Bell downed Dimitry Kishinevsky in round one and was ready to do the same to me in a well-played game (for Andy) but made the fatal mistake of waiting for resignation instead of forcing it and was handed a very, very unfortunate loss. Sorry Andy!

Probably lost in the hurly-burly of action was young Simone Sobel's convincing win over expert Carey Milton. Simone, a former San Diegan now lives in Florida and is an avid chess fan and player.

Note that Filipino expert Raoul Crisologo has defeated Mexican master Ruffo 'El Fabuloso' Orihuela twice in as many months. Raoul is definitely establing an Indian sign on his Mexican rival. For his 'reward' Raoul was served up to Wojo in the last round for dessert!

In another entertaining encounter, Thomas Victory lived up to his inspired name and defeated Ed Baluran in a very cool and detached manner. Notwithstanding Ed Baluran's usual histrionics.

The popular Murra chess family was out in force today! Everyone knows what a fine talent Fawsi Murra Jr. is but did you know that the youngest Mayra Murra has been holding her own against the club regulars recently? Older sister Rocio Murra isn't a pushover either. Papa Fawsi Murra Sr. hopes to secure some chess instruction for his talented kids and then we can all watch out! I'm going out on a limb to make a prediction now! If Mayra Murra continues playing chess the way she does and getting good chess instruction and training - I predict she will be one of the participants to the Women's U.S. Championship in four years!

The Tournament was held at the NTC, the site of the US Championship. See their website for map and directions. www.USChessChampionship.com It's actually pretty easy. The address is 2875 Dewey Road, San Diego. Take Rosecrans from I-5 (or from downtown take Pacific Coast Highway to Barnett, right on Midway, left on Rosecrans) and turn left on Roosevelt off of Rosecrans, follow signs to easy free parking.

$1,000 Prize Fund increased to $1,160

Entry Fee $25, Prizes adjusted upwards to reflect the record  high turnout of 49 players, some players received free entry for volunteering to help the NTC with the kid's simul at 10 AM. The 49 gold diggers tied the long standing Gambito Open attendance record set at Gambito #124 way back on May 3, 2003. Just 1 more player and we would have broken that record!! If you didn't attend, it's all your fault! But that's OK, we were thrilled to have such a great turnout, even including one of the Grandmasters from the US Championship, Aleks Wojtkiewicz. Four lucky players got to play the GM (Khris Juroshek, David Hart, Ron Bruno and Raoul Crisologo), but of course no one could beat him. Still, what a thrill to play a Grandmaster, man to man, over the board, one on one, face to face, mano a mano, etc.

Rick Aeria: I did not seem to notice the difference in the special time controls. usually we use Game in 45 (or Game in 40 with 5 second delay for those using digital clocks). Today's time control was Game in 30 minutes (with optional 5 second delay). Personally, I would like to have more rounds played 5 instead of 4 and the shorter time control (G/30). What do you think? Blog it on the message board.

Khris Juroshek said he had a pretty good game with the GM in the first round. After round 1 was over there were 11 players with 1 point, so the luck of the draw for round 2 fell on the #6 rated NM David Hart. After that round  there were only 5 players with 2 points, and #4 rated Ron Bruno was singled out to play Wojo while Cyrus and Enrico drew with each other and Raoul defeated Ruffo Orihuela. After 3 rounds, Raoul was the only player in the Open Section with 3 points besides Aleks, so they met in the last round. Aleks complained a little bit because he got three Blacks, but if Raoul had been given Black, then he would have had 3 Blacks in a row, which is an even bigger no-no as far as paring rules are concerned, so Raoul was assigned the White pieces. 

The Open Section was the strongest ever seen at a Gambito, with 6 Masters (1 GM and 2 IMs), 8 Experts, 13 Class A and one C in the Open Section (28 total). The Reserve Section had 21 players, with 12 Class B, 2 Class C and 7 Class D or below. Lately we seem to have a shortage of C players, so listen up out there, if you are rated 1400 to 1599 you could be pulling down some easy money at a Gambito!    

Open Section:  First Place $225 Aleks Wojtkiewicz (4)

Second Place tie Enrico Sevillano (3 1/2), Cyrus Lakdawala (3 1/2) $75 each

BU2200/2nd U2200 tie Raoul Crisologo (3), Rick Aeria (3), John Bryant (3), $50 each  

BU2000 $100 David Saponara  - His first Gambito ever and he wins $100!! 

2nd U2000 tie Felipe Camachco (2), Thomas Victory (2), Fawsi Murra Jr (2), Ben Barquin (2), Buddy Morris (2)  $20 each 

Reserve Section (U1800):  First U1800 $120 Norlino Tagalog (4)

2nd U1800 tie Jemar Fragante (3), Ronaldo Selenga (3), Vincent Broman (3), Kyron Griffith (3), $20 each   

BU1600 Justin Colon (3) $75

2nd U1600 Arcencio Caccam (2 1/2) $40

BU1400/2nd U1400 tie Mogan Fox (2), Tom Kuhn (2), $40 each

Best Game $20 Reserve Section - Justin Colon for win over Chuck Ensey

Best Game $20 Open Section - Dimitry Kishinevsky for win over Ben Barquin  

See Best Games 06 to view these games and others   

The event was held outdoors - much to our surprise when we were informed the night before the event that the room we had reserved was suddenly unavailable!! It was kind of fun being outdoors, at least at first, and it did give the spectators at the Chessfest a great view of a real live fast paced tournament, more than if we had been hidden away inside, so that was a good thing.

Rick Aeria chiming in here. First of all I think Chuck Ensey did a fabulous job directing running what is arguably one of the most memorable and novel Gambitos - given the last minute 'surprises'. As for the sun and fresh air, I grew up in tropical Malaysia but the sun even got to me today. Tony Whitt looked so sunburnt by round three I jokingly told him that he was been withdrawn from the tournament for radiation poisoning.

 Also it was nice and sunny, although it was a bit breezy and got rather cold and dark at the end of the day. That was partly my fault because we had a few problems with a laptop computer and portable printer which I had never used before to run a Gambito, and so there was a major delay before the start of the second round while the data was entered and bugs ironed out. The first round was paired by hand, and maybe we should have done the rest of the event that way, but I really like having the computer to do the pairings - it never makes a mistake. The second round started after about a half hour delay and things went relatively smoothly after that. Next time (if ever!) there shouldn't be a problem, I think it have it all figured out now. Anyway, we finished up just as it was getting pretty dark and then we headed back to the club for the simul with Yermo & Shabba. You can read about that on the page GM simul.

Rick Aeria, again: I want to thank everyone that helped load the tables and chairs back into the van, Special 'thank yous' to Justin Colon, Esteban Escobedo, Khris Juroshek, Tony Whitt, David Saponara, Bob Draper, Buddy Morris, Andy Bell, Chuck Ensey, David Hart, Ed Baluran, Ben Barquin, Kim Ogden. Fawsi Murra Jr. and many others for going the extra distance to help us breakdown the site and load it up. Also a special mention and thanks to Dimitry Kishinevsky who did the driving. Dimitry, Ron and Chuck were at the club at 7:30 AM loading the chairs and tables into three vehicles to go to NTC. Now that's dedication! 

Finally, I would like to refer Chuck Ensey over to my friend Dr. Sherri Azimi, an eye doctor, for selecting this hideous urine-yellow background for this web page. I know Chuck wanted a 'gold' theme but this definitely is not it!  Note: Background color moderated with revision.

(Chuck here) Sorry, it was as close as I could get in the "wee" hours of the morning!...  Rick has now improved it... I think... or it could be just my imagination, I'm not really sure.