June Gambito Opens

Gambito #426  6/27/09

28 players today, great turnout. We played in two sections today: An OpenSection for Masters, Experts and Class A players and a Reserve Section for Class B & C players. There were 14 players in each Section, including 3 Masters (Lakdawala, Baker and Giovanni Carreto), 7 Experts (Montany, Griffith, Sussman, Milton, Pryor, Gerardo, Grazian) and 4 Class A (Eric Smith, Aiello, Vajapeyam, Ensey), 9 Class B (Victoria, Rhoads, Arbeiter, Dagamat, Delaney, Souza, Friedel, Reed, Kuhn) and finally 5 Class C (Guy, Ancheta, Cleveland,Edwards). Here are the Prize winners:  

First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (3 1/2), $100

U2400: Bruce Baker (3), $70   U2200: Leonard Sussman (3), $70

Second Place: Jamieson Pryor (2 1/2), Giovanni Carreto (2 1/2) and Eric Montany (2 1/2), $20 each

U2000: Madhavan Vajapeyam (2), $70

First Place Reserve Section: Bill Rhoads (3 1/2) and Robert Reed (3 1/2), $35 each

U1600: Caleb Guy (2 1/2), $60 

Cyrus had a quick drew with Bruce after winning 3 in a row over Pryor, Milton and Grazian. Bruce took a first round bye and then beat Ariel Gerardo and Giovanni Carreto, two of our strong players that visit occasionally from Mexico. Antonio Gonzalez was here today too, but he didn't play. I think I heard some congratulate him about being a new father! Richard Jensen also dropped by, he is busy trying to find a good paying job and hasn't had any time for chess lately. He watched his friend Bill Rhoads for a while and Bill ended up tying for first in the Reserves.

Next Week: Super Gambito Open on the 4th of July!!     

Gambito #424   6/13/09

21 players today, plus one house player. We used a McMahon pairing system where Master and Experts started with 3 points, Class A with 2, B's with 1 and C's with 0. There were 2 Masters (Lakdawala and Baker), 7 Experts (Eric Montany, John Rinaldo, Leonard Sussman, Raoul Crisologo, Carey Milton, Alexandre Tolotovitski and Jamieson Pryor), 5 Class A (Hin Tsang, Kyron Griffith, Jason Qu, Chris Wonnell, Roberto Aiello), 4 Class B (Ernesto Victoria, Nestor Dagamat, Chuck Ensey, Mike Friedel) and 3 Class C (Jason Ma, Tom Kuhn, Fred Cleveland, plus Helmut Keil as a house player). Of course it was great to see Carey Milton back in action after a long layoff, plus we got a surprise visit from Ernesto Victoria, who hasn't played here in a while. It should also be noted that Jamieson Pryor played as an Expert for the first time, having earned that rank with a great performance in Las Vegas at the National Open last week. Also, after today's event, Kyron Griffith has earned his Expert rank too, 2018 (!!!), way to go Kyron, we all knew you were good enough and golly gee (or whatever Al Franken used to say!), you deserved it! 

Please note that I made a mistake in the intial pay out of the prizes that effected 4 players. These players won Second Place ($30 split 4 ways or $7.50 each), not U2200/2nd (which would have been $50 +$30 =$80 split 4 ways or $20 each).  Kryron Griffith took the U2200 prize, not the U2000 prize, he had the best score for a player rated under 2200, even though he is also U2000, he takes the highest prize available to him. Also I paid both Roberto Aiello and Kyron Griffith for BU2000, but in fact they both did win $50, so that was OK. As always prizes are subject to review, sometimes in the haste to pay out so players can get home, I make a blunder.

Here are today's prize winners:

First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (6 1/2), $100

BU2400: Bruce Baker (6), $50    BU2200: Kyron Griffith (5 1/2), $50

Second Place: John Rinaldo (5), Carey Milton (5), Eric Montany (5), Alexandre Zoltovitski (5), $7 each

BU2000: Roberto Aiello (4 1/2), $50    BU1800: Chuck Ensey (4), $50

BU1600: Jason Ma (3), $40