Gambito #474 6/26/10
Awesome summer turnout of 33 players! We seem to draw better in the summer as school is out and many players seem more willing or anxious to prove themselves over the board at this long running event which, I might add, is coming up on our 10th anniversary and Gambito #500, scheduled for January 1st 2011. Bruce Baker directed once again with his usual flair and complete soundness, while I, Chuck Ensey, had to miss this one, darn it. I have to take a pass once in a while. Probably only Bruce, Cyrus and Carey have played more Gambito Opens than I have, but I am right up there with them.
Bruce 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: Lakdawala, Baker, Griffith
9 Experts: Clawitter, Crisologo, Montany, Tsang, Agron, Sussman, Grazian, A. Gonzalez, Barquin
8 Class A: Milton, Escobedo, Pryor, Aiello, R. Lopez, A. Householder, Souza, Arbeiter
6 Class B: Delaney, S. Householder, Ancheta, Mitchell, E. Lopez, Harbone
7 Class C and below: Xu, Sturtevant, Cleveland, Pimentel, Siddiqi, Choi, Tuba.
Here were the prize winners today:
First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (7), $125 Second Place: Craig Clawitter (6), $75
BU 2400/2200 tie: Ben Barquin (5 1/2), Eric Montany (5 1/2), Kyron Griffith (5 1/2) and Hin Tsang (5 1/2), $37 each
BU2000: Roberto Aiello (5), $75 BU1800: Kenneth Xu (3 1/2), $75
BU1600: Fred Cleveland (2 1/2) and James Sturtevant (2 1/2), $37 each
Total Prizes: $640
Gambito #473 6/19/10
Sort of an average turnout of 21 players today, I was expecting a few more on this fine sunny day. We did get 4 players who haven't played for quite a while: Pratik Khanna (3 years!), Nestor Dagamat, Kimberly Ogden and Antonio Gonzalez. We played in two sections, 11 in the Open (Lakdawala, Griffith, Crisologo, Sussman, Gonzalez, Pryor, Sagart, Reyes Lopez, Ensey, Souza and Aaron Householder) and 10 in the Reserve (Dagamat, Ma, Ogden, Scott Householder, Harbone, Edgar Lopez, Khanna, Claire Negus, Cleveland, Andrew Negus)
Pejman Sagart had a particularly good day, defeating Reyes Lopez (1866), Matt Souza (1830) and Leonard Sussman (2085) after a 1st round loss to Cyrus. I guess Perry has accepted the G/40 format as not being so "really bad" as he claimed earlier on the message board!! I admit it does take some getting used to, but most players agree it is a fair format.
Here were the Prize Winners:
Open Section:
First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (4), $100
BU2400/2200: Kyron Griffith (3) and Pejman Sagart (3), $50 each
BU2000: Chuck Ensey (2 1/2), $50
Reserve Section (U1800)
First Place/Second Place: Nestor Dagamat (3) and Kimberly Ogden (3), $25 each
BU1600: Edgar Lopez (2 1/2) and Pratik Khanna (2 1/2), $25 each
Total Prizes = $390
Gambito #472 6/12/10
Jesse Orlowski Rules The Day
18 players today, the turnout was probably a little light due to the National Open in Las Vegas drawing away some of our high rollers. We used a McMahon pairing system where Master/Expert =2, Class A=1, Class B/C=0. There was 1 Master (Griffith), 4 Experts (Montany, Sussman, Da Cruz, Orlowski), 9 Class A (Pryor, Wonnell, Vajapeyam, Delgadillo, Ensey, Reyes Lopez, Souza and one Class B playing up, Jason Ma), 1 Class B (Delaney), 4 Class C and below (Edgar Lopez, Cleveland, Blandin, Siddiqi).
Jesse Orlowski had his best day ever at a Gambito, at least that I can remember. Jesse may have had a better performance rating at some other Gambito, but I don't think he has ever won First Place outright like he did today. He started out by defeating #2 rated Eric Montany, then drew with the only Master, Kyron Griffith, followed by another draw with Madhavan Vajapeyam (who also beat Montany, not a good day for Eric, but in his defense he hasn't played for a while and was rusty) and finally Jesse defeated the always tough Chris Wonnell in the last round. Meanwhile Jamieson Pryor helped out Jesse's cause by defeating Kyron in the last round. Jamieson also beat the visiting Expert from San Francisco Michael Da Cruz. Da Cruz had a rough intro to the club, losing to Kyron, Madhavan and Jamieson before finally beating me (Ensey) in the last round.
Here were the prize winners:
First Place: Jesse Orlowski (5), $100
BU2400/2200: Madhavan Vajapeyam (4 1/2) and Jamieson Pryor (4 1/2), $50 each
Second Place: Kyron Griffith (4), $20
BU2000: Reyes Lopez (3 1/2), $50
BU1800/1600: William Delaney (2 1/2) and Edgar Lopez (2 1/2), $35 each
Total Prizes: $340
Gambito #471 June Super Gambito 6/05/10
38 players today, great turnout. We played in 3 Sections for a change of pace:
Open (13 players): 6 Masters (Lakdawala, Jeff Arnold, Ken Arnold, Baker, Graves, Griffith), 4 Experts (Crisologo, Sussman, Agron, Grazian), 3 Class A playing up (Pryor, Vajapeyam and Aiello). Buddy Morris and Jim Krooskos filled in as house players.
Premier (17 players): 10 Class A (Barquin, Milton, Sagart, Wonnell, Royzen, Ensey, Souza, Berkman, Arbeiter, Aaron Householder), 6 Class B (Ma, Delaney, Kuhn, Scott Householder, Harbone, Edgar Lopez), 1 Class C playing up (Cleveland)
Reserve (8 players): 4 Class C (Gene Fernando, Libano Rodriguez, Alonzo Sanchez, Jerry Qu), 4 Class D (Keric Rivas, Haziq Siddiqi, Jay Choi and John Vanderpot)
Players are listed in rating order...There were two big upsets in the Open Section: Paul Agron won over Jeff Arnold in the last round (312 point differential) and Raoul Crisologo won over Peter Graves in round 1. Also Roberto Aiello drew with Bruce Baker in round 3 (Bruce then withdrew). Cyrus drew with Ken Arnold in round 3. Ken had beaten his higher rated brother in round 2, but then he lost to Peter Graves in the last round. Lenny Sussman also upset Kyron Griffith in the last round. It was an exciting day of chess as many players and spectators gathered around various boards to watch the big battles progress.
Octogenarian Gene Fernando had the only perfect score in the event, going 4-0 against the #5, #4, #3 and #2 rated in the Reserve Section, in that order! In the large Premier Section Ben Barquin was in good form, winning his first 3 and then agreeing to a quick drew with Carey Milton. I always consider Ben and Carey to be Experts, so no surprise they did well in the Premier Section. William Delaney defeated Anthony Harbone, drew with Charlie Berkman and defeated Scott Householder to win the top U1800 prize. We had 3 place prizes in this section because it was larger than the other two sections.
Here were the prize winners:
Open Section
First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (3 1/2), $125 Second Place: Peter Graves (3), $75
BU2400/2ndU2400: Raoul Crislogo (2 1/2) and Ken Arnold (2 1/2), $50 each
BU2200/2nd U2200: Paul Agron (2 1/2) and Leonard Sussman (2 1/2), $50 each
Premier Section
First Place: Ben Barquin (3 1/2), $80
Second/Third Place: Chris Wonnell (3), Carey Milton (3) and Pejman Sagart (3), $25 each
BU1800: William Delaney (2 1/2), $80 2nd U1800: Jason Ma (2), $50
3rd U1800: Scott Householder (1 1/2), $25
Reserve Section
First Place: Gene Fernando (4), $75 Second Place: Jerry Qu (3), $25
BU1400: Jay Choi (2) and Haziq Siddiqi (2), $30 each
Best Game Prizes won by William Delaney ($15) and Haziq Siddiqi ($15) - they were the only ones turned in!
Total Prizes: $900