Well, the Leesburg Chess Club held yet another chess tournament at the Carver Senior Center which as usual is hosted by our resident chess master, Raymond Duchesne.

This time brought a pleasant and welcome surprise in the form of the Broad Run High School chess club turning up to play led by their coach/teacher Keith Kyger. Welcome BRHS Chess Club! We were so glad that you decided to join us. You can check out their website at: this location.

As part of our ongoing effort to improve tournaments, we tweaked with the sections. I originally offered 3 sections but the Novice section failed to attract enough participants so we rolled it into the Open section as was announced. The Seniors section had enough to go ahead with and they played G/45 for 4 rounds. The Open section had 5 rounds (2 of them G/45 with the rest G/30). The result was far fewer last minute time scrambles than the last time we had an all day tournament. As part of Loudoun Chess' plans, we will offer both longer and shorter time control tournaments.

The first round in a Swiss style tournament is usually a non-surprise since the top half plays the lower half. This time though, since we had many new players, surprises were always a possibility. On top board though there was going to be little doubt as Master Raymond got an easy round with Joseph Tan as his opponent. Two ladies that ended up playing each other (Jenny and Claire) drew and Steve Ward lost his game on a technicality of his pager/phone going off. Steve would later go on to win the rest of his games ending 4-1 so that loss didn't seem to faze him that much.

In the future, I am going to ask that everyone silence their cell phones as a courtesy to all other players however I am disinclined to rule that as an automatic forfeit unless it is a USCF rated tournament.

Round 2 was Master Raymond vs Ray Atkins on top board. I'll leave it up to you to read the comments in Master Raymond's game recollection in his PGN file. Newcomer Kartik Vaghela was unable to overcome regular top contender Herky del Mundo, Kartik however, was able to finish nicely with 3 points eventually.

On the pairings, I had the software attempt to not pair family members (Herky and Carlo) or the BRHS chess club members as much as possible but in the latter case, it was unavoidable as the point spreads got too wide in the later rounds. We've got to invite another high school to attend to really mix things up the next time!

A funny thing happened in round 3. One tournament ago, it was Ramesh coming in late one round due to getting stuck in traffic. This time, it was his opponent Dino who as a result lost time on the clock before he arrived. Nevertheless, these two players can calculate fairly quickly and ended up in a draw. It looked like they had something interesting there at the end.

Carlo was in a nastly losing position with Master Raymond and behind on everything. In a slightly fractious ending mixed with clock punching issues, tipped pieces, frustration and misunderstanding, Master Raymond lost the win. As the TD, I generally stay out of a situation unless an appeal was made or the rules give me no choice. As a principle, the game is almost always between the players first. Both of them agreed as gentlemen in the end to call it a draw as imperfect as the game was.

Not everything was tournament play though. Claire got to play a little skittles with Shannon while Richard Busch was kind enough to entertain Allen. Here's the pics:

Round 4 rolled around the the drama continued with Master Raymond having to face Carlo's dad, Herky. Dino took a win off Ray Atkins while Steve Ward marched on. Carlo could not overcome Ramesh.

We had five players in the Seniors section and almost all of them had to take a bye. There were two newcomers Ron Cote and Al Faraone and in the last round, they got to play each other. The Seniors section was eventually won by Larry Hughes with a perfect score. Way to go Larry!

Master Raymond, Ramesh and Dino were all tied at 3.5 points going into the 5th round. Master Raymond won the clash with Ramesh and Dino beat Herky. By tie break points, Master Raymond won the Open section.

Here are the numbers.

LCC February Fun 2009 -- Seniors                              Wall Chart, Page 1

  No.    Name                         St Rate 1   2   3   4   5   Score

   1. Hughes, Larry.................     1261 x   -   W   W   W     4.0
   2. Knoke, Scott..................     1393 -   x   D   W   W     3.5
   3. Cote, Ron.....................     1218 L   D   x   W   W     2.5
   4. Busch, Richard................     1033 L   L   L   x   -     1.0
   5. Faranoe, Al...................     1000 L   L   L   -   x     1.0


LCC February Fun 2009 -- Open                                 Wall Chart, Page 1

  No.    Name                         St Rate 1     2     3     4     5     Score

   1. Duchesne, Raymond (1).........     1939 W5    W8    D7    W6    W4      4.5
   2. Obregon, Dino (5).............     1750 W21   W13   D4    W8    W6      4.5

   3. Ward, Steve (7)...............     1245 L13   W10   W21   W14   W9      4.0

   4. Balasubramanian, Ramesh (2)...     1812 W14   W16   D2    W7    L1      3.5
   5. Tan, Joseph (8)...............     1234 L1    W15   W11   W13   D7      3.5

   6. del Mundo, Herky (3)..........     1762 W10   W11   W17   L1    L2      3.0
   7. del Mundo, Carlo (4)..........     1752 W15   W9    D1    L4    D5      3.0
   8. Atkins, Ray (6)...............     1642 W19   L1    W18   L2    W15     3.0
   9. Sajja, Vijaya Saradhi (22)....      996 W12   L7    W22   W18   L3      3.0
  10. Kothakapu, Rohan (16).........     1000 L6    L3    W23   W16   W18     3.0
  11. Vaghela, Kartik  (10).........     1200 W23   L6    L5    W19   W14     3.0
  12. Franco, Michael (11)..........     1095 L9    W19   L14   W21   W13     3.0

  13. Samee, Muhammad (18)..........     1000 W3    L2    W16   L5    L12     2.0
  14. Sungkat, Mustafa (19).........     1000 L4    -B-   W12   L3    L11     2.0
  15. Kyger, Keith (17).............     1000 L7    L5    W20   W22   L8      2.0
  16. Prasad, Abhijeet (9)..........     1200 W20   L4    L13   L10   W21     2.0
  17. Chang, Alex (23)..............      513 -B-   W22   L6    -U-   -U-     2.0

  18. Lee, Jenny (12)...............     1077 D22   W20   L8    L9    L10     1.5
  19. Tudings, Christopher (21).....     1000 L8    L12   -B-   L11   D20     1.5
  20. Islam, Tatnul (15)............     1000 L16   L18   L15   W24   D19     1.5

  21. Islam, Atiful (14)............     1000 L2    W23   L3    L12   L16     1.0

  22. Tan, Claire (24)..............     nnnn D18   L17   L9    L15   -U-     0.5

  23. Gabro, Michelle (13)..........     1000 L11   L21   L10   -U-   -U-     0.0
  24. Toyserkani, Arman (20)........     1000 -U-   -U-   -U-   L20   -U-     0.0