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Tournament Recap - September 27, 2008

Although the 1900 and Up Section was not quite as top heavy without National Master Joel Johnson and resident Expert Mark Moore, we still saw some of Arizona’s best scholastic players battling it out for first. Scholastic chess star David Adelberg captured first place for the first time this season, and he was followed closely by Dipro Chakraborty, whose consistency so far this season might lend him another All-Star Jacket if people don’t watch out! The “Ultra-Talented” Bryan Hu of Tucson didn’t have his best tournament, but we hope to see him again in the future to give the Phoenix players a run for their money.

The 1600-1899 Section saw a close race between Trek regular, Daniel Bryant, and another Tucson talent, Kinsleigh Wong. The Section was decided in round 3 when Daniel got the best of Kinsleigh on his way to a perfect 4-0 score. Another worthy note from this section was the play of Justin Arnold (let’s hope this surge of Tucson players in our tournaments continues) who started off in the 1300-1599 Section, but was moved up only to go 1.5 out of 2 against the even stronger competition.

In the 1300-1599 Section we saw a “break out” tournament for one of our long time Trekkers. David Godfrey, the older brother of our current Cup MVP, dominated the field to go 4-0 and gain almost 200 rating points. Always believing him to be underrated, I was not surprised by this at all! Congrats to David. Also of note in this section was the third consecutive top 5 finish by Shunta Hashimoto. EARLY PREDICTION: Our MVP this season comes out of the 1300-1599 Section.

The 1000-1299 was won by Vedant Lahoti who, if not for a mistaken understanding about the rules when offering a draw, would have gone 4-0. Trek regulars Joseph Glover, Nathan Coll, Cortez Schenck, and Richard Qi finished 2-5th respectively.

Possibly our biggest spread between one player and the rest of the field took place in the 700-999 Section. Rachael Eng won first place by no less than a point and a half margin! An extremely impressive tournament, and probably a winning margin we won’t see repeated for the rest of the year. Also of note was the participation of several first time Trekkers, and we hope to see them again on October 25th.

Thanks again to FIDE Master Robby Adamson who lectured during the lunch hours. His “game review” got “great reviews” and we will probably see him again at a future Trek. Nikolay Andrianov will be the guest lecturer on October 25th, so don’t miss it!

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