38 participants! This was our record showing on Saturday, March 11th, for the 29th ECE (Exton Common Event) –
In the Under 1250, Abhiram Vadiguri, a long time active club player knocked off some rust and scored 3.5 out of 4. In second place was Vignesh Divvela who scored 3 out of 4, losing to Abhi in round 4. In third was Mohit Mariganti who also was 3 – 1, only losing to Vignesh when he rushed a move and Vignesh found a mate in 2! Pallavi Rajeev, a newcomer to our events, scored 4th with 2.5 and a large group of 4 players scored an even result. (Also, see note at bottom concerning unrated players.)
In the Under 750 section, our largest section ever with 18 players, was won by Adhinanth Krishna Karthikeyan with a perfect 4 – 0 score. Matthew Xie was second with a 3 -1 score in his first event. (See note at bottom concerning tiebreaks.) Ishan Verma also scored 3 -1 (this time going +2=2) for 3rd place. Narasimhan Ramanujam and Viraaj Jairath tied in the last round with each other and were part of a four person group to go 2.5 – 1.5.
The Under 250 had several new players. Due to covid some players played a great deal of chess.com before coming to tournaments, others have not. This explains why unrateds can have such divergent results, such as in this events when unrateds placed, first, second, and last. In first with a perfect 4 – 0 score was Chris Melwyn. In 2nd, 3 -1 score, was Atharv Rajesh. In third, also with a 3 – 1 score was Enishk Muruganandam.
We wish everyone good luck at states and feel free to ask me questions about the event if you have any. Also, we hold a Friday night event, March 24th, 7 to 9:30 (or so), with our normal G/25, d5 time control.
Provisional Ratings note: Provisional Ratings (those with a P and then a number 25 or lower) are apt to change much faster than those with an established rating. Also, due to how they count games for ratings across the various types of ratings (blitz, quick, regular), it is possible to have played in the four round event on Saturday, but get a P7, this was because several players played in the Friday night free blitz event as their first event, getting to P3 at the start of this tournament, however because those games were not in this time control, they were still considered unrated. If you have more questions, feel free to ask, but the simple solution is just play in lots of tournaments.
Tiebreak note: Tiebreaks are based on several slightly convoluted formulas, but the basic gist is the better your opponents are and the better their results, the better your tiebreaks. However, because a tournament may use an alternate tiebreak method apart from the normal, if advertised before hand, US Chess lists tiebreaks based on final rating of player at the end of the event. This is why the standing on US Chess may not match the actual standings.
To see the actual standings please see: US Chess MSA – Cross Table for ECE -29 – STATE WARM UP (Event 202303106272)
