News

On October 16^th, the Tri-Bridges Chess Club again at the buildings of 660 and 666 Exton Commons for a tournament, the not so originally named – Exton Commons #2.   This event had an Open section and an Under 750 section.  There was also an Unrated section attended by two students.  The Open section was also very lightly attended, 2 adults and 3 scholastic players (it was to be 4, but one no showed).  In the Open Section, Colin Reiland had the best performance of his young career, upsetting Expert Kevin Chen.  With the other games playing out as expected, there was a logjam of 3 players with 3 points at the top of the standings.  Joe Mucerino joined these two players.  Paul Ke Ma and Albert Wang, much younger scholastic players finished 4^th and 5^th respectively, and won trophies.

The two unrated players, Ganesan Kumaravelu (sp?) and Jayaprakash Jumarasamy (sp?) played a four-game match.  Though this section didn’t go as plan, there was enough of a response/interest to warrant trying again, during the National Chess Congress (NCC) as they would be the ones who would not go to the NCC.

The main section the Under 750, had 12 players.  The five highest rated players were the top five finishers, but it was 5^th ranked Jingyi Lu who took the day with the only perfect score.  The two 3 – 1 scores were Vahini Sadhu Venkata and Srija Vemuri.  Rithik Rao, took 4^th with 2.5 points.

The players in the bottom half of the score group were less experienced and made a fine showing for themselves.  No doubt they will have stronger results with a bit more practice.

The next event will be the Reach for the Sky tournament that will be November 6 at the West Whiteland Township building.  We will then have the next Friday night event on the 12^th.

US Chess MSA – Cross Table for EXTON COMMONS #2- UNDER 750 (Event 202110162262) (good link)

The first Exton Commons event (technically the second, the first, the first being the Test the Waters tournament on September 11) drew a total of 16 players.  There were twelve in the Under 750 and just four in the Open.  I had not realized that Saturday morning was a date to take the SATs and so I lost out on several players.  The quad in the Open may have only had four players, but it had by far the biggest upset of the night as young Paul Ma (a 916) drew Expert Joe Mucerino (2085).  Joe recovered to win the event, Yajat, the floor TD was second, and Paul, who also bested Colin Reiland (a 1101/ P4 (provisional after 4 games)) was third.

The Under 750 section had 12 students (along with a few no shows and last-minute adjustments, causing some tweaked pairings) who played in the event.  Remember: If you cannot play after telling me you would, please e courteous and let me know, this is especially helpful as we don’t want little kids sitting for 25 minutes and not getting games.  In any case, the section, while an Under 750, only had one player above 600 and only one other players, a provisionally rated one in the 500s, but four rated between 339 and 305.  So not surprisingly, there were plenty of upsets and close games.

Ethan Wang and Albert Wang both had perfect scores and tied for 1^st.  Amazingly, this is a different Ethan Wang, than Albert Wang’s brother Ethan Wang, who had a tougher event, but still went 1 and 2.  To make matter more confusing, the Ethan Wang who went 3 – 0 also has a brother whose name begins with Al, but it is Alan, and he is just a little too young too play.  Everyone handled the possible name confusion well, but next time you sit down to play Ethan Wang, please make sure you have the right one!

With 2 players tying at 3-0 and another 3 players going 2-1 (Avaneesh Ramamurthy, Felix Feng, and Darren Liang) tiebreaks were an unfortunate side effect.  Tiebreaks can be very confusing and rather frustrating in small events, but essentially can be broken down into 1 theme: The tougher the opponents the better the tie breaks.  In the case of the 3-0’s, Ethan played 2 players who won 2 games, while Ethan played 2 players who won 1 game.  Avaneesh and Felix were especially close in tie breaks, having to go to a tie break based on average rating of opponent, where Avaneesh was greatly helped by having to play Albert, the 618, while Felix did not play him.

This report will be updated once USChess fixes their website/tournament reporting issues

Everyone will get another chance to play on October 16^th when we have a Saturday event in the afternoon, very much like the one on the 11^th.  Like that one, we will have at least 2, maybe 3 sections, if we can get enough kids signed up (more details to come in a few days.)  October 23^rd, Main Line Chess and Games will run an event, I think Under 750, and then a Under 1300 the following week, when Leteef Street in running an event Hershey.  The following week will be the special Reach for the Sky event held at the West Whiteland Township building (much more on that too come.)