Starting with this report Samika Nettem (and eventually Kalyani Puranikmath) will be taking over some of the tournament writeups as I am terribly slow with them. The tournament rating report can be found at –US Chess MSA – Cross Table for EXTON COMMON EVENT -40 (Event 202308250882) . The following is by Samika.
In the Exton Commons 40th tournament, 22 players came together this Friday night to play for first place prizes in the three sections.
In the Under 350 section, top seed Pranav Srinivasula went 3 for 3, winning first place. Roshini Sadhu Venkata and Jaarun Jairath both had two points, but Roshini had better tiebreaks than Jaarun to take second place, winning her first ever chess trophy in a tournament! Jaarun Jairath got third place. Surya Arun and Ethan Frohman, who have both played in a few tournaments and will definitely improve and both ended up with one point.
The Under 700 section had only four players and was super fast with all players finishing their three rounds before the Under 350 section was even close to done! (Tournament Directors note: All 4 players would benefit from slowing down and taking notation!) Despite that, Aanya Kollur, a frequent participant and the only player taking notation, dominated the field. Second place was Swanik Gande, a regular club player who only lost to Anya, going 2-1. Inesh Adhrit Sethuraman was third with one point beating Ethan Jiang and losing to Kollur and Gande.
The Open Section contained the most people with 13 players! Both Kevin Kennedy and Pallavi Rajeev had two points and they played in the final round and drew. Kevin edged out Pallavi on tiebreaks to take win the first place trophy as they split the prize money, each winning $25. Pallavi got the second place trophy and four people tied for third place! Azim Ahmad Julkipli won third place on tie breaks, but the three other players got top under trophy prizes. They are Venica Jain, Viraaj Jairath, and Mathew Xie.
