This year saw the return of the traditional Ontario Open on the Victoria Day long weekend. The 2009 edition was the turn of Eastern Ontario, and the EOCA was proud to host this classic event in Ottawa, at the home of the RA Chess Club. The RA Centre is a huge facility, and we lucked out with two big semi-connected rooms, that provided lots of space, good lighting, and decent air control. The only hitch occurred during an evening round, when a water pipe burst at the other end of the building, setting off the fire alarm, and making air conditioning imperfect for a couple of hours. However, all of the players were real understanding troopers, and after a brief walk out of the building, and then back in, we smoothly finished the round without any further incidents.
Taking advantage of the long weekend, the schedule was two rounds per day, starting just after lunchtime on the Saturday. By then, we had 68 players registered, and rather evenly across all ratings. Therefore, the players were split across 3 sections, and then further grouped across 6 rating classes.
Before reporting the tournament results, I just wanted to take a moment to thank the OCA and the EOCA for their organizational financial support, which contributed to a total prize fund of $4300! I also want to recognize Bill Doubleday, Frank Dixon, Chris Mallon, Garland Best, Eric Van Dusen, Wei Xiong, and Stijn De Kerpel. Without their help, there is no way this event would have unfolded as smoothly as it did. These are the kind of people who keep asking what else can we do! Finally, I want to express my admiration to a wonderful collection of players bringing sportsmanship from across our great province.
Section A featured 5 FIDE title players, led by GM Bator Sambuev, and including IMs Artiom Samsonkin and Leonid Gerzhoy, and FMs Michael Barron and Alex Davies. In the Top class, rated 2200 and over, Bator and Artiom fended off everyone else, including a titanic win by Artiom over Bator, to both finish clearly at the top with scores of 5-1. This was worth $800 (sharing $1000+$600) for each of these elite players, and many of the other players expressed how nice it was to see these classy young men emerge as co-winners, especially as both of them entertained us with round after round of exciting chess.
Rounding out the Top class, was yet another impressive performance by young Roman Sapozhnikov, who took 3rd place and $400 with a score of 4-2. And then rounding out Section A was the U2200 class, whose $500 prize was shared by strong locals William Doubleday and Saeid Sadeghi, both scoring 3-3.
Moving on to Section B, it consisted of an U2000 class, and an U1800 class. I tend to award single big class prizes, but there were so many non-Amateur players in the U2000 class, that there were two prizes, $500 for first and $300 for second. Similar to what happened in Section A, two players dominated this section with scores of 5-1. Jean-Bruno Chartrand from the province of Quebec, and rising local youngster David Li, each went home $400 richer.
In the U1800 class in Section B, Josh Renaud won with a good performance of 3.5-2.5, but he was playing as an Amateur. Behind him, things were very close, with 4 players scoring 3-3 to share $400 in cash. Marcel Laurin, Gordon Ritchie, Marion Bellgrau, and John Brown, each left with an extra $100.
Section C actually had the most dramatic finish, with the very last game of the tournament going on for well over 4 hours, and determining the last two prizes of the weekend. After the dust had settled, Drake Lalonde dramatically vaulted over the previous leader to win the U1600 class prize and $300. Finally, also scoring 4.5-1.5, and probably the best performance relative to previous rating, Kyle France obliterated the U1400 class, also winning $300.
Please visit the weblink below for a PDF of the wall chart. It should be up a day or so after the event, and will eventually also link to the CFC crosstable.
Yours in chess,
Aris Marghetis
Organizer/TD, EOCA President
http://www.eoca.org/htm/tournaments%202008-09.html
My next event will be the Eastern Ontario Open, scheduled for June 26th-28th.
If you would like to receive details on this event directly via email, please email arismarghetis@rogers.com to be added to my private email list.
Taking advantage of the long weekend, the schedule was two rounds per day, starting just after lunchtime on the Saturday. By then, we had 68 players registered, and rather evenly across all ratings. Therefore, the players were split across 3 sections, and then further grouped across 6 rating classes.
Before reporting the tournament results, I just wanted to take a moment to thank the OCA and the EOCA for their organizational financial support, which contributed to a total prize fund of $4300! I also want to recognize Bill Doubleday, Frank Dixon, Chris Mallon, Garland Best, Eric Van Dusen, Wei Xiong, and Stijn De Kerpel. Without their help, there is no way this event would have unfolded as smoothly as it did. These are the kind of people who keep asking what else can we do! Finally, I want to express my admiration to a wonderful collection of players bringing sportsmanship from across our great province.
Section A featured 5 FIDE title players, led by GM Bator Sambuev, and including IMs Artiom Samsonkin and Leonid Gerzhoy, and FMs Michael Barron and Alex Davies. In the Top class, rated 2200 and over, Bator and Artiom fended off everyone else, including a titanic win by Artiom over Bator, to both finish clearly at the top with scores of 5-1. This was worth $800 (sharing $1000+$600) for each of these elite players, and many of the other players expressed how nice it was to see these classy young men emerge as co-winners, especially as both of them entertained us with round after round of exciting chess.
Rounding out the Top class, was yet another impressive performance by young Roman Sapozhnikov, who took 3rd place and $400 with a score of 4-2. And then rounding out Section A was the U2200 class, whose $500 prize was shared by strong locals William Doubleday and Saeid Sadeghi, both scoring 3-3.
Moving on to Section B, it consisted of an U2000 class, and an U1800 class. I tend to award single big class prizes, but there were so many non-Amateur players in the U2000 class, that there were two prizes, $500 for first and $300 for second. Similar to what happened in Section A, two players dominated this section with scores of 5-1. Jean-Bruno Chartrand from the province of Quebec, and rising local youngster David Li, each went home $400 richer.
In the U1800 class in Section B, Josh Renaud won with a good performance of 3.5-2.5, but he was playing as an Amateur. Behind him, things were very close, with 4 players scoring 3-3 to share $400 in cash. Marcel Laurin, Gordon Ritchie, Marion Bellgrau, and John Brown, each left with an extra $100.
Section C actually had the most dramatic finish, with the very last game of the tournament going on for well over 4 hours, and determining the last two prizes of the weekend. After the dust had settled, Drake Lalonde dramatically vaulted over the previous leader to win the U1600 class prize and $300. Finally, also scoring 4.5-1.5, and probably the best performance relative to previous rating, Kyle France obliterated the U1400 class, also winning $300.
Please visit the weblink below for a PDF of the wall chart. It should be up a day or so after the event, and will eventually also link to the CFC crosstable.
Yours in chess,
Aris Marghetis
Organizer/TD, EOCA President
http://www.eoca.org/htm/tournaments%202008-09.html
My next event will be the Eastern Ontario Open, scheduled for June 26th-28th.
If you would like to receive details on this event directly via email, please email arismarghetis@rogers.com to be added to my private email list.
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