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This year's Hamilton Junior Chess Championships once again ended with a riveting blitz tie breaker to see who would take home the trophies.
Leslie Tang's sharp play against Adam Cormier and Ricky McCarthur (and practically everyone else he played) had him with 4 out of 4 points going into the final round against ultra street chess fighter, Reuben McCleary. McCleary, who built up his reputation among Hamiltonians by taking out their pretty strong player Aaron Both (now 2049) at the 2008 Chessca Open, faced off against Tang with 3.5 out of 4. After what many chess spectators believed to be a slight edge for McCleary a draw was agreed to giving Tang clear first.
Meanwhile "cool guy" Adam Cormier used solid technique to win against Brett Gugel leaving him tied with Rueben for second place. A possible 3 way tie was avoided when Zachary Dukic fended off Damir Baizhiyenov with some nice chess play. Earlier, Damir, who had lost heavy material to Razvan Preotu, pulled off a nice swindle to turn the tables and get a big upset. The fans were wondering if the same thing was about to happen again against Zachary, when down an exchange in a rook+knight vs rook+rook endgame Damir created a threatening queen side majority. But Zachary spoke with his chess pieces, and the words were "NO SWINDLE TODAY".
Finally, Adam and Reuben faced off for the blitz tie breakers, each man hoping to take home the dazzling second place trophy. The tie-breaker rules were they would play double blitz rounds (each getting one turn with white) until either the match was decided or someone said uncle. The fireworks began when Reuben won Adam's knight. Adam at this point entered "speed demon" mode and still had almost 4 minutes left on his clock when Reuben went under 1 minute. The material advantage was unable to defeat the time advantage and Adam ended up winning the first game on the clock.
The second blitz game saw Adam persevere both in terms of time and position and he was finally able to get a checkmate on h8.
When all was said and done the trophy winners were:
Leslie Tang
Adam Cormier
Reuben McCleary
To see a detailed view of the standings and wall chart please click on the following link:
http://chess.servegame.com/hamilton/...009Results.htm
We'd like to thank all the parents, chess kids, helpers and YMCA staff who made this event possible!
Leslie Tang's sharp play against Adam Cormier and Ricky McCarthur (and practically everyone else he played) had him with 4 out of 4 points going into the final round against ultra street chess fighter, Reuben McCleary. McCleary, who built up his reputation among Hamiltonians by taking out their pretty strong player Aaron Both (now 2049) at the 2008 Chessca Open, faced off against Tang with 3.5 out of 4. After what many chess spectators believed to be a slight edge for McCleary a draw was agreed to giving Tang clear first.
Meanwhile "cool guy" Adam Cormier used solid technique to win against Brett Gugel leaving him tied with Rueben for second place. A possible 3 way tie was avoided when Zachary Dukic fended off Damir Baizhiyenov with some nice chess play. Earlier, Damir, who had lost heavy material to Razvan Preotu, pulled off a nice swindle to turn the tables and get a big upset. The fans were wondering if the same thing was about to happen again against Zachary, when down an exchange in a rook+knight vs rook+rook endgame Damir created a threatening queen side majority. But Zachary spoke with his chess pieces, and the words were "NO SWINDLE TODAY".
Finally, Adam and Reuben faced off for the blitz tie breakers, each man hoping to take home the dazzling second place trophy. The tie-breaker rules were they would play double blitz rounds (each getting one turn with white) until either the match was decided or someone said uncle. The fireworks began when Reuben won Adam's knight. Adam at this point entered "speed demon" mode and still had almost 4 minutes left on his clock when Reuben went under 1 minute. The material advantage was unable to defeat the time advantage and Adam ended up winning the first game on the clock.
The second blitz game saw Adam persevere both in terms of time and position and he was finally able to get a checkmate on h8.
When all was said and done the trophy winners were:
Leslie Tang
Adam Cormier
Reuben McCleary
To see a detailed view of the standings and wall chart please click on the following link:
http://chess.servegame.com/hamilton/...009Results.htm
We'd like to thank all the parents, chess kids, helpers and YMCA staff who made this event possible!