Category: Chess Tournaments

Congratulations to Raymond Armagnac for winning the second edition of the Sierra Madre Open. Starting with three wins it was enough to draw the last two games to cruise to first place. Lawrence Stevens, Arthur Shao Zhang, and Arturo Armagnac tied for second and thus giving us an exciting tiebreaker this Friday.

As in our last tournament we have cash prizes for the top two players overall ($50 and $30) and the top two players under 1800 ($30 and $20).

The battle for second prize will decide how many under 1800 prizes will be available. If Arturo Armagnac repeats his fantastic blitz performance Rafi Andranigan will clinch first in the under 1800 category and Artem Aleksenko second.

Make sure you all sign up for the blitz arena:

https://lichess.org/tournament/KaTMtSlb

The password is: sgv

It might be a good idea not to wait till the last minute for sign up. I might not be there for the start of the arena to help out. It might also be a good idea to read the rules for the arena, if not you might be surprised why some people only get half of the time playing you.

Here are the annotated games from round 4:

And here are the games from round 5:

The pairings for the next round, standings, and results can be found here:

https://caissachess.net/live/910

Last Friday the Sierra Madre Open started with 7 exciting games and the black players scored an astonishing 5.5 points.

You can play through the games and enjoy Larry Stevens’ insightful annotations here:

For standings and pairings go here:

https://caissachess.net/live/910

I will post the pairings for round two Wednesday night.

The Steinitz Open concluded with a dramatic finish that saw Larry Stevens, Gerald Ruiz, and Kyan Hsu tying for first. A 2h blitz arena was needed to break the ties.

Kyan took an early lead with three early wins while Gerald and Larry each started their tournament with a loss. Kyan took full advantage of the Lichess regulations by collecting bonus points with his winning streaks as well as going into Berserk mode. Kyan also managed to play 15 games in the allotted time while Gerald and Larry only completed ten and nine games respectively. Kyan’s aggressive play and tactical acumen were also essential ingredients for his win. Congratulations! Gerald finished 4th with a respectable 24 points and secured his second place overall. After playing a fantastic tournament in the open Larry was not able to adjust to his first Arena tiebreaker. But I’m sure he learned a valuable lesson and is a contender for first in our next tournament.

Thanks to Kyan winning the tournament a prize in the under 1800 category became available. Arturo Armagnac, thanks to his performance in the Open, took first and Lisa Willis, thanks to her blitz skills came in second.

You can find the results of the Steinitz Arena Tiebreakers here:

https://lichess.org/tournament/1zg4bUUV

Disaster struck early on boards 1 and 4. Larry Stevens showed his deep understanding of the French. The subtle 8. Bd3 gave him a great position against John Hale, a lifetime French player. John erred a few moves later and the game was over. Chris Stychinsky got steamrolled by Gerald Ruiz Morra gambit:

Chris just played 6 … Nf6. How does Gerald punish him?

Hamlet Tovmasyan found himself in a difficult position against me. The opening clearly didn’t go his way. But he defended tenaciously and we reached the following position:

How should black proceed?

Artem Aleksenko and Arturo Armagnac fought a battle with many ups and downs. But it was Artem who made the last mistake

Black has a huge advantage, how can he finish the game?

Russel played a fantastic game against Lisa but stumbled just before forcing Lisa to resign.

Kyan Hsu mounted a ferocious attack against Manu Prasad weakened dark squares and delivered a picturesque checkmate.

David Faulkner and Patrick van Haeren chose the queen’s gambit accepted as their battle ground. David didn’t allow much counterplay by skillfully exploited black’s queenside weaknesses.

Randy Hough and John Wright had one of their ongoing discussions in the exchange Slav which ended in John’s favor this time.

Here are the games with some annotations. Feel free to comment.

Standings and pairings for round 4 can be found here:

https://caissachess.net/live/878

John Hale and Larry Stevens took the lead after winning their round two games. Gerald Ruiz unleashed a ferocious attack against John Hale’s king and chased him all across the board but with Gerald’s time running low John was able to get in a tactical shot that reversed the course of the game. Against Arturo Armagnac Larry opted for a romantic version of the King’s Gambit with 3. Bc4 and soon he got a dream position, total central control, the bishop pair and no queens to harass the misplaced white king. Arturo made good use of his two knights to launch a counter attack which Larry was able to fend off. Eventually, the players reached an equal knight ending that was a bit easier to play for white and eventually Larry reached a winning pawn ending.

Chris Stychinsky knew that my protected passed pawn was not enough for me to win the pawn ending with a couple of accurate moves he shut my king out and soon afterwards we had a threefold repetition.

Hamlet Tovmasyan sacrificed an exchange early in his game against Randy Hough. Eventually, his pair of bishops and an advanced passed d-pawn proofed to be sufficient compensation. Randy acknowledged this and returned the exchange for the d-pawn to reach a dead-drawn rook and minor piece ending. The evaluation didn’t change after the minor pieces came off. But after trading the rooks Randy was suddenly lost.

Feeling that he didn’t deserve the full point Hamlet played 67. Kf5 to draw the game.

Patrick van Haeren got a great position against Artem Aleksenko’s Alekhine Defense. But after winning the e4 pawn Artem was able to throw all his pieces against Patrick’s castled king and eventually broke through.

Stanley Zezotarski kindly agreed to play Manu Prasad as the house player. Stanley opted for a King’s Indian Attack setup against the Manu’s Pirc Defense. Manu eventually won the e4 pawn at the cost of piece coordination. In the ensuing struggle to reactivate his pieces Manu missed a tactical shot and resigned soon afterwards.

Kyan Hsu played the somewhate offbeat 2. b3 variation against David Faulkner’s Sicilian. But after a dozen moves we reached a relatively normal looking Sicilian position. Kyan was able to tempt David to weaken the d5 square. Kyan used this square as the launchpad for his irresistible attack.

Here are the games with some annotations:

As usual, the pairings for the next round can be found here:

https://caissachess.net/live/878