Category: Chess Tournaments

Last Friday was the last round of the Petrosian Open and as usual we will have a two hour blitz arena event for tiebreakers.

The name for the blitz arena is Aulia and the link is:

https://lichess.org/tournament/lF8Uw2LP

password: sgv

The fight for first place was decided in the last round. Ariel came close to getting a big advantage against me on board one and catching me before the finish line. Gerald and Arthur are shared second and third. You can check out the final standings here:
https://caissachess.net/live/995

The prize fund for this tournament is: 

1. $30
2. $20

This time we will also have a $20 prize for the winner of the Blitz Arena (Players that won money in the main event are not eligible for this).

The annotated games of the last round can be found here:

Stay tuned for updates. L.A. county is entering the yellow tier, hence the Mark Rothko picture. We are in contact with the YMCA to figure out what the next steps are.

Round two saw some knights chasing glory and finding doom.

Below are the annotated games. Pairings and standings can be found here:

https://caissachess.net/live/995

The Rubinstein Open concluded with a 2h Arena Blitz with G6+1 games. The final standing of the blitz tournament can be fonud here:

https://lichess.org/tournament/LQjjpCDp

Hamlet and Armen had already secured first and second place. Gerald, Larry, and Kevin were fighting it out for third place. In the under 1800 section Arturo won (again) outright and Steve, Manu, and Artem were tied for second, third, and fourth.

Gerald left his competition behind and finished 4th overall scoring twenty points, thus securing his third place in the Rubinstein open. Manu showed again a very strong blitz performance and finished second with 25 points. This gives him the second place in the under 1800 category. Artem finished 6th place with 11 points and securing his third place.

Winners, please contact me to make arrangements regarding your prize money.

Our next tournament is the Petrosian Open. It starts Friday, April 2nd. The modalities are the same as in the last few tournaments. G60+10, 5 round Swiss, and so on. Details can be found here

https://caissachess.net/online-registration/index/995

This is also the place where you can register.

This tournament will feature a 50% discount. More and more businesses are opening up again here in Southern California. So far we don’t know when we can resume OTB chess again. Dependent on how things develop we might be able to resume playing chess before this online tournament concludes. Consider the discount a preemptive reimbursement in case we don’t get to play all the rounds of this tournament.

Also, given that not everybody attending our online tournaments lives locally, we can consider continuing these tournaments post-lockdown. Leave a comment below to let us know what you think.

The other important point to stress is: Register before Thursday 6pm if you want to be paired in round 1. Due to my non-chess obligations I won’t be able to consider people signing up late for the first round.

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