Category: Chess Tournaments

    1. Homepage
    2. Chess Tournaments
    Chess Tournaments
    Rubinstein Open Concludes

    Congratulations to Hamlet Tovmasyan, who went undefeated with a score of 4.5/5 to win the Rubinstein Open. Clear second was Armen Andranigian at 4 points. Arturo Armagnac wins the under 1800 section again. Friday’s arena play

    https://lichess.org/tournament/LQjjpCDp (password: sgv)

    will decide the rest.


    We had a record 20 players for this online event so thanks to all for their participation and support.

    Our next tournament start on April 2. Watch out for further anouncements

    You can find the Round 5 games below with comments on some. John Wright provides some Queens Gambit history in the Hamlet/Axel game as well as his own. Larry Stevens annotates his game against a Gerald Ruiz, a draw that had its share of excitement.

    Chess Tournaments
    Rubinstein Open: Missed Opportunities in the Penultimate Round

    Round four was characterized by unforgiving fighting chess—or lucky escapes. You decide for yourself.
    Here are the games:

    The current standings and pairings for next round can be found here:
    https://caissachess.net/live/960

    The top three players, overall and rated under 1800, win $50, $30, and $20 respectively. 

    As usual, the Friday after the final round a 2h blitz arena will serve as a tie breaker.  

    Chess Tournaments
    Rubinstein Open Round 3: Doom in the Center

    Some of the games demonstrate the dangers of falling behind in development. A subset of these games feature kings stuck in the center. Artem and Gerald found themselves in a very challenging and educational rook and bishops of opposite colors endgame. Artem was kind enough to annotate their game for us.
    Enjoy the games:

    Pairings and standings can be found here:
    https://caissachess.net/live/960

    Chess Tournaments
    Rubinstein Open: Drama in Round 2

    I would like to thank Gerald, John, and Artem for annotating some of the games.

    Gerald and John played on board one. Enjoy the game and the winner’s insights:

    The other games with annotations can be found here:

    Standings and pairings can be found here:
    https://caissachess.net/live/960

    Chess Tournaments
    Rubinstein Open: High Participation and Passionate Games

    19 players signed up for the Rubinstein open. That is a new record for our online tournaments. As some of you may have noted we are running a Swiss tournament with accelerated pairings. As a consequence we saw highly competitive pairings in round 1 already.

    This time I got help from John Wright with the game annotations. Here is his game against Larry Stevens

    The rest of the games are annotated by John or me. You can find them here.

    If anyone would like to annotate their game or any other game please let me know. We all can learn from each other.

    I will post the final pairings for the next round tomorrow night. Just keep an eye on our tournament website:

    https://caissachess.net/live/960

    As you may have noticed this link is the same throughout the tournament. I just posted preliminary pairings. Unless I get a bye later today or somebody else joins the tournament the pairings won’t change.

    Competitive Chess Play
    Chess Tournaments
    Raymond Armagnac wins the second Sierra Madre Open

    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

    Chess Tournaments
    Kyan Hsu wins Steinitz Open Tiebreakers

    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

    © Chessbit 2019 | Created with by the SGVCC Team