Sunday, April 10, 2016

Multi-Site Chess Tournament, Round#2: Jones Murphy vs Ashik Uzzaman

The second Multi-site Chess Tournament took place April 9th, this time with 3 venues and a 3-hour time zone difference among them. The venues were New York Chess & Games, the Long Island Chess Center, and Torres Chess and Music Academy in Fremont CA. 6 players played in Long Island, 5 in Brooklyn and 4 in California for a total of 15 players, a significant increase from the turnout for the first such event. Once again it was a highly entertaining event as players had to go from OTB to online play and back. The online clash of the two highest-rated players in the third round resulted in an excellent defensive effort by Tim MIrabile to overcome Jones Murphy's attack, clinching first place for Mirabile. Mirabile won the $90 first prize, with Jones Murphy and Rob Beatty winning $30 each for their 2nd-3rd place tie.

The Brooklyn site was hit by a router crash, which caused delays as a workaround was created. This was a good learning experience will built on issues raised in the first event as well, and will mean smoother tournaments in the future. Even players at the Brooklyn site gave heavily positive feedback, and all stated they'd be happy to return for more such events.

For my game I used Babachess for Windows and my son used Raptor for Mac as FICS clients.

Final Standings:

Last Name - First Name - USCF rating - Location - Score

Mirable Tim 2187 LI 4
Beatty Robert 1983 NYCG 3
Murphy Jones 2172 NYCG 3
Noah Flaum 1900 LI 2.5
Scott Grant 850 LI 2
Milner Emma 916 CA 2
Zaman Ahyan 1275 SJ 2
Selden Alex 1650 LI 2
Uzzaman Ashik 1991 SJ 2
Leidy Alexander 800 LI 1
Shchehlik Elizabeth 850 SJ 1
Shah Rishi 1300 LI 1
Engenheiro Marcel unrated NYCG 1
Cunningham Daniel 719 NYCG 0
Cruz-Swinton Vera unrated NYCG 0