For the 20th edition of this championship event, MACA tried an experiment. Instead of the traditional format of four games in one day with multiple sections, this year’s event was seven rounds played over two days, with all the players in a single section, and with higher entry fees and prizes compared to previous years. The results were a little disappointing, with only 42 players entering the tournament, but this might have been because of scheduling conflicts with other events on the same weekend. A gas leak in the kitchen forced the evacuation of the playing site (the Kennedy Senior Center in Natick) for a few minutes until the fire department showed up, but apart from that the event ran smoothly.
GM Alexander Ivanov added another title to his resume, allowing draws against SM Denys Shmelov in round 4 and FM Bill Kelleher in round 6 and winning his other games to finish clear 1st with 6-1. Shmelov and Kelleher tied for second, along with NM Vadim Martirosov, all of whom scored 5.5-1.5. New York expert Sam Barsky won the U2200 prize with 5-2, Shrirangnath Havale was the top U2000 with 4.5-2.5, Jenshiang Hong won the U1800 prize with 4-3, Timothy Lavoie and Andrew Crotty split the U1600 and U1400 prizes with 3.5-3.5, and Brian Lafferty, Kevin Hu and Daniel Plotkin shared the U1200 prize with 3-4. Alex Relyea directed the tournament, assisted by Nita Patel, Ken Ballou and Bob Messenger.
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