Several masters lost games against lower rated players at this year’s Massachusetts Game/60 Championship. The “upset king” was Massachusetts High School co-champion Jacob Fauman, who beat three masters and lost only to co-winner GM Alexander Ivanov. Grant Xu, winner of the 14 & Under Championship at the 2011 Spiegel Cup, did almost as well, beating two masters, drawing against FM Bill Kelleher, and losing to the tournament’s other co-winner, FM Robert Perez, an MIT student from Miami Beach, Florida. The biggest victim of upsets was former Massachusetts champion SM Denys Shmelov, who lost to Fauman and Xu and drew against another young expert, Andrew Liu. With Shmelov clearly having a bad day, Ivanov and Perez split the first and second place prize money, both winning their first three games and drawing against each other in the last round. Fauman won the prize for Top Under 2200.
Richard Judy of York Beach, Maine was clear fi rst in the Under 2000 section, winning three games and drawing against David Aldi of Connecticut. The key game in the section was in the last round, when Judy with 2.5 points out of three beat Conway Xu, an 11-year-old who started the tournament with three wins. 14-year-old Bowen Wang swept the Under 1750 section 4-0, as did 10-year-old Alan Sikarov in the Under 1500 Section. There was a three-way tie in the Under 1200 Section between Aaron Dunigan AtLee, Edward Chiu, and two younger players: 11-year-old Alvin Tan and 9-yearold Eddie Wang. Youth appears to be an advantage at this time control!
The first Massachusetts Game/60 Championship was held in 1990 and was the largest in the series, with 131 players. This year’s event, held at on April 15th in Marlborough, had 90, which was well short of the record but was the highest since 2007, which had 95. Bob Messenger was the chief tournament director, assisted by George Mirijanian and Steve Frymer. George Mirijanian contributed material which was used in this article. |