69th Annual Virginia Closed State Championship

2005 Open Results

2005 Amateur Results

2005  Games

Photos Below

   Young Adithya Balusubramanian defeats #1 ranked FM Dov Gorman in rd 2

I wonder what provoked this in 3-time State Champ Rusty Potter?

Daniel Miller won his 4th overall and third strait State Championship, scoring 5-1 and finishing ahead of a pack of five players at 4.5.  The last time someone won three in a row was 1967, when Virginia Legend Charles Powell won his 4th in a row (eventually he won 7). This is quite an honor to be mentioned along with Powell and that is what its looking like for Miller.

The tournament was held again at the Springfield Holiday Inn Express, the site of the VCF's Northern Virginia tournaments over the past two years. The turnout was very poor, the lowest since 1998. Perhaps the beautiful weekend weather or the rising gas prices caused the turnout, but whomever chose not to participate missed a great event. W. Marshall Denny II was elected the new VCF President, the first time in a long time that the Virginia Beach area has produced a VCF President. Helen Hinshaw and Michael Atkins were elected to two year terms on the board and Mike Hoffpauir (the new Scholastic Coordinator) was elected to serve a one year term.

Dan Miller has the incredible ability and knack to regularly snatch victory away from defeat, hanging on and seemingly playing almost perfect chess when slight down in material or position. When he won the 2002 Championship in Richmond with a 6-0 score, there were 5 of those games in which he was either lost or there was one move the opponent missed which could have won. This weekend's championship run only produced 3-4 games in which this tenacity, along with some Lady Luck - and it always takes some amount of luck to win a tournament, produced games in which people were wondering "How did he escape this time!?" The escapes ranged from several games in which he was objectively lost (Fritz rating his position as -1.5 to -2.5) and him playing "perfectly" while watching the opponent play a series of second best moves eventually to lose and having an opponent forget to make his 30th move and lose on time.

The star of the first half of the tournament was clearly young Adithya Balasubramanian, to be called Adithya B by personal request. He defeated #1 ranked Dov Gorman in Rd 2 and drew with Dan Miller in round three, one of the games in which Miller tenaciously hung on while clearly down and produced a saving draw.  Adithya defeated Andrew Samuelson (recent winner of DC Open and Virginia Open) in round 4 and defeated three time state champ Rusty Potter in round 5. He lost in the final round to another three time state champ, Macon Shibut, but scored 4.5 against a field that included the top 3 and by playing Miller, Shibut and Potter, he had an even score against winners of 10 state championships! Had he won his final round match with Shibut, he was have been in clear first with 5.5 at age 13!

Finishing in second place with 4.5 were FMs Dov Gorman and Macon Shibut, Adithya B, Andrew Samuelson and Larry Larkins who also could have won the State Championship with a win over Miller in the final round.  Adithya B took the Expert Trophy and Rodney Flores took the Class A trophy, tying with several others (Daniel Clancy, Ettie Nikolova, and Tyler Cook with 4-2 scores among Class A players.  For the special group prices, Daniel Clancy was top Junior (Adithya B's Expert trophy being a "higher" prize), Ettie Nikolova was Top Woman, and Ilya Kremenschugskiy was top Senior. Tirsten Warnk won the top Open Upset prize of a Clock while Sue He won the top upset in the Amateur ($36) and Top Overall Upset (donated used chess computer)

The State Amateur title was won by Murtuza Hashim with 5.5/6. He gave up a draw to Tim Chen and going into the final round, both had 4.5/5 scores and were a full point ahead of the field. Hashim drew last year's State Amateur champ Nick Halgren in the final round, a fitting test - having the defeat the reigning champ in order to be the new champ,  while Chen drew Senior Champ Kremenchugskiy. Chen was held to a draw while Murtuza won giving him the title. Chen was second with 5/6 and third was shared by Michael Donovan and Joe Faires with 4.5. Chen took the C trophy, John Ohman took the "D" trophy with 3.5 and Sue Y He took the Under 1200 trophy as well as the top Amateur upset and top overall upset prizes.

One of the discussions at the Membership Meeting was whether the VCF should take over organizing the Millennium Chess Festival. The organizer has grown tired of losing money and lives half-way across the country now so has decided to move on, leaving what is now the largest adult tournament in the state on life support. We are considering several options to continue the event as no one wants to see this unique tournament disappear. If there is anyone out there willing to help out with sponsorship or linking us to potential sponsors, please contact the new VCF President Marshall Denny and/or VCF Treasurer Ernie Schlich.