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What happens when a site becomes too good? Is that possible? Can a
chess venue be too good for it's own good? That seems to be the issue
with the Hotel Sierra site in Sterling. For the past three events we
have gotten dangerously close to having to turn people away!
120 players came for the 14th Annual Northern Virginia Open. Previous
turnouts had been 117 twice and it was looking like this would be the
event which exceeded the capacity of the facility. With the natural
growth of tournaments in an area of Loudon County that has two new
clubs (Leesburg and Ashburn) and seems to be chess starved (what a
wonderful affliction!), word of mouth alone can overflow the capacity
of a nice venue.
The tournament ended in a three-way tie among IM Tegshuren Enkhbat
(fresh from his capture of the Maryland State Title last month), FM
Anton Paolo Del Mundo and IM Oladapo Adu. It was fitting that the
games involving these three guys, and FM Shinsaku Uesugi/Jeevan
Karamsetty were the very last games to finish, competitive to the very
end. Enkhbat and Del Mundo entered the final round on Board 1 with
perfect 4-0 scores, the swiss system working perfectly - the two
highest rated players playing each other in the final round. They
played to a very tough draw and were joined at 4.5 when IM Adu somehow
found a way to win when losing against young Charles Yang. The very
last game to finish was Uesugi versus Karamsetty, with Shin finding
himself on the other side of a younger and improving player, something
he has done to adults for years. Karamsetty doesn't play as much as
some scholastic players, but when he does the results have him rated
2050 and climbing. His game versus former State Champ Steve Greanias
showed some creative aggression, which wasn't perfect, according to
Rybka, but was effective. Look for bigger things from Jeevan.
In a field this size it almost takes 4-1 to win anything Class A or
above. This year two excellent results extended that down to Classes B
and C when Kartik Gupta (+43) and Andrew Miles (+140!) outclassed
their classes with 4 points. Ian Schoch, Eric Most and Jeevan
Karamsetty each scored 4-1 to win Top Expert and Tim Rogalski scored
the same to be clear Top A. Joseph Tan took clear Top Class D and
Nicholas Naylor did that for Under 1200. Yash Tekriwal took home $100
for the top cumulative upset points (1004.5) and Vijaya Sajja won a
digital chess clock for top individual upset.
The percentage of scholastic players has been creeping slowing up for
years. With the average USCF modal age of 10 (more members aged 10
than any other age), that is not surprising. For this tournament,
there were 59 players under 18 so it is was almost at the 50% level.
The scholastic players also seemed better behaved and more in control
than in previous years, perhaps because of more and better parental
control or perhaps because the weather was nice and kids could go
outside and run off steam. Whatever the reason, it makes for a better
playing environment with less noise and less complaints from the
hotel.
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