110 Players came to the Ramada Quantico over the weekend of November 7-9 to experience the 35th Annual Virginia Open. This tournament almost never happened and had hurdles, roadblocks and seeming curses but it finally happened and pretty smoothly! The playing site was nice and although we had to compete with bar noise on both nights, disco music on Saturday and a some pretty raucous rock and roll church music on Sunday, most players seemed pretty good-natured and rolled with the punch.

   GM Alex Wojtkeiwicz, winner of at least 3 US Grand Prix titles in a row added to his GP total this year with a clear win at 4.5. Alex is a regular on the local circuit and while clearly the favorite, he ran up against what he called "a brilliant game" played by NM Stan Fink who played a nice positional exchange sacrifice but ran a little short on time and lost what would have been a terrific win. Against FM Rodion Rubenchik in a won position, Alex mis-stepped and allowed a draw, the only points against him this weekend.

    Sharing second at 4-1 were Maryland Masters Stan Fink, Ray Kaufman and the previously mentioned FM from PA, Rubenchik. A new face on the Virginia scene, and returning to competive chess after a 12 year layoff, FM Dov Gorman was a little rusty and finished at 50%.

    3-time Virginia State Champion, Rusty Potter scored 3.5 and took the Top U2300 money and local expert Chris Sevilla, with the same score, took the U2100 money. Chris' last round upset of FM Gorman also gave him the Upset prize in the Open section. Top Scholastic players in the Open were current State Scholastic Champ Robert Brady and John Bninski.

    The Amateur section had three players score 4.5 to take the place money. Richard Fraser (who took the title and plaque on tiebreaks), Arlington Chess Club's William Carroll and Santy Wong from the U.S. Navy.

    Nick Halgren scored 4-1 and took Top Scholastic in the Amateur. It was one of those time where a scholastic player would have won some bucks had they entered with the full entry fee, but the experience cannot be purchased. Top Class B players at 3.5 were the VCF's Ernie Schlich, Ed McLaughlin, Michael Foycik and  Raymond Balucanag. Top Class C were Thomas Butler, Aryan Khojandi and Daniel Clancy, all with 3-2 scores. Also with 3-2 was Steve Linett who took 2nd Scholastic in the Amateur. Tom Hoffmann and Joseph Tyler with 1.5 took Top U1200.