Wednesday, August 19, 2009

St. John's Masters - Six way split for 1st place

IM Ray Kaufman joined the tournament's five top-rated players, IM Oliver Barbosa, GM Leonid Yudasin, GM Michael Rohde, Mackenzie Molner and IM Justin Sarkar, in a big, six-way logjam at 3 points, for the top four prizes, collecting $127 each in the August 18th "St. John's Masters at the Marshall Chess Club. The little 5-way logjam for the Under 2300 prize at 2 points was good enough for $10 for FM Asa Hoffmann, Ramon A Manon-Og of the Philippines, Nitai Leve, Evan Rabin and Miguel Garcia. At 1713, Garcia, who qualified to participate in the tournament by scoring 2½ points in the previous week's "4 Rated Games Tonight!" Thursday Night Action tournament, was the tournament's lowest-rated competitor. His rating had no where to go but up, which is exactly what happened in Round 1 when he defeated 11th-seeded Ramon Manon-Og (rated over 500 points north), to clinch the $50 Upset Prize!

A total of 22 players entered the tournament, including 2 GMs and 4 IMs.

Each round, Glen Statile faithfully transcribed the games on Board 1 to assist with the ICC games relay.

The St. John's Masters tournaments are held at the Marshall Chess Club on the third Tuesday of each month. The next edition will be on the third Tuesday of September: September 15th at 7:00 pm. Participation is open to players rated over 2100. Players rated under 2100 may also qualify to participate by scoring 2½ or more points in any one of the four "4 Rated Games Tonight!" Thursday Night Action tournaments at the Marshall since the previous month's St. John's Masters. If you can't make it to the Marshall, you can always follow the top games on the ICC each round as well.

Click to show the crosstable

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