Wednesday, October 21, 2009

St. John Masters, October 20th

NM Yaacov Norowitz was the clear winner of the October 20th St. John's Masters tournament, as 3½ points in four rounds was good enough for the $300 first prize.. Norowitz drew top-seeded GM Leonid Yudasin in Round 3, when the Grandmaster was unable to make any dents in Yaacov's Carok-Kann Defense. A pawn to the good in the final round, Yudasin once again was unable to bring home the point against IM Jay Bonin, whose drawing technique more than made up for his pawn deficit.

Yudasin, Bonin and Ramon Manon-Og all tied for 2nd-4th with 3 points, winning $130 a piece. Manon-Og also took home the $40 Upset Prize, for his first round victory over IM Justin Sarkar, where he was the 289-point underdog. Zahar Hiklevich was a half-point further back, the only player with 2½ points, which was good enough to clinch the $40 Under 2300 prize.

The St. John's Masters tournaments are held on the third Tuesday of each month at the Marshall Chess Club. The next edition is Tuesday November 17th at 7 pm. The tournament is open to all players rated at least 2100. Players under 2100 may also qualify to participate by scoring at least 2½ points in one of the weekly "4 Rated Games Tonight!" Thursday Night Action Tournaments held at 7 pm at the Club since the previous month's St. John's Masters.

If you can't make it to the Club you can still follow the games on the top boards, which are broadcast live each round on ICC.

Thanks again to our sponsor, St. John's University, for making these tournaments possible.

Board 1 games from the Masters

Steve Immitt

Click to show the crosstable

No comments: