Tuesday, September 30, 2008

UTD Triumphant in Lubbock and Rating Updates

UTD chess team members went this past weekend to Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, to participate in the SPICE (Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence) chess festival, which started a week ago.

The festival's main event was a closed tournament with an average rating of over 2600. It was an extremely contested event, and the winner was Pentala Harikrishna from India, who won on tiebreak on top of Alexander Onischuk, Varuzhan Akobian and Leonid Kritz.

SPICE OPEN
Jacek and I represented UTD in the Spice Open, and it was unfortunate that we had to play in the 4th round of the tournament. Jacek and I have a fearsome challenge between us, and in the 12 or so games we have played we only count 2 draws! I won this time, and have now evened the lifetime score 6-6.

In the final round I drew IM Gergely from Hungary (now a student in Texas Tech) to take first place.



















Myself and Jacek before our rounds in the open. (Photo courtesy of Alexey Root)

TEXAS WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP
The Spice Festival also included the Texas Women's Championship, in which our Bayaraa Zorigt, went to Lubbock and came back with the title of Texas Women's Champion! Congratulations to her!


Karina Vazirova, Helen Romakin and the new Champion Bayaraa Zorigt. (Photo courtesy of Alexey Root)

RATING
Most of our players, have recently, according to FIDE's October Rating list, improved their rating significantly! Of special notice are Keaton Kiewra and Igor Schneider. Here is the list of our top 10 according to FIDE rating, with the rating changes:

1. Alejandro Ramirez 2533 (+3)
2. Davorin Kuljasevic 2521 (+20)
3. Marko Zivanic 2465 (-12)
4. Jacek Stopa 2461 (+21)
5. John Bartholomew 2453 (+13)
6. Drasko Boskovic 2452 (-3)
7. Puchen Wang 2450 (+32)
8. Salvijus Bercys 2428 (-1)
9. Igor Schneider 2397 (+59) (!!!!)
10. Keaton Kiewra 2380 (+44)

UTD's The next event will be this Wednesday, 8:15 pm EST when the Dallas Destiny faces the Tenesse Tempo.

1 comment:

draksbg said...

such a strong team. I mean, board 6 having rating over 2450.sick. and puchen on board 7...ship