21 Sep Grandmaster Julio Becerra wins the Southern Open!
It was a fun event that took place at the Wyndham Orlando Resort in Orlando, FL. Most of the participants were of course from South Florida and even 954Chess’ very own Mario Marshall got in on the action. In the ‘Open” section GM Julio Becerra (2616) looked unstoppable as he cruised through the first 4 rounds with victory after victory, before drawing in the final round which secured him sole possession of 1st place scoring 4.5/5!2nd place went to GM Mikheil Kekelidze (2522) with a score of 4/5. There was a 4-way tie for 3rd-4th place between GM Julio Sadorra (2669),NM John Ludwig (2295), NM Mariano Acosta (2200) and NM Wilmer Chavira (2200) who all scored 3.5/5. This tournament was very competitive and thus was unusually taxing for a weekend event! But as one player told us “This is what makes my game grow.”
Congratulations to the winners of the “Under Sections”, who were as follows: U2100 – Juan Tica (2096) and Mario Marshall (2035) tied for1st & 2nd place finishing with 4.5/5 each. While there was a 5-way tie for 3rd-4th place between Nikolas Moore (2087), Truman Hoang (1988),Jason Kammerdiner (1943), Kai Tabor (1943) and Roshan Jayaraman (1827) who all finished with a score of 4/5. The U1700 section was headed by Pierre Rodriguez (1660) & Brandon Peckham (1614) who shared 1st & 2nd place with a score of 4.5/5 each. 3rd-4th place was split between the following players: Clayton Nicol (1684), Daniel Rhenals (1634), Kevin Beal (1618), Christian Rodriguez (1582), andTimothy Chen (1580) who all scored 4/5. Within this section Pranav Abbaraju (1301) and Joseph Teixeira (1262) both split the U1500 prize. As well as GM Becerra did in the Open section, the U1300 section relatively had a more dominant performer in Gary Robinson (1200) who sliced through his opposition untouched with a perfect score of 5/5 to claim sole 1st place. 2nd-4th place was a 3-way tie by Lonnie Parnell(1232), Valentina Bermudez (1183), and Larry Bridgham (1139) who all scored 4/5. Also within this section Charles Hafner (1088) won the U1100 prize, Girish Senthilkumar (940) won the U1000 prize, Tony Nunez (265) won “Top U800” and Jhon Benitez won “Top Unrated”.
This was yet another wonderful event held in Orlando, which is quickly becoming one of the “Hotspots” for chess tournaments in the US. The Chief TD at this event was Steve Immitt and Assistant Chief TD was Harvey Lerman, well done gentlemen and keep up the good work.
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