USA College Chess Final Four 2017

The USA College Chess Final Four 2017 starts on 25th of March at 10:00 CET.

The tournament will take place at New York, USA from 25th of March to 26th March 2017

System of play:
3 Rounds, 4 Team Round Robin

Tournament Rules
Teams Each team has four players and up to two alternates. Board order, based on March 2017 ratings (50-point transpositions allowed), is the same as for the Pan-American.

Scoring
The President’s Cup is a Team Round Robin scored by total individual points. In the event of a tie, the teams are declared co-champions.
The following tie-breaking systems are for sole possession of the President’s Cup and will be applied in this order: 1.Total team match wins 2.Head-to-head outcome 3.Armageddon, or a 5-4 minute shootout: White must win with 5 minutes, and Black must win or draw with 4 minutes. There is no delay or increment time. Winner of a coin toss chooses color. Each team selects one team member to represent them.

Official Time Controls
Game 90 with a 30-second increment each move.

Schedule: UTC/GMT -4 hours EDT (Eastern Daylight Time)
Round 1 (March 25 – 10 am) Webster vs TTU; SLU vs UTD
Round 2 (March 25 – 5 pm) Webster vs UTD; SLU vs TTU Round 3 (March 26 – 9 am) Webster vs SLU; UTD vs TTU

Results of round 3

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The dramatic battle on the final of St Louis Winter Classic 2017 - Group A

    The elite Group A at the St Louis Winter Classic 2017 Tournament  offered us a very strong and at the same time a very young team. All the 10 grandmasters, with no exception, are chess talents with promising future, who fought in the uncompromising battle. The winner of the tournament became clear at the last moment  literally. Another surprise for us is the relatively weak performance of the representatives of the hosts. The teen stars Jeffery Xiong, Samuel Sevian and Ruifeng Li played below their usual level. The first two in a few days are taking part in a trial of the extremely strong U.S. Championship.               

As a sole winner in the very strong Aeroflot Open 2017 which ended before more than two weeks, the Russian top GM Vladimir Fedoseev, after the unexpected lost in the 1-st round, was moving confidently almost until the end of the tournament. Obviously in an excellent shape he took precedence over his pursuers - David Howell and Alexander Ipatov with a half point before the last round.

In order to catch up Fedoseev, who had the white pieces against Samuel Sevian, Howell and Ipatov had to win their games with the blacks in the last round. Ipatov didn’t cope with this task and after an unconvincing performance became victim of Peru's GM Emilio Cordova, who made an excellent game.

Vladimir Fedoseev didn’t manage to impede the militant Sevian in а modification of Benoni, harmless for the white. Taking advantage of some inaccuracies of the Whites, Sevian developed a very strong initiative:

Position after 26…Be5!    

Further, the maximum that Vladimir managed to do, was to go into the hopeless endgame.

That’s how the intrigue for the first place remained to be decided in the game between Ruifeng Li and David Howell. The English grandmaster got even with ease, and took advantage of some incorrect decisions of his opponent:

After 18…Bb4, the Whites fell in the trap. The lesser evil for the Whites was to exchange sacrifice for a pawn, which doomed them to a long and unpleasant defend. The position was close to a draw for a long time, but the persistence of Howell prevailed and in move 129 Li was forced to surrender and to congratulate his opponent with the victory in the tournament.

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The 2017 UTRGV Spring Break IM-norm Tournament

 

The 2017 UTRGV Spring Break IM-norm Tournament started on 13-th of March

The tournament will take place at the University of Texas 

Rio Grande Valley, Brownsville, TX, USA.

System of play: Round robin, 10 participants

The schedule of the tournament is:

Round 1: March 13 at 6 pm

Round 2: March 14 at 2 pm

Round 3: March 15 at 10 am

Round 4: March 15 at 5:30 pm

Round 5: March 16 at 2 pm

Round 6: March 17 at 10 am

Round 7: March 17 at 5:30 pm

Round 8: March 18 at 2 pm

Round 9: March 19 at 9 am

Here is the list of the players:

Round 1: Haessel-Zhang, Ruiz-Hevia, Kambrath-Wang, Ynojosa-Vazquez, Serna-McNutt

Round 2: Zhang-McNutt, Vazquez-Serna, Wang-Ynojosa, Hevia-Kambrath, Haessel-Ruiz

Round 3: Ruiz-Zhang, Kambrath-Haessel, Ynojosa-Hevia, Serna-Wang, McNutt-Vazquez

Round 4: Zhang-Vazquez, Wang-McNutt, Hevia-Serna, Haessel-Ynojosa, Ruiz-Kambrath

Round 5: Kambrath-Zhang, Ynojosa-Ruiz, Serna-Haessel, McNutt-Hevia, Vazquez-Wang

Round 6: Zhang-Wang, Hevia-Vazquez, Haessel-McNutt, Ruiz-Serna, Kambrath-Ynojosa

Round 7: Ynojosa-Zhang, Serna-Kambrath, McNutt-Ruiz, Vazquez-Haessel, Wang-Hevia

Round 8: Zhang-Hevia, Haessel-Wang, Ruiz-Vazquez, Kambrath-McNutt, Ynojosa-Serna

Round 9: Serna-Zhang, McNutt-Ynojosa, Vazquez-Kambrath, Wang-Ruiz, Hevia-Haessel

Crosstable

#	Name	FIDE ID	Rtng	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Tot
1	FM DALE R HAESSEL	2012618	2142	X	0	0	0	0	1	0	0		0	1.0
2	IM JOSHUA D RUIZ CASTILLO	4400704	2343	1	X	1	1/2	1	1	1/2		1/2	1	6.5
3	FM YANNICK KAMBRATH	20632525	2353	1	0	X	1/2	1	1		0	1/2	1/2	4.5
4	IM FELIX YNOJOSA APONTE	3900258	2378	1	1/2	1/2	X	1		1/2	1/2	0	1	5.0
5	JEFFREY M SERNA	2068591	2022	1	0	0	0	X	1	0	1/2	0		2.5
6	WILLIAM H MCNUTT	30932335	1729	0	0	0		0	X	0	0	0	0	0.0
7	IM GUILLERMO VAZQUEZ	3702308	2436	1	1/2		1/2	1	1	X	1	1/2	1	6.5
8	JUSTIN WANG	30911370	2177	0		1	1/2	1/2	1	0	X	0	0	3.0
9	GM CARLOS HEVIA ALEJANO	3508811	2492		1/2	1/2	1	1	1	1/2	1	X	1	6.5
10	CHAO ZHANG	2099446	2223	1	0	1/2	0		1	0	1	0	X	3.5

Standings

#

Name

Rtng

Club

Rd 1

Rd 2

Rd 3

Rd 4

Rd 5

Rd 6

Rd 7

Rd 8

Rd 9

Tot

1

GM CARLOS HEVIA ALEJANO

2492

CUB

D2

D5

W4

W8

W10

D3

W6

W7

---9

6.5

2

IM JOSHUA D RUIZ CASTILLO

2343

COL

D1

W9

W7

W5

D4

W8

W10

D3

---6

6.5

3

IM GUILLERMO VAZQUEZ

2436

PAR

D4

W8

W10

W7

W6

D1

W9

D2

---5

6.5

4

IM FELIX YNOJOSA APONTE

2378

VEN

D3

D6

L1

W9

D2

D5

W7

W8

---10

5.0

5

FM YANNICK KAMBRATH

2353

FRA

L6

D1

W9

L2

D7

D4

W8

W10

---3

4.5

6

JUSTIN WANG

2177

USA

W5

D4

D8

W10

L3

L7

L1

W9

---2

4.0

7

CHAO ZHANG

2223

USA

W9

W10

L2

L3

D5

W6

L4

L1

---8

3.5

8

JEFFREY M SERNA

2022

USA

W10

L3

D6

L1

W9

L2

L5

L4

---7

2.5

9

FM DALE R HAESSEL

2142

CAN

L7

L2

L5

L4

L8

W10

L3

L6

---1

1.0

10

WILLIAM H MCNUTT

1729

USA

L8

L7

L3

L6

L1

L9

L2

L5

---4

0.0

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