Friday, November 13, 2015

SWAO Pictures Day two 11/7/15




































Here are the rest of the pictures taken from Professional Photographer David Martinez.  http://www.davidmartinezphotography.com/

Thursday, November 12, 2015

SWAO Results

About four days after this weekend’s tournament I have finally mustered up enough energy to congratulate the winners. 

U1100 Section - 1st Mayurkumar Bhakta, 2nd (overall)  Benjamin Sheffer, 2nd (rated player) Shirley Herman, and 1st U800 John Patrick Regal.

U1400 Section – Shared 1st Kristopher Franco and Tara Martinez, 1st U1200 Elonzo Santillanes

U1800 Section – 1st (five way tie between) John Berba, David Lewis, Gregory Stricklin, Holly McRoberts and Tim Tran. 

Open Section – Tournament Champion Andrew R. Flores, 2nd (five way tie between)  Ben Coraretti, Stephen Sandager, Daniel Herman, Jonah Romero and Raynaldo Fourzan, 1st U1900 Peter Cuneo

There were a few outstanding performances I took note of during the tournament. 

1       Gregory Stricklin – After about a 15 year hiatus from tournament chess, in late 2012 he decided to join us over the board once again.  Since then has steadily increased his rating by 266 points, and I believe this weekend his has capped it off with his tournament performance to date, Sharing first place in the U1800 section.  That was no small task my friend.  Great Job!!!  What makes his success extra impressive is that you will never meet a nicer person.    

2       David Lewis – David shared first place with Greg in the U1800, and has been on a real tear lately, he has scored 9 points out of his last 10 games.  He won a nice prize at the Millionaire Open a month ago that earned him a floor of 1800.  So this tournament will likely be his last in the U1800 for the rest of his chess career, and he ends it in a first place finish.  Congrats, and welcome to the Open Section. 

3      Tim Tran – He also shared 1st place in the U1800 section, and his rating was 1427 going into the event.  His performance earned him 189 rating points, WOW! 

4       Raynaldo Fourzan – This gentleman decided to drive up from El Paso on the day of the tournament and he is grateful he did because he had his best tournament result ever.  He played so well that he gained 63 rating points made the jump to the next level.  Well done Expert Fourzan!!!  You’ll have to invite to Ray Day in El Paso, Will tells me they are busting out the Mariachi’s for your accomplishment.  Well deserved. 

Congratulations to all of our winners, well done!

A special thank you to Shirley Herman for helping recruit players and basically bringing her whole family down from Colorado to play.  That was pretty awesome, thank you.  Also, thanks to Will Barela for bringing up a crew from down south to play, he is one cool dude.  Of course, thanks to everyone else who came out and supported our event this weekend, especially those who made the trek to Albuquerque from around the state and region.  Hopefully we will see you next year. 
P.S. There are two winners that I haven’t been able to get contact information for and I have yet to pay, specifically Elonzo Santillanes and John Patrick Regal, if you know either of them please have them contact me at charlieschessclub@gmail.com


Andrew Flores

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Monday, November 9, 2015

SWAO 11/6/15




























Compliments of Dave Martinez photography, http://www.davidmartinezphotography.com/.  We had pictures take during the first round of the three day schedule, and the merged third round on the second night.  These are all the pictures taken the first night.  In a few days, I will post all of the pictures from the second day.