Friday Night Blitz

6/24

Tonight's blitz tournament had 18 participants with each prize (1st, top U1900 and top U1600) being hotly contested. Five masters at the top of the table were vying for first with some exciting match ups. As early as round three FM Joshua Colas and NM Zachary Tanenbaum faced off on board 1 while CCFC instructors NM Arslan Otchiyev and NM Ian Harris battled on board two. Colas and Otchiyev both won their games, setting up a round four showdown between the top two seeds, which Otchiyev won in an intense battle.

This left Otchiyev in the sole lead with a perfect 4/4 score, but with three more rounds to go, nothing was certain. NM Tanenbaum defeated Otchiyev in the very next round to tie for the lead, while Colas was also able to catch up. The very next round saw NM Harris defeat Tanenbaum to knock him off the lead. Joshua Colas and Arslan Otchiyev finished strong, winning their final two rounds to tie for first place with 6/7 each.

The U1900 prize was split three ways between Slawomir Naumowicz, Aurelius Mlynar and Cayden Yang. Naumowicz has one of the toughtest paths in the tournament, playing against the top three masters in the tournament. Mlynar and Yang both had tough starts, but rebounded in the later rounds. All three finished with 4/7.

Finally, the U1600 prize was contested by no fewer than six players, but it was lowest seeded player, Mateusz Zalewski that surprised everyone with a strong finish of 3.5/7 to take the prize to himself!! His winning run included a win and draw against 1600 rated opponents, among others. He gained nearly 200 blitz rating points for his efforts.

Congratulations to all of tonight's winners!

Crosstable