I want to congratulate everyone on their performance and well played games. The Open section winners were Andrew Grochowski, Bill Williams, and Anthony Parker with four points out of five. The Reserve section was won by David Sagunsky, who lost his first game and won the rest! But the big news was Andrew Grochowski's "hat trick," scoring three upset victories in the first four rounds en route to a tie for first place with 4/5.

First round started with an upset win from Andrew Grochowski against Brady Harder. Brady had a slight edge going into the end but made a couple of moves that were not in the direction of his plans and everything fell in Andrew’s hand. Also Robin Grochowski had an upset win against Robert Both. Overall, it was all about the Grochowskis in the first round. The Reserve section also had an upset win by Mitchel Andersson against David Sagunsky.

The second round was when the draws started to happen. The exciting game was between Andrew Grochowski and Avinash Rajendra. Avinash played a very aggressive game with threats of getting a pawn promotion. The end result was Avinash got into a bad position and had to sacrifice to stay alive but ended up giving the game to Andrew who had a strong defensive hold on the game. The Reserve section had a surprising draw from John Brandt against Gary Wright.

More of the same came during the third round. This time Avinash Rajendra was seeking revenge against a different Grochowski (Robin) and was successful in yet another exciting game. David Sagunsky decided to have a late night chess war game against James Mitchell (ended 1am) and came out victorious! An epic tactical game came from Gary Wright against Ken Rasmussen that ended up favoring Gary Wright in trapping some chess pieces. The battle of the undefeateds took place between Reinke and Anderssen when Reinke took the victory to remain undefeated!

Fourth round started with the dream match of the masters. Williams and Parker were battling it out when someone’s phone alarm went off! Too bad for Parker who had to take the automatic forfeit loss, and ended the dream match of the tournament. Andrew Grochowski made another upset happen against Jon Breider where Andrew found a way to trap the queen!! Reinke’s unbeaten streak ended against David Sagunsky and opened the Reserve section up for anyone to win!

Fifth round, also known as the money round, started off with a quick draw in the first hour by Bill Williams and Andrew Grochowski. An epic rook ending between Avinash Rajendra and Anthony Parker that ended with minutes remaining when Parker found a way to convert the extra pawn and score the victory. Avinash tried to make a stalemate trick by sacrificing his Rook but Parker ignored that rook and started to attack the king!

Thanks everyone for participating and thank you Tournament Directors for your hard work, especially the fourth round when pairings had to be changed. A conflict of brother and sister who were paired against one other, but with an extra five minutes of repairing, everyone was satisfied!