North Carolina Chess Association

No less than 252 chess players from the Southeast and points beyond converged in Asheville on the weekend prior to the Super Bowl to compete in the Grandaddy of North Carolina chess tournaments; the 25th Land of the Sky! The field was led by 2700+ rated Timur Gareev of Texas ( by way of Uzbekistan) making his first appearance in North Carolina. He was joined by fellow GM's Alex Shabalov, Sergey Kudrin and Alex Ivanov.

Gareev and Kudrin cruised through the field, each winning four games and drawing with each other, to take equal first. Kudrin's result included a win against GM Shabalov. GM Ivanov finished clear third, a full point off the top score.

Some notable results by local Southeastern players when matched up against the elite GM's. Richard Francisco of Georgia defeated GM Shabalov in a very exciting and well played game. Three local players nicked GM Ivanov for draws: North Carolinians Jon Timmel and Tianqi Wang, along with the veteran Virginia master Rusty Potter.

The U2200 (Asheville) section ended in a four way tie for the top spot. Charlotteans Patrick McCartney and J P Flynn each won their first four games but could only draw with each other in round five, which allowed South Carolinian Cezarte Ramos, and North Carolina's Gary Newsom (hey that's me!) to catch them at the end.

In the U1700 (Buncombe) section, North Carolina's Jordan Joseph tallied the weekend's only perfect score, going 5-0 and raising his rating from 1577 to 1705! Second was shared by three players: North Carolina's Praveen Suthaharan and Suhas Madiraju along with Nicholas Thompson from Georgia.

The U1200 section resulted in a tie between North Carolina's Luis Frommer and Neel Madhukar from Tennessee.

Asheville in general and specifically the Crowne Plaza Hotel once again proved to be a fantastic venue for a chess event, which was well run as always by Kevin Hyde, Gerben Hoekstra and Wilder Wadford. This is a can't miss event if you are a chess player! This 25th anniversary of this tournament gives it “Heritage” status amongst US Chess events. Let's hope they keep in going and we get to see a golden 50th anniversary version and beyond.

Gary Newsom
NCCA President