by Steven Vigil, CFCC Senior Tournament Director
The 2024 Winter Open Chess Tournament took place from January 5-7. The 3-day event was held at the Holiday Inn Resort in Lake Buena Vista. This has been home to Central Florida Chess Club weekend tournaments for the past few years.
For the second straight year, the Winter Open featured a field of over 200 participants! For the five round event, players had the option of a 3-day schedule starting Friday or a 2-day schedule, with shortened time controls for their first two rounds on Saturday. The full time control was 90 minutes with 30 seconds of delay time. The shortened rounds for the 2-day schedule were both game in 60 minutes with 5 seconds of delay time. While the entire tournament was rated for USCF, the top 2 sections (Master/Expert & Class A) were also dual rated for FIDE.
Play began on Friday night at 7:00pm with about 70 players for the 3-day schedule. The competition resumed Saturday morning at 11 a.m. with the full roster of players now present in the tournament room. The Master/Expert Section was a strong field that included 10 players above 2200, and one IM, Ray Kaufman from Canada.
After two rounds of play there were no big surprises. Going into round 3 the schedules merged and all players would now have the full time control for the rest of the tournament. The competition heated up with the third round starting at 5pm on Saturday afternoon. NM Theo Slade (2212) converted a winning endgame to hand NM Nick Moore (2278) his only loss. Advait Nair (2086) executed a 4-move combination for checkmate for a nice win against NM Todd Bryant (2242). Meanwhile, in the A Section, there were several close games that went late into the round and ended in draws.
Sunday morning began with a free chess lecture given by coach Steven Vigil (1905). It was announced that the lecture would honor and commemorate the beloved late FM Alexander Zelner. A small group, many of them Alex’s family members and friends, were in attendance. Steven presented an overview of Alex’ chess career and USCF tournament history. The lecture covered a 12 move miniature victory of Alex’ from back in his playing days in Ohio during the 1990’s. Then, challenging the crowd to analyze and find the winning lines, Steven analyzed an elegant tactical endgame finish where Alex had his first win against a GM (Rased Ziatdinov) in a game played in 2003 at the Tampa Open. Many told stories and recounted experiences of how Alex had touched their lives.
The fourth round began promptly at 10 a.m., in which many of the best games were played. Most noteworthy was IM Ray Kaufman’s (2305) 22 move victory over FM Corey Acor (2330), which was also selected as the tournaments’ best game. This was followed by the fifth and final round of the competition that started at 2:30 p.m. When the dust was settled, we were left with the following results broken down by section.
Master/Expert Section
With one of the largest turnouts ever for the section, 40 players competed in the FIDE rated Master/Expert section, the tournaments’ top section. Congratulations to Canadian IM Raymond Kaufman (2306) who won clear first place in the section.
IM Kaufman scored an impressive 4.5 points winning the first-place prize of $1020! Ray’s only blemish was a 2nd round draw with Raghav Venkat (2387). Raghav would finish undefeated with 4 points to tie with Nicholas Moore winning each player $595. Four players; Marvin Gao (2318), John Ligotti (2219), Theodore Slade all tied for 4th place and $71 each. Aleks Fetlyaev (2069) also scored 3.5 to win the U2200 prize of $340.
CLASS A SECTION
With 32 players, The Class A/U2000 Section was extremely competitive. This was evidenced by the fact that 7 of the top 8 players finished undefeated! This included four players who tied for first place with four points: Vignesh Sikar (1917), Ayush Roy (1888), Yi Sha (1869), and William Hardison (1786. The 4-way split for first place netted each player $329.50. With 3.5 points, Phillip Durand (1973) and Fabio Lozano (1949) split 4th place and took home $42.50 each.
CLASS B SECTION
The Class B (U1800) Section was the smallest in the tournament with 22 players. Just like Class A, the first place score was just 4/5 points, and four players achieved it. Those players were: Rui Sha (1744), Nazar Deputat (1745), Daniel Flores (1651), and Samuel Xu (1453). Each player’s share of the prize was $324.25. Andrew Kan (1738) and Celine Chen (1645) each won $42.50, splitting the 4th place prize.
CLASS C SECTION
Thirty players competed in the Class C section. Congrats to William Lacey (1393) who won clear first place and $680 with a score of 4.5 points. Three players finished tied for 2nd-4th place. They were Anish Gupta (1326), Lawrence Cerrato (1417), and impressive 8-year old Daniel Tal (1392), who displayed some impressive tactics in his 1st and 3rd round victories. Each received $199.66 for their performance. Four players: John Lebon (1555), Jack Firestone (1537), Kalen Pray (1396) and Varshini Venkat (1368) finished with 3.5 points and shared 4th place; $21.25 each.
CLASS D SECTION
The Class D (U1400) section was, along with the Scholastic U1200 Section, the largest with 41 players. Congratulations to Kaiden Taing (1327), the only player in the entire tournament to win all 5 of their games! A cheerful young Kaiden, accompanied by his proud mother, took home a check for $553.
Finishing with 4 points were: Brandon Robertson (542), Lucio Luini (1310), Todd Kay (1300) and Clayton Greene (unr.) who shared 2nd-4th Place netting them each $143.50. Robert Hinton (1156) and Frank McNamara (1097) Split the U1200/U1100 prizes to each win $53.50.) Brandon Robertson (542) also overcame a rating difference of 666 points to Shubbam Shanublogue (1208) win the tournament’s $21 Upset Prize.
SCHOLASTIC U1200 SECTION
The U1200/Scholastic also had 41 players in the section and featured many bright young talented players. Congratulations to Evan Qian (1170) who scored 4.5 points to win clear first place and a $213 prize. A pack of six players finished with 4 points to share the rest of the prize money in the section, $49.66 each. They are Stone Wang (1106), Johnny Jobst (1025), Nicolas Yap (965), Gabriel Lorenzo (730), Hamsini Honmurgi (882) and Jackson Blouet (853) who had a strong performance and gained 200 rating points to break 1000 for the first time.
SPECIAL BRILLIANCY PRIZE
In memory of Alex, the CFCC offered 3 cash prizes for the best games at the Winter Open. Dozens of scoresheets were submitted and after a review of the games the winners were announced as follows:
Best Game $50 – IM Ray Kaufman vs Coery Acor 1-0 Rd.4 Master Section
Runner Up $30 – Advait Nair vs Todd Bryant 1-0 Rd.3 Master Section
2nd Runner Up $20 – Neel Sahai vs Tristan Elvers 0-1 Rd. 4 Master Section
Honorable Mention – Daniel Tal Class C
SATURDAY NIGHT BLITZ
A blitz tournament was held on Saturday night after play finished in the main tournament hall. The action kicked off just before 9:30 p.m. with a field of 42 players, including IM Ray Kaufman, competing in the four double-rounds, where each player plays one game with white and one game with black. Congratulations to Blitz tournament champion Vincent Stone (2189) who put forth an impressive performance with a perfect score of 8 points to win the $300 first place prize. Three players: IM Ray Kaufman (2289), Rion Okuno (1911), and Vivan Mulay (1955) finished with 6.5 points to share the 2nd-3rd place prize of $40 each. Since there were several unrated players in the section, a prize was offered to the top unrated player. That was Adrian Lara who won the $40 prize with 4 points.
CLOSING COMMENTS
The Central Florida Chess club would like to thank all the players who participated in the Winter Open. Thanks to CFCC Club president Larry Storch and VP Kevin Sibbitt who organized the event. The experienced team of National TD/FIDE Arbiter Charles Hatherill and CFCC Senior TD Steven Vigil shared duties of pairing and administrating the tournament. Renaud Lajoie (Local TD) served as floor TD. Thank you to Wayne Strickland who donated the best game prizes and, along with Steve Vigil, served as judges for the contest.
A special thank you also to Dr. Catherine Zelner, and the Zelner Family (David & Roo, Greg & Lucy, Zoe & Peter, and Roza) who ran the chess store throughout the weekend. On short notice, they setup a fantastic chess shop that featured a wide selection of books, sets, clocks and chess merchandise. Alex would have been proud.
The CFCC’s next 3-day event, the 2024 Sunshine Open and Scholastic, will be held at the same venue, June 14-16 with the top two sections FIDE rated. We look forward to seeing you there!
-Steven Vigil
CFCC Senior Tournament Director
