by Steven Vigil, CFCC Senior Tournament Director

NM Theo Slade Wins 34th CFCC Club Championship on Tiebreaks

The Central Florida Chess Club held its annual Club Championship this past weekend, March 26th & 27th. It was the first club championship since 2019 due to Covid. Registration was limited and quickly filled up. A field of 43 players competed for the championship over two days in a 5-round open format tournament with a 90 minute time control. The event was held at the new Orlando Chess & Games Club. It was the second tournament CFCC has held at this new venue in Altamonte Springs. No past CFCC Club champions, including defending champion Dalton Perrine, were in attendance, so we knew that we would be crowning a new club champ.

Congratulations to National Master, Theo Slade (2224), who gets to have a nameplate on the CFCC club championship trophy as our 34th Club Champion! Theo tied with fellow NM Ryan Hamley (2203) and Andrew Rea (2027) for first place with a score of 4.5 points. All three players shared first place honors, and each received a prize of $266.67. Theo, however, won the official title of club champion on tiebreaks.

As the two highest rated players in the tournament, both Theo and Ryan entered the last round with a perfect score of 4 points in what would be a de facto First Place game. However, the battle for clear first proved uneventful as the players agreed to an early draw. The draw left the door open for expert, Andrew Rea (2065), to potentially become the new club champion… if he could score a last round win. But, Andrew would also end up with a draw in his final round game with fellow expert Vikram Rajmohan (2039). This resulted in a 3-way tie for first place, with Theo becoming club champion on close tiebreaks.

Three players: Jolie Huang (1656), Luke Gorman (1631) and Cole Holloway (1565) tied with 3.5 points to share the U1800 prize and $41.67 each. Congratulations to Luke Gorman who won the U1800 trophy on tiebreaks. Congrats also to Cole Holloway, who finished the tournament undefeated, and in style by accurately calculating a winning King and pawn endgame after an exchange sacrifice.

Three other players finished with 3 points to share the U1500 prize of $41.67 each. They were Aadarsh Arul (1498), Om Mishra (1393) and Sophie Li (1331). Congratulations to Sophie Li who won the U1500 trophy on tiebreaks. Sophie also won the upset trophy with her victory over Saketh Vudutala (1729) in the 3rd round, a difference of 398 rating points!

The U1200 prize was shared by two players; Akash Athi Kesavan (1082) and Tim Staley (995) who each finished with a score of 2.5 points and winning them $62.50 each. Akash won the U1200 trophy on tiebreaks.

On Sunday morning, 5 time CFCC club champion, National Master Larry Storch gave a short lecture, and shared some brilliant moments from his past games. Thank you, Larry, for an entertaining lecture! Central Florida Chess Club would like to thank Alex and Catherine Zelner for providing a great tournament venue. We would also like to thank all of those who participated in the 2022 Club Championship to make it a successful event. Our next tournament will be the Sunshine Open and Scholastic being held June 3-5 at the Holiday Inn Resort Orlando Lake Buena Vista. Registration is open, and we hope to see you there!

CFCC 34th Club Championship Photo Gallery

All tournament photos have been uploaded.