GM Cristian Chirila followed the US Class Championship as it moved from Houston, Texas to Santa Clara, California in his attempt to repeat as US Class Champion. 

The six round event was held on Oct 31st though November 2nd 2014 at the spacious Santa Clara Convention Center which is located literally across the street from the newly erected home of the San Fransisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium.   

With the 49ers playing the St. Louis Rams on Sunday afternoon, those players fearlessly venturing into the area on Sunday, were treated to the opportunity to step outside on Sunday and hear the roar of the crowds cheering for their teams.  

The twenty player FIDE rated Open section was filled with two GMs,  two  IMs, several masters and many expert level players playing up to test their skills against master level competition, with GMs Chirila and Enrico Sevillano outranked the field by over 100 points over their nearest challengers.  In the six round event, they met in round 4 with a quick draw, to then see who could continue to dominate the remainder of the games. 

 Sevillano was held to only half a point in his fifth round match against IM Ricardo De Guzman, allowing Chirila to take the lead with a win against 2400+ rated Arun Sharma.  In the final round, Sevillano was pitted against an exhausted Sharma, who in between rounds chose to face the incoming football fanatical traffic to get lunch and after dropping off Chirila back at the tournament had to run  two miles from the nearest parking space.  Sharma courageously battled on, but like the 49ers couldn’t hold on to the ball in the end game and went down in defeat.  This put the pressure on Chirila to get the following victory against IM John Daniel Bryant to secure sole first place with 5 points and a check for over $2000! This adds to his CalChess State Championship ,US National G-60 Championship wins in Northern Califorina in the past year. Sevillano and De Guzman tied for second with 4.5 points and each received $803.

On his own blog, Chirila wrote about the US Class Championship, "I saw Bryant play in a lot of tournaments and his games were always genuine and quite interesting. He is also a very volatile player, I watched him beat 2600+ but also lose against much weaker opponents."   

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Experts Gabriel  Bick and Trevor Showalter each gave up two draws, although not against each other, along their way to 5 points, tying for 1st place and received $803. In the A section, Aniruddha Basak and Seaver Dahlgren (pictured) also ended with  five points out of the six round each giving up two draws, one against each other in the fourth round.

 To get 1st place in the B section, all that was required was 4 1/2 points out of six to get 1st place.  Nevertheless,  only Seaver Dahlgren and Chenyi Zhao were able to achieve that result, with Seaver allowing 3 draws and Chenyi taking two 1/2 point byes and yielding one draw.   Every player in the C section lost at least one game, but only Arsalan Jenab, Alekhine Nouri and Andy Cai scored full points in their remainder of their games to reach a tie for 1st place.

Playing in his first USCF tournament, Ajay Chittimilla reaped in 5.5 points for clear 1st in the D section.  His prize was capped at $300 for being unrated, but we expect will see more of Ajay soon!  A large portion of the remainder of the prize went to Lucas Nguyen in clear 2nd place and a check for $619.   The 34 player E section was dominated by Seth Borgo, who allowed only a final round draw to clinch 1st place and $730 with Anthony Faulks a close second at 5 points.

Sunday kept Senior TD Jordan Langland busy as the Chief TD of the over 100 player scholastic event, notching another requirement in his quest to achieve Associate National TD status.  Section F was dominated by the undefeated Jerry Lee of Archbishop Mitty High School with Vasudeva Rao of Liu Chess club receiving clear 1st in section G with 4.5 points.

Ethan Cheng also from Liu Chess club, played up in the H (599-400) section from his 344 supplement rating, showing that this was where he belonged by going undefeated and walking away with a 787 rating and a very large 3 post trophy.   Kaelan Vital overcame a first round defeat to win the rest of his games and tie for 1st place with Alexander Yun in Section I (399-200).  Ken Okuzumi added 4.5 points to his Castling Kids team by taking 1st place in the under 200 rated J section.

Five club and five school team trophies were awarded with Liu Chess Club and Castling Kids receiving the 1st and 2nd place club trophies with Archbishop Mitty High School and Harker Elementary accepting the 1st and 2nd school team trophies.  

 The event was organized by Judit Sztaray, and led by National TD’s Tom Langland and John McCumiskey with the gifted assistance of Senior TD Jordan Langland.  A total of over $14,000 in prizes were paid out. Local TDs Andrew Mueckenber, Gerl Jenkins and Alex Veksler adeptly assisted in the event.

 

Find out more about GM Chirila on his official site, and also see his recent piece for CLO on the Millionaire Chess Open. Find USCF rated results from the US Class on MSA.