Stripunsky Strips Away Kudrin's Mystique! Wins ICA SPRING OPEN!

Who would have think it possible, but Sergey Kudrin, the terror of Teaneck, Tenafly, and Tashkent, by way of Toledo, finally met his match at this past Sunday's ICA Spring OPEN.  His victor, a young (relatively speaking of course given that I don't know how old he is), human male, named Alex Stripunsky was able to score a perfect four out of four and walk away with the win, while GM Kudrin, could only watch, and draw with third place finishing Alex Lenderman.

After three rounds it was a neck and neck between four men, as Stripunsky, Kudrin, Lenderman, and 4th place finishing Michael Rohde, broke away from the pack entering the last round. The Tie-break, provided both games between the top four finishers, seeing as Rohde would challenge Stripunsky, while Kudrin face Lenderman, leaned in favor of "Curly" Sergey by a, pun intended of course, "hair," since as he had vanquished the slightly tougher opposition among the four men during the first three rounds.

Sadly, for Sergey though, he was held to a draw, while Stripunsky rooked, and bishoped Rohde into submission with a clean win.  Though it is an untimely disaster for the GM, I am sure the nifty $225 dollar prize, that both he and Mr. Lenderman walked away with was all worth it.  Stripunsky, as the numero uno in this deck of fun, took home 300 bucks.

In other news,  Arthur Feuerstein, took home $75 dollars for proving his senior citizen mind is just as, if not more sharp than my sophmoric one.  Arthur won the prize for being the best ranking player over 65 in the tournament.  This is at least the fourth or fifth time he has taken home said honors.

Eve Litvak and Alex Katz, pocketed $88 dollars each for being best U2000 and best 13 or younger. Of note, was an impressive draw with Gregory Markzon in the 2nd round. Truth be told either Eve played one heck of a game, or Gregory, who usually places towards the top of the standings, had a significantly sub par day on Sunday.

Paul Ton, probably can't get a ton of Candy with his prize money, but the $100 dollars he got for being the best finisher U1800 will go a long way towards getting him to said goal.

On a final note, Jayenth Mayur, one of our longest attending students, who I probably taught early on in his chess career, won $100 for best results for a U1600 player.

That said, forty-one people played, thankfully I was not one of them, and well, while it is the open section, I'm sure the chances of beating many in this group are closed for repair.

See you at the next one.

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