ICA COACH Stripunsky Springs Away With Win In Spring ICA Open Section! 
Classy Katz In Second,Big G Gregory Markzon Snags Third!

In a performance exactly like one would expect of a grandmaster rated as high as Alex Stripunsky, the ICA coach came away with yet another in a long line of first place finishes at the ICA Open.  Stripunsky started by defeating expert level twenty-third finishing George Grasser in round one, before matching wits against another ICA coach in Max Schwartz during round two, and getting the better of his bearded co-worker.   Wins against experts Igor “Frankenstein’s short friend” Yeliseyev, and Evan “no relation to the sea captain for whom the gambit is named” Rosenberg, punctuated why Stripunsky is one of the best players in the United States.  Alex earned two-hundred-and-fifty-five dollars for his dominant first place finish. 

With an impressive three-and-a-half out of four, ICA student Alex Katz showed his training sessions with Irina Levitina do pay off, as he snagged second place on tie-breaks against third placing Gregory Markzon.   Alex beat the seventeenth, and eighteenth placing finishers, before drawing in the third round against the aforementioned Gregory, and finishing strong with a victory against the legendary master “American Army-Man” Arthur Feuerstein.  

As mentioned, the third finishing Gregory Markzon drew with Alex Katz, but was otherwise perfect with wins against twenty-second placing Nicholas Katz, twenty-seventh Oleg Barenboim, and seventh finishing ICA coach Max Yelsky.      

Both Alex, and Gregory received one-hundred-and-ninety-two dollars each for their podium finishes.

Other prize winners in the section were, seventh placing Max Yelsky, and ninth placing ICA coach Solomon Lerner, both of whom got forty-three dollars each for their best results among players rated under two-thousand.  However, for Max, and completely due to this performance, that will no longer be the case because his rating increased up and over the two-thousand benchmark, making him an official “Expert-level” chess player.

ICA coach Ben Wolfson, and Daniel Zhu, also got forty-three each for their respective tenth, and thirteenth place finishes, given that they were the best scoring participants with a rating total under eighteen-hundred. 

Robert Elliot who finished in twelfth got a lone eighty-five bucks for his best under sixteen-hundred rating total result.

Arthur Feuerstein, and Joel Pruzansky, both got the thirty-two dollar prize for the best senior participant result (requirement for the prize being an age of sixty five or higher) for their respectable scores, while the same thirty-two dollar junior prize went to Praveen Balakrishnan, and Alex Katz sibling Nicholas Katz.  The junior prize requirement is that players be under the age of thirteen.

Thirty-two players went at it in this section and we hope to see more for our Summer edition on the 6^th of June.  Thanks for coming and see you all next time.