STUNNER: ICA COACH LERNER SHOCKINGLY UPSETS INTERNATIONAL MASTER MIKHAIL ZLOTNIKOV TO CLAIM MUTUAL 1st PLACE AT ICA FALL OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS 2010! Katz CO-WINNER!!
When we arrived to set up for the tournament that morning, ICA COACH Solomon “the wage earner” Lerner mentioned how he was “rusty” and felt he might “embarrass” himself with a poor showing.
Yea, right.
Solomon steam-rolled past Ari Shusterman, Jacob Berman, IM Mikhail Zlotnikov, and Master Boris Privman to win all four games and finish co-first with another ICA’er in Alex Katz.
By the half way point the big S (i.e. Solomon) was making it look easy as according to him he crushed his second round opponent’s French defense by about the fifteenth move, stating “I didn’t really do anything except wait for him to trap his own queen.”
Of course the real challenge was yet to come as Solomon, slated to meet Zlotnikov in the third, was facing an opponent with a rating four hundred points above his own, and the black pieces going up against a mean English (1.c4). However, soon after the start of the game, the positional Zlotnikov found himself in an inferior one, fighting for a draw and failing to get it despite, as Solomon put it, “a chance to win my pawn, and gain the advantage.”
Round four, saw Solomon, in an according to most every objective observer, dead even position against Master Boris Privman. When the smoke settled though, drawn as it may have been at some point, it ended in Solomon’s favor. Curiously, speaking after the win, the ICA coach commented, “I thought I had the advantage the whole way so I don’t know why everyone thought it drawn.”
One person that did hope for either this result, or one with Solomon losing, was co-winner Alex Katz. Katz, himself knocking on the door of Jedi Master status, scored a similarly impressive four wins, but against slightly less stellar opposition (since Solomon faced two masters, while Alex only fought one expert, and a few class level players).
Both Solomon, and Alex shared 248 dollars each for the win.
In mutual third through fifth were the above mentioned Mikhail Zlotnikov, Michael Ainsworth, and James West, who all scored three wins, and shared eighty-two dollars each.
Seven players shared the mutual best under 1800, and 2000 prize, scoring two and a half points and winning twenty-three dollars per person. These winners were:
Gregory Gabovich, Kimberly Ding, Michael Bogaty, Rishi Rajendran, Pranav Marupudi, Kevin Chen, and ICA Coach David Shekhtman.
Joel Pruzansky, also scoring two and a half points, got sixty eight dollars for being the best finisher over the age of sixty five.
Charles Jiang received eighty dollars for being the best finisher with a rating under 1600 for his score of two points.
Thirty Five players competed in the 2010 ICA Fall Open.
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