76th Annual Southwest Open

Click here for final standings

Click here for USCF results

More pictures here

Sadorra vs GM Ramirez (Round 7) 1/2-1/2

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GM Ramirez vs GM Ioan (Rnd 6) 1-0

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Langer vs Ortiz (Rnd 4) 1/2-1/2

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Ramirez vs Cornejo (Rnd 4) 1/2 - 1/2

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Sadorra vs Ioan (Rnd 4) 0-1

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WIM Ortiz vs Zivanic after White played Nd7 (Rnd 1.) 0-1

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View from the playing hall on the 11th floor.

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In the 5th round after getting to this position, my brain took leave of it's senses, and I played Rb1+???, which looses to Rb4. [ ...g3 or Kh3 draws].

1. Win Black vs Henry Velasquez (1500)
2. Win White vs Christian Leos (1718)
3. Win Black vs Alok Kumar (1930)
4. Win White vs James Ukoli (1940)
5. Loss Black vs Clement Rendon (1916)
6. Win White vs Alexander Jiang (1886)
7. Draw White vs vs Rizal Abarientos (1884)

Rizal wins clear 1st ($500), Alok, Austin Jiang, and me split 2nd-3rd. ($120). My rating should go up from 1800 to about 1880

Nerves got the better of me in the last round. A win would have given me clear first($500) and a rating of over 1900. My last round opponent had only played in 2 previous events. The first in 1995 and the second this year. I also noticed that he had a Master level correspondence rating. I decided to stay away from main line openings, but he still played the best moves! But I had a chance to get an advantage in the following position.
Here I should have played Qd4, when black is forced to exchange queens, I should then be able to win the c pawn and have a very comfortable game. I played f3 instead which is also good, but later lost my way.

Maybe I should only play in Southwest Opens! My record for the last two events is 8-1=4.

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The SWO returned to Corpus Christi. It was last held here in 1945! For a history of past winners click here

Top seeds this year:

GM Ramirez, Alejandro 2645 (Costa Rica)
IM Zivanic, Marko 2571 (Serbia)
GM Ioan, Cristian 2561 (Romania)
IM Wang, Puchen 2533 (New Zealand)
IM Sadorra, Julio 2471 (Philippines)
IM Bercys, Salvijus 2467 (USA)

Report on the 2009 event here

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2010 Corpus Christi 35+51+25 = 109 (Open+Reserve+Novice)
Open: ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ, MAX CORNEJO
Reserve: RIZAL ABARIENTOS

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2009 Ft. Worth 49+82+29 = 160 (Open+Reserve+Novice)
Open: G ANTAL
Reserve: P NGUYEN

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2008 Houston 62+94 = 156 (Open+Reserve)
Open: A RAMIREZ, J STOPA, P WANG, S BERCYS
Reserve: E LU

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2007 Brownsville 43+33 = 76
Open: A BACHMANN, S BERCYS, A ALMEIDA, D FERNANDEZ, T VEDRICKAS
Reserve: V FLORES

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2006 Ft. Worth 42+105 = 126
Open: D BOSKOVIC
Reserve : T GWAZE

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2005 Dallas 55+101 = 156
Open: M ZIVANIC, J BRADFORD
Reserve : J CRAWFORD, F BRACK, K WANG

Back to square one!

A few week ago my friend Paul (rated 2156 at the time) decided to play in the Dallas Insanity. 24 hours of chess, 20 games of G/30.


I advised him not to, since it is pretty hard to play a quality game in 30 min. He played anyway and lost 26 points.


I should have listened to my own advice and not played in the 5 round G/30 event yesterday. I won the first 2 games, but only managed a half point in the next 3! and lost 29 points.


So I am back at my 1800 floor! The good news is that I can only go up now!


The main reason I played was to get some games in before the SWO, and I really didn't have much of a choice. Now I can play without any worry of losing rating points!


Click here for the ugly cross table.