GM Bryan Smith Clear First at the National Chess Congress

GM Bryan Smith scored 5 ½ out of 6 to take clear first at the 48^th National Chess Congress held at the Philadelphia Sheraton from November 24-26.   Smith won $3000 along with the $200 first place bonus. Smith was seeded 11^th in the 102 player Premier section.  Certainly, he had to be regarded as one of the contenders for a top prize, but given that he was over 200 points lower rated than the top few seeds, winning clear first has to be regarded as a bit of a surprise and a significant accomplishment.  The tournament was very strong with 8 GMs, 10 IMs, 14 FMs and a total of 57 players rated over 2200 in the top section.  All told there were 661 players in 10 sections. There were significant upsets of the top players, including GMs in every round.  In round one, GM Ruifeng Li was the highest rated player in the three day schedule and surrendered a draw to NM Alex Wang.  Here is that game.

[pgn][Event "National Chess Congress"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2017.11.24"]
[Round "1.1"]
[White "Wang, Alex"]
[Black "Li, Ruifeng"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C71"]
[WhiteElo "2202"]
[BlackElo "2669"]
[PlyCount "58"]
[EventDate "2017.??.??"]1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 d6 5. d4 b5 6. Bb3 Nxd4 7. Nxd4 exd4 8.
Bd5 Rb8 9. Qxd4 Nf6 10. O-O Bd7 11. a3 c5 12. Qd3 Nxd5 13. exd5 Be7 14. Re1 O-O
15. Bf4 c4 16. Qf3 Bf5 17. Bxd6 Qxd6 18. Qxf5 Bf6 19. Nc3 Bxc3 20. bxc3 Rfe8
21. g3 g6 22. Qg5 Rbd8 23. Rad1 Rxe1+ 24. Rxe1 Kg7 25. Rd1 h6 26. Qe3 Qf6 27.
f4 Kg8 28. Qe5 Qb6+ 29. Kg2 Rd6 1/2-1/2[/pgn]

Also in round one, GM Alex Fishbein drew with Abhimany Banerjee, IM Christian Pedersen drew with Alan Zhang and IM Thomas Bartell drew with WFM Martha Samadashvili. Round two continued the trend.  In the two day schedule, GM Aleksandr Lenderman lost to SM Srivatsav Rahul, GM Fishbein drew with FM Nico Chasin, GM Alexander Ivanov drew with Stanislav Busygin, IM Pedersen lost to WFM Samadashvili and IM Alexander Katz drew with FM Dov Gorman In round three, the tournament’s overall top seed GM Alexey Dreev lost to IM Kassa Korley and GM Elshan Moradiabadi drew with IM Rohan Ahuja.  At that point, of the top 10 players, only two had won all their games and were at 3-0! The number of 3-0 players stood at four:  GM Alexander Shabalov and Bryan Smith and IMs Praveen Balakrishnan and Kassa Korley. In round four, on both top boards, the lower rated player won.  On board one, Smith would face Shabalov.  A very sharp position ensued, and Smith pulled off the upset.  Meanwhile, on board two, Korley defeated Balakrishnan.

[pgn][Event "National Chess Congress"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2017.11.26"]
[Round "4.1"]
[White "Smith, Bryan"]
[Black "Shabalov, Alex"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C41"]
[WhiteElo "2505"]
[BlackElo "2619"]
[Annotator "Hater,David"]
[PlyCount "51"]
[EventDate "2017.??.??"]1. e4 Nc6 2. Nc3 g6 3. d4 Bg7 4. Be3 d6 5. Qd2 e5 6. Nge2 Nf6 7. f3 O-O 8.
O-O-O exd4 9. Nxd4 Nxd4 10. Bxd4 Be6 11. Kb1 a6 12. Be3 Re8 13. Bh6 Bh8 14. h4
b5 15. g4 b4 16. Ne2 d5 17. Qg5 c6 18. Nf4 Qe7 19. h5 dxe4 20. hxg6 fxg6 21.
Nxe6 Qxe6 22. Qc5 Nd5 23. Bc4 Qe5 24. c3 Bf6 25. Qxc6 Kh8 26. Rxd5 1-0[/pgn]

Heading into the final day, there were only two perfect scores: Smith and Korley.  In round 5 on board one, Smith defeated Korley to emerge as the only 5-0.  Smith was a full point ahead of the field and guaranteed himself at least a tie for first. There were eleven players at 4-1 who could all tie for first with a win if Smith lost.  The eleven were: GMs Alexey Dreev, Ruifeng Li, Alexander Shabalov, Elshan Moradiabadi, Alexander Ivanov, IMs David Brodsky, Kassa Korley, Alexander Katz, Justin Sarkar, Thomas Bartell and FM Hans Niemann. Amazingly, the first game to finish was board one.  Even though GM Alexey Dreev had black, one had to assume that he would go all out for a win since he was over 200 points higher rated and had to win to tie for first.  However, GM Smith obtained a very comfortable position with white, and Dreev offered a draw.  Li beat Korley in a very exciting dynamic game:

[pgn][Event "National Chess Congress"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2017.11.26"]
[Round "6.2"]
[White "Li, Ruifeng"]
[Black "Korley, Kassa"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B11"]
[WhiteElo "2699"]
[BlackElo "2466"]
[PlyCount "97"]
[EventDate "2017.??.??"]1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Nf3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Qe2 Nxe4 6. Qxe4 Qd5 7. Qf4 Qf5
8. Qe3 Qe6 9. b3 Qxe3+ 10. fxe3 f6 11. Bb2 e5 12. O-O-O Be6 13. d4 exd4 14.
exd4 Nd7 15. Re1 Kf7 16. Bd3 g6 17. Ng5+ fxg5 18. Rhf1+ Bf5 19. Bc4+ Kg7 20.
d5+ Kh6 21. dxc6 bxc6 22. Rxf5 Ba3 23. Re6 Bxb2+ 24. Kxb2 Nb6 25. Rxc6 Nxc4+
26. bxc4 Rae8 27. Rf3 g4 28. Rg3 Kg5 29. Rc5+ Kh4 30. Ra5 Re1 31. c5 Rh1 32. c6
Rxh2 33. Rc3 Rxg2 34. c7 Rf2 35. c8=Q Rxc8 36. Rxc8 g3 37. Rc4+ Kh3 38. Rc7 Kg4
39. Ra4+ Rf4 40. Rxf4+ Kxf4 41. Rf7+ Kg4 42. Rf1 h5 43. c4 h4 44. c5 h3 45. c6
g2 46. Re1 h2 47. c7 g1=Q 48. c8=Q+ Kg5 49. Qc1+ 1-0[/pgn]

Ivanov defeated Sarker, and Moradiabadi defeated Katz to join the tie for second.  Li, Ivanov, and Moradiabadi each won $866.67. Shabalov and Katz drew as did Niemann and Bartell.  FM Brandon Jacobsen had 3 ½ and defeated FM Maggie Feng to also finish in the tie for 5^th.  The big winner in the 5^th place tie was Niemann as he took clear first under 2400 and won $1600. There were several interesting stories in the mixed doubles competition.  There were a total of 69 mixed doubles teams in the tournament.  The top team was Gabriella Sorrentinio and Mark DiCostanzo II.  They finished with a combined 10 ½ out of 12 and each won $1000.  Soerentinio was only rated 213 and was playing in the Under 600 trophy section!  Sorrentinio scored 5-1 and tied for second taking the 4^th place trophy on tiebreaks, but the mixed double prize was a lot more valuable. GM Smith paired with Christina Jin, and together they scored 10 out of 12 to take clear second place in the mixed doubles competition and each win $500. There was a two way tie for the third mixed doubles prize.  The teams of Rachel Li & Alexander Shabalov and Kamelia Sharuda & Donald Battle Jr.  each scored 9 ½ out of 12 and each player won $250. When I saw the mixed doubles team, I wondered why Rachel Li was not teamed with her brother GM Ruifeng Li.  The answer is they were too high rated!  Teams have to have an average rating of under 2200 and the Li/Li team would have been 2201.  In an article last year, I predicted Rachel Li would become too good for her brother, and that is exactly what happened! In the Under 2200 section, there were two swiss gambits.  Bilgin Sazci drew in round one and then went 5-0 to finish 5 ½ and win clear first and $2000.  He played a very nice last round game.  Can you find the tactical shot to end the game?

Sazci – Polyakin

White to move.

Show Solution Pieter Heesters could not play the last round and signed up in advance for a last round bye.  He started with 4 ½ out of 5 and, with the last round bye, tied for second.  Missaka Warusawitharana started at 4-1, but then took a zero point bye in the last round and finished out of the money! DiCostanzo took clear first in the Under 2000 section and added $2000 to the $1000 mixed double prize. The only 6-0 in the money sections was scored in the Under 1400 section where Kunwar Mehra finished a full point ahead of the field and won $1600. In the trophy sections, Evan Newmiller went 6-0 in the Under 600 section, and Anand Idris went 6-0 in the Under 800 section. This tournament awards trophies to scholastic teams where members are current students or alumni of a college, high school or pre-high school.  The top four scores make up a team.  Christian Brothers Academy from New Jersey won first place with a team score of 20 ½ points. The section winners were:

Under 2200

Bilgen Sazci, 5 ½ - ½. $2000

Under 2000

Mark DiCostanzo II, 5 ½ - ½, $2000

Under 1800

Kameliia Sharuda, 5 ½ - ½. $2000

Under 1600

Clayton Ostroff, Tha Dun, Camden Wagner, Abishek Kannappan, 5-1, $950

Under 1400

Kunwar Mehra, 6-0, $1600

Under 1200

Arad Badidee & John Weigand, 5 ½ - ½. $1200

Under 1000

Ben Nemeth, 5 ½ - ½

Under 800

Anand Idris, 6-0,

Scholastic Under 600

Evan Newmiller, 6-0

Mixed Doubles

Mark Dicostanzo II, & Gabriella Sorrentinio, 10-2, $1000 each  

Blitz Tournament

FM Hans Niemann, 8-0, $250

              NTD Bill Goichberg directed for CCA assisted by Boyd Reed, David Hater, Harold Stenzel, Jabari McGreen, and Andy Rea. Full tournament details can be found at www.nationalchesscongress.com. Previous Continental Chess tournaments can be found at the Continental Chess website at  http://www.chesstour.com/cross.html.