GM Corrales and IM Bonin Win Cleveland Open

GM Fidel Corrales and IM Jay Bonin tied for first in the Cleveland Open August 10th to 12th at the Crowne Plaza Cleveland Airport Hotel. Each scored 4 ½-½ and won $1350 with Corrales taking the $100 bonus for the better tiebreaks. Corrales was the only GM at Cleveland, but with three IMs and three FMs, there would be competition for the top prize. Two of the IMs, IM Jay Bonin and IM Ron Burnett, are also past Cleveland Open Champions. Round one started with some surprises and a few upsets. The fourth overall seed did not show up and would be out of the tournament.  The second overall seed IM Burnett surrendered a draw to NM Chuck Diebert.  The one true full point upset was FM Lester Van Meter losing to Xavier Paginini.  With an Under 2100 section and only a few players playing up the round one rating difference in the matchups was as little as just over 100 points so there were not as many mismatches, and the top players were immediately tested. Round two featured numerous master vs master matchups.  The only real upset was not really much of an upset as there was only a 40 point rating difference between NM Thomas Riccardi and NM Ryan Clayton.  Clayton did win to get to 2-0, and, at the merge, there were nine players with perfect scores:  GM Corrales, IMs Bonin and Justin Sarkar, FMs Gabriel Petesch, Aravind Jayaraman, and NMs Scott Raymer, John Ahlborg, Vincent Baker, and Ryan Clayton. In round three, IM Bonin drew with Baker and Ryan Clayton lost to IM Burnett, so there would be three perfect scores entering the final day:  GM Corrales defeated FM Jayaraman, IM Sarkar defeated NM Ahlborg, and FM Petesch defeated NM Ramer. Sunday morning’s boards 1 and 2 would be the critical games.  GM Corrales defeated FM Petesch to emerge as the sole 4-0 score as IM Sarkar drew with IM Burnett.  Corrales annotates his critical win.

[pgn][Event "Cleveland Open"] [Site "?"] [Date "2018.08.12"] [Round "4.1"] [White "Corrales Jimenez, Fidel"] [Black "Petesch, Gabriel N"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B01"] [WhiteElo "2542"] [BlackElo "2235"] [Annotator "ficor"] [PlyCount "85"] [EventDate "2016.04.12"] [EventCountry "USA"] [SourceDate "2006.10.04"]1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd6 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 c6 6. Ne5 Nbd7 (6... g6 7. Bf4 Qd8 (7... Qb4 8. Nc4 e6 9. a3 (9. Bd6 Bxd6 10. a3) 9... Qe7 10. Nd6+) 8. Bc4 Be6 (8... e6) 9. Bxe6 fxe6) (6... Bf5 7. Bf4) 7. Bf4 (7. f4 $5 e6 8. Be2 Be7 9. O-O O-O 10. a4 (10. Qd3 Qc7 11. Qh3 c5 12. Be3) 10... Nd5 11. a5 N7f6 12. Bf3 c5) 7... Nxe5 (7... Nd5 $1 8. Nxd5 Qxd5 9. Nf3 (9. Nc4 g6) 9... Nf6 10. Be2 Bg4 11. c3 e6 12. O-O Be7 13. h3 Bh5 14. a4 O-O 15. Re1 Rad8 16. g4 Bg6 17. Ne5) (7... Qb4 8. Nc4) 8. Bxe5 (8. dxe5 $5 Qxd1+ (8... Qb4 9. Qd2 Ne4 10. Nxe4 Qxe4+ 11. Be3 Be6 12. f4 Qd5 13. Bd3 g6 14. O-O Bg7 15. a4 O-O 16. Qb4) 9. Rxd1 Nd7 10. e6 fxe6 11. Bc4 Nf6 12. O-O g6 (12... Nd5 13. Be5) 13. Be5 Bg7 14. Ne4 O-O 15. Ng5 Nd5 16. Bxg7 Kxg7 17. Rfe1 Nc7 18. Nf3 a5 19. Ne5 a4 20. a3 Ra5 21. Nd7 Rd8 22. Nb6 $14) 8... Qd8 (8... Qb4 9. a3 Qb6 10. Bc4) 9. Bd3 Bg4 10. Qd2 Qd7 (10... e6 11. Qg5 h6 12. Qh4 g5 13. Qg3) 11. O-O Bf5 12. Bxf6 (12. Rfe1 Bxd3 13. Qxd3 e6 14. Qg3 O-O-O 15. a4 Nd5 16. Ne4 f6 17. Bb8) 12... gxf6 13. d5 Bxd3 14. Qxd3 e6 15. dxe6 fxe6 16. Qe3 Bb4 17. Rad1 Qf7 18. Ne4 O-O 19. a3 Ba5 20. Nc5 (20. Nd6 $1 Qd7 (20... Qe7 21. Nf5 Qc7 22. Qxe6+) (20... Bb6 21. Qe2 Qd7 22. Nf5 Qc7 23. Qxe6+ Kh8 24. Rfe1) 21. Nc4) 20... Rfe8 21. Rd7 Re7 22. Rxe7 Qxe7 23. Qxe6+ (23. Nxe6 Qf7 24. Nc5 Qe7 25. Qe6+) 23... Qxe6 24. Nxe6 Re8 25. Nf4 Rd8 26. Nd3 Kf7 27. g3 Rd5 28. Rd1 c5 29. c4 Rd4 30. b3 Bc3 31. Kf1 Rd6 32. Ke2 Re6+ 33. Kf3 Rd6 34. Ke4 Re6+ 35. Kf5 Rd6 36. f4 b6 37. Nf2 Bd4 38. Ne4 Re6 39. b4 a6 40. bxc5 bxc5 41. Rb1 Rc6 42. Rb7+ Kg8 43. a4 1-0[/pgn]

In the last round, Corrales just needed a draw to tie for first.  That is eventually what happened, but it was not a quick draw.  Corrales had an advantage and was up a pawn in a rook ending, but IM Sarker defended valiantly and held the draw.  This left only one plyer who could catch Corrales.  Bonin could join the tie if he could defeat IM Burnett.  The board two matchup was Bonin with white and 3 ½ points versus Burnett with black with 3 points.   Bonin won a nice game against Burnett to become co-champion.

[pgn][Event "Cleveland Open"] [Site "?"] [Date "2018.08.12"] [Round "5.2"] [White "Bonin, Jay"] [Black "Burnett, Ron"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "E11"] [WhiteElo "2390"] [BlackElo "2431"] [Annotator "Hater,David"] [PlyCount "71"] [EventDate "2018.??.??"]1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 Qe7 5. g3 O-O 6. Bg2 Bxd2+ 7. Nbxd2 d6 8. Nf1 c5 9. Ne3 b6 10. O-O Bb7 11. d5 exd5 12. cxd5 Na6 13. Nf5 Qd7 14. N3h4 g6 15. Qd2 Qd8 16. Nh6+ Kg7 17. e4 Re8 18. Rfe1 Re5 19. h3 Bc8 20. f4 Rh5 21. Nxf7 Kxf7 22. e5 Rxh4 23. gxh4 Nh5 24. e6+ Ke7 25. f5 Qh8 26. fxg6 hxg6 27. Qg5+ Nf6 28. Rf1 Bb7 29. Rxf6 Qxf6 30. Rf1 Qxg5 31. Rf7+ Kd8 32. hxg5 Nc7 33. h4 Rc8 34. h5 gxh5 35. g6 Nxd5 36. Bxd5 1-0[/pgn]

IM Sarkar and NM Ahlborg tied for third.  Both had fine tournaments.  Sarkar drew with Corrales and Burnett and defeated NMs William Wright and Ahlborg.  Ahlborg only lost to Sarker and upset FM Petesch in the final round and defeated NMs Wright and Nabil Felichi in earlier rounds.  Ahlborg picked up nearly 30 rating points which is a significant number at that level. In the class section, a major story was two brothers sharing first place.  In the Under 2100 section Destyn Keuchel and Connor Keuchel  would certainly be two of the favorites as they were seeded 4^th and 6^th respectively.  They both scored 4 ½ - ½ and each won $900. The section winners were:

Under 2100

Destyn Keuchel and Connor Keuchel, 4 ½ - ½, $900

Under 1900

Allen Stern, 5-0, $1200

Under 1700

Cory Mclean, Madison Loftis and Michael Slosson, 4-1, $700

Under 1500

Vaughn Wampole, 4 ½ - ½, $1000

Under 1200

Joseph Riccardi, 4 ½ - ½, $700

Larrance Xing, 4 ½ - ½, $100 (limited to $100 as unrated)

Mixed Doubles

Charisse Woods & Andrew Friedman and Meena & Madhaven Narkeeran, 7-3, $450 each team

Blitz Tournament

GM Fidel Corrales, 8-0, $180

NTD David Hater directed for Continental Chess Association assisted by Joe Yun. Full tournament details can be found at www.clevelandopen.com. Previous Continental Chess tournaments can be found at the Continental Chess website at  http://www.chesstour.com/cross.html.