Three Tie For First at Seventh Annual Queen of the Prairie Open on FIDE's Record-Breaking Weekend

Fort Worth, Texas, has several nicknames, including “Cowtown” and “Panther City.” One of its nicknames brings to mind the most powerful piece in chess: “Queen City of the Prairie.” As Alliance is a Fort Worth suburb, the Alliance Chess Club’s biggest annual tournament is the “Queen City of the Prairie Open.”

The tournament is in its seventh year, and I had previously reported on the third edition of this tournament, including some unorthodox decisions about who gets free entry, for Chess Life Online. The tournament determines a Tarrant County Champion and a Fort Worth Champion. Fort Worth is the largest city in Tarrant County. This year, both the county and city titles were won by the same person, Fort Worth resident Brian Tineo, with a 3½/5 score.

All results are available here and information with prizes (except for mixed doubles) can be found here.

Chess Universities

In the overall standings, three players scored “bested” that score, finishing with 4/5 to become co-champions: IM Craig Hilby, IM Zurab Javakhadze, and Andras Horvath. The first two have degrees from The University of Texas at Dallas while Horvath earned a master’s degree in statistics at Texas Tech University.

(From left): Zurab Javakhadze, Craig Hilby, and Andras Horvath are the 2024 co-champions (Photo by Alexey Root)

Like me, CM Tim Steiner works at The University of Texas at Dallas. We won the $200 Mixed Doubles prize, with Steiner scoring 3½/5 (including a win over me in the last round), leaving me with a 2½/5 score.

In the Open, players had a choice of a three-day (July 19, 20, and 21) or a two-day (July 20 and 21) schedule. The time control was G/60+30.

Fastest Win in the West

FM Sharvesh Deviprasath was the top seed in the tournament, with a higher US Chess rating (2540) than Hilby (2491) and Javakhadze (2448). Before round two, Deviprasath mentioned that he had seen the game between my husband, IM Doug Root, and GM Jesse Kraai in the U.S. Senior Championship. I said that Kraai played his first 20 moves of that game in six minutes.

Andras Horvath (L) before his last-round draw with Craig Hilby. Sharvesh Deviprasath, who finished a half-point behind the co-champions, is to Hilby's right. (Photo by Alexey Root)

Maybe Deviprasath took Kraai’s speed as inspiration. At the end of his 52-move-long win over Rahul Myala, Deviprasath’s clock showed 1:01.25 (one hour, 1 minute, and 25 seconds). That is, Deviprasath ended with a full minute and 25 seconds more time than he began with. Myala’s clock showed 27 minutes and 23 seconds remaining. Annotations by Alexey Root:

Or perhaps Deviprasath’s speed was inspired by his chess student Amari Cooper, a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns. Cooper has run the 40-yard dash in under 4.39 seconds. Deviprasath, Cooper, and Cole Blakeman founded the Universal Chess Tour.

Record set

All sections of the Queen City of the Prairie Open participated in the FIDE 100 Guinness World Records setting attempt. That attempt ran from July 20, 2024 00:00:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time) and July 21, 2024 00:00:00 CEST. Because of the time difference between Central Europe and North Central Texas, not every round on July 20th was eligible. Ultimately, 91 games from the Queen City of the Prairie Open counted toward the attempt.

FIDE’s goal was to have the largest number of chess games (both online and offline) played during one day (24 hours). FIDE, the International Chess Federation, succeeded. Carl Saville, Guinness World Records Official Adjudicator, said, “The International Chess Federation has achieved a total score of 5.4 million games played in 24 hours, making it a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title.” This total was later updated to over seven million games.

Last Round

In the fifth and final round, the tournament winners were determined on the top two boards. On board one, a draw between Hilby and Horvath left them both tied for first.

Hilby had drawn Javakhadze in the previous round, while Horvath had won three straight games after drawing William Hao (1807) in round one. Here is the Hilby – Horvath clash, annotated by IM Doug Root and Andras Horvath:

On board two, Deviprasath played Javakhadze, but Deviprasath’s third-round loss to Elbert Fang (who crossed the 2200 US Chess ratings threshold in this event) left him a half-point behind Javakhadze. With their draw, Javakhadze joined Hilby and Horvath atop the standings.