Spring Open Round 5 - Faber's Dutch Delight
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5/8/2012
Ryan Yeung (left) in his round 5 win over Gordon Brooks.
The penultimate round of the Spring Open took place last night with Craig Faber (2212) and Melandro Singson (2128) winning their games and becoming the two front runners
on 4.5/5. They will square off against each other next week to decide the tournament.
Faber played Matthew Hayes (2063) with the black pieces on board 1. Their previous two games had been drawn Scandinavian's, so Hayes opened with 1. d4 this time to try to
catch black by surprise. The opening was a Dutch Defense out of which white seemed to emerge with the better position. However, white then rushed a combination in order to
make the time control, missing black's rejoinder that was probably just winning. White resigned before allowing black's nice mating finish (boo!) but the game, including the
mate, can be found in the "Games" section of the website.
On board 2, old foes Melandro Singson and Henry Castro (2055) were pitted against one another. Singson, playing white, got a favorable version of the Closed Sicilian out of
the opening. His e, f and g pawns started squeezing black to death, with black's pieces being pushed back to the 7th and 8th ranks. Black was forced to resign when Singson
played a nice bishop check which would have lead to the loss of black's queen on the next move. Singson will play Faber in the last round.
Board 3 saw Gregg Fritchle (2032) vs Dave Matson (2002). Fritchle got tied up at work and was fortunate to not forfeit the game as he arrived at the board with barely
five minutes to go before the one hour was up. He then rattled off a series of quickfire moves to get a very nice position in the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez. However,
Matson was able to trade more pieces off and use his endgame skills to force a draw. The result puts Fritchle on 4/5 and with a chance of sharing first place if board 1 is drawn
next week. Matson skill has the possibility of winning a price but it will depend on other results.
Speaking of old foes, on board 4 Jesse Victoria (2056) had the white pieces against John Anderson (1893). The two have played each other numerous times in recent months and Anderson
has been quite successful, so the result was by no means a foregone conclusion. As it was, Victoria had no such trouble this time around and brought home the full point to
leave himself on 4/5 and also in with a shout of a tie for first place. Anderson is still up several rating points for the tournament but will need a good result next week (and he will
likely have to play another expert) to ensure his rating is over 1900 for the first time when the tournament finishes.
There were a number of upset results in round 5, starting with Ryan Yeung's (1748) victory over Gordon Brooks (1900). Jeff Schroeder (1821) had a notable win over Phil Chase (1955), in
what has been a very nice tournament for him, and Steven Qian (1896) was held to a draw by Dave King (1671).
The two biggest upset wins came courtesy of Queena Deng (1725) and Frank Wosczyna (1215). Deng had a sensational win over Randy Hough (2010), with the black pieces no less. Wosczyna also had black,
against Jeff Schwartz (1531). Congratulations to both players for their excellent wins.
In terms of rating difference, there were three even bigger upsets than Deng and Wosczyna's. Ryan Yang (1069), Gabriela Yu (966) and Michael Jia (869) drew against
Mel Clark (1515), Anthony Ge (1433) and Tara McKey (1315) respectively. Great results for the underdogs, who were all rated several hundred points lower than their opponents.
The Spring Open will conclude Monday, May 14.
