We would like to give a big Thank You to all the participants who brought their best chess day after day. That was 20 hours of wood pushing and close to 1000 games played between us all, thanks! In this summary you will find a break-down of the top scorers as well as Game of the Tournament and an overall Tip in the Sicilian Dragon.
Overall Ranking Table Note, only the top 4 performances of a player are taken into account for final Ranking.
Congratulations to the Top 3
Thanneermalai Kannapan (kannat1) 1st Place
Henry Li (Henryli2012) 2nd Place
Kayden Chan (KaydenChan) 3rd Place
Top 3 will receive a 1 hour Online Lesson with Grandmaster Andres on the Sicilian Dragon. Please get in contact to coordinate a time.
Throughout the tournament it was decided to implement an Opening Theme, to help those players with less opening knowledge and make the games a bit more balanced, and we decided on the very dynamic Sicilian Dragon. In the Sicilian Dragon, activity is paramount as more often than not players are castled opposite sides and this creates a who-attacks-first type of game. In the game below we witness a ferocious attack from White after a seemingly ok move from Black, which after White does not waste any time and launches a pawn-storm to open up Blacks King and win the game.
kannat1 (1690) vs Henryli2012 (1500?)
White just played 10. Bh6 attempting to trade Black’s Dragon Bishop, to which Black replies 10…Bh8 , avoiding trading as is always advisable to keep as it serves as a defending and attacking piece but in this case if was not so. Instead Black had the opportunity to neutralize any attack with 10. ..Nh5, blocking any activity down the h and g files. Game continued, 11. h5! Nxh5 12.Rxh5! gxh5 Blasting open the King side 13. Qg5+ Kh7 14. Qxh5 Kg8 15. Bxf7+ Nxf7 16.Qg6+ Bg7 17. Qxg7# A very nicely played attack.
We would like to take advantage to invite you for the next Grand Prix taking place March 9 to 13. Once again, we will implement an opening theme. It’s a good chance for any level of player to learn and add an opening to their chess repertoire. We will be using the French Defense, see image below. The tournament once again will be played on the Lichess platform, take in mind that we use Lichess as it provides a powerful anti-cheating software to create a positive environment free of chess engine assistance.
In conclusion, we are very happy with the chess that was played and most of all the commitment that was shown throughout the entire 10 days of the Grand Prix. However, we did have an instance of computer assistance in some of the games. The intention of the Grand Prix is to create a fair-play community around us to continue to improve and enjoy a positive learning experience. We hope this serves as a learning experience and we look forward to having you join in our future TCA events. Remember, we will still be hosting Chess Club Arena every Saturday from 4-6pm. See you there!
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