by Ed Addis.

The Portland Area League met on January 5th to play the 7th and final round of their round robin tournament (in two divisions), marking the end of the first half of the season.

In the Upper Division first place Clackamas cruised passed fourth placed Lincoln by a score of 4 to 1. Second place Lake Oswego had their hands full against third placed Horizon Christian as they lost the top two boards, but their bottom three boards came through for the match victory. Fifth place Cleveland drew with sixth placed LaSalle and eight placed Sherwood took down seventh placed Westview by a score to 4 to 1 with the victory on 5th board due to forfeit. The pairings for the last round of this round robin tournament appear to be the type of pairing you would expect to see in a tournament using the Swiss System, however, this is the way they just happened to come out. The pairing numbers were drawn randomly before the start of the tournament and — what do you know — every team had a chance to improve (or fall) in the last round.

UPPER DIVISION FINAL STANDINGS

Place Team Match Points
1 Clackamas #1 6
2 Lake Oswego #1 5 1/2
3 Horizon 4
4 Lincoln #1 3 1/2
5 Cleveland 2 1/2 (Cleveland won the tie breaker with 15 game points to LaSalle’s 13.5)
6 LaSalle #1 2 1/2
7 Sherwood #1 2 (Sherwood won the tie breaker by winning their head-to-head match)
8 Westview 2

In the Lower Division first place Jesuit continued their dominance with a 5-0 drubbing of fifth place Lake Oswego. Second place Sherwood dropped the top board to sixth place Lincoln but won the rest. Third placed Clackamas beat up on eighth placed LaSalle, 5-0. Fourth placed Access Academy won by forfeit against seventh placed Wilson as they unfortunately never arrived.

LOWER DIVISION FINAL STANDINGS

Place Team Match Points
1 Jesuit 7
2 Sherwood #2 5
3 Clackamas #2 4 (Clackamas won the tie breaker by winning their head to head match)
4 Access Academy 4
5 Lake Oswego #2 3
6 Lincoln #2 2 (Lincoln won the tie-breaker by winning their head to head match)
7 Wilson 2
8 LaSalle #2 1

Next week the two division will be combined into a single section with the final 7 rounds of played using the Swiss Pairing System. The league will use two modifications to the normal Swiss pairings. The first modification is that teams from the same schools will not met. The other modification is that the pairing numbers assigned will not based upon a team’s average rating, but on their finish in the just completed round robin tournaments with the Upper Division assigned pairing numbers 1 – 8, the lower 9 – 16.

The League also intends to award individuals for their superior performance. Currently the following players are leading on their respective boards:
Board 1 — Bryce Eng of Jesuit has been prefect with 7 wins. Alexandra Botez of Clackamas and Hari Caushik of Westview have 5.
Board 2 — Gavin Megson of Clackamas and Markus Woltjer of Horizon Christian have 6 wins (5 on Board 2 and 1 on Board 1). They lead Dmitri Murphy who has all 6 of his wins on board 2.
Board 3 — Tushar Sah of Jesuit is also prefect with 7 wins. Jordan Edelson of Lincoln has 5.5 and Joel Porter of Lake Oswego has 5.
Board 4 — Christopher DiMarco of Jesuit has 6 wins and a draw. Guihao Chen of Clackamas has 5 wins which actually counts more the 6 wins of Charles Earp of Lake Oswego.
Board 5 — Kevin Rhine of Clackamas also has 7 wins. Alex Schoen of LaSalle has 4 and so does Lindsay LoBasso of Sherwood.

I am sure you need a little explanation on how in the world Mr. Chen with 5 wins could possibly be ahead of Mr. Earp. Well our League adopted a method of weighing each board differently. Since we play only one game a week and our rules state that if a member of your team is missing then everyone moves up a board. So if your first board does not make the meet then your 2nd board player must play board 1, and so on. If your school has two teams and your 5th board on team #1 is missing then your board 1 player on team #2 becomes your 5th board on team #1 and of course everyone on team #2 will be move up a board also. We have found that it is nearly impossible for many (if any) teams to go through our four month schedule without some players missing. Additionally, some players improve their chess playing ability and want/should play on a higher board. Some of the students improve vastly over this four month period. The weighting of each board is as simple (or complicated) as powers of 0.8. In other words a win on board 1 is worth 1 point, while a win on board 2 is worth 0.8 points, board 3 is worth 0.64, and so on.

To get back to how can Mr. Chen be ahead of Mr. Earp…
Mr. Chen has 3.104 points earned from a win on board 2, two wins on board 3, and two wins on board 4. Mr. Earp has earned 3.072 points as all 6 of his points came from wins on board 4. Since only half the season has been completed it is very likely that there will be changes to the leaders for each board. If Mr. Chen continues his success he will not even be eligible for a 4th board award as he just took over the second board, and players are eligible for board prizes only for the board that they played most frequently.