Eighty-seven players competed in the blitz tournament at Seaside. In each game they had to bang out all their moves in five minutes or less. The field was divided by rating into 20 four-player quads playing double round-robins and one seven-player group that played a single round robin.
The top group featured four players all rated within 30 points of each other. High school elite section player, Alex Piatski, was crowned grand champion, scoring 5/6 and had the privilege of taking on Chess Master Steven Breckenridge in a blitz match immediately afterwards.
Other interesting side notes…
- A rapidly increasing rating not only means that the player is rapidly improving, it is also a sign that he or she is underrated and would be expected to do well in ratings-based sections — and in the quads, the players on the “Greatest Ratings Increase” list dominated. Of the eight players on that list, five won their sections, including the winners of the strong C-F quads: Takuma Sato-Duncan, Collin Goldman, Clemen Deng, and Dillon Murray. One that did not win (Nicholas Kapple) ended up losing to another player on “Greatest Ratings Increase” list (Jennifer Ross). A second that did not win (Jacob Slavik) ended up losing to a player who did not have an NWSRS rating (Ethan Allison) and was placed in his section based on his USCF rating.
- Brothers Clemen and Leo Deng have been tearing apart their opponents all year, and — no surprise — they both won their blitz sections.
- The Allison family from Bend has been a tremendous force in Oregon chess, but they did not learn about OSCF in time to play in this year’s championship. However, they were able to stop by Seaside Friday night to enjoy the blitz tournament. Younger son Trevor played in the seven-player section U, elder son Ethan won section G, and father Rex filled in for a player who went missing in section I. We look forward to seeing them next year on Saturday too!
- Alex Petersen and his dad Dennis Petersen have very similar ratings and ended up having to play in the same section. This time, Alex got the best of the dual and ended up winning the section.
- Jake Winkler (section J) was the only player in any section with a perfect score.
| Quad | Ave. Rating | Players (section winner boldfaced) |
|---|---|---|
| A | 1743 | Steven Witt, Calvin Parnon, Matt Dalthorp, Alex Piatski |
| B | 1600 | Erik Skalnes, Jack Dale, Jacob Hoglund, Dhruva Chatterjee |
| C | 1528 | Benjamin Pikus, Takuma Sato-Duncan, Caleb Kesey, Gabriel Skoro |
| D | 1490 | Collin Goldman, Jimmy Kelly, Dillon Winter, Liam Booth |
| E | 1465 | Dmitri Murphy, Clemen Deng, Brian Hoglund, Aaron Pikus |
| F | 1422 | Brian Yang, Dillon Murray, Cameron Kocher, Rory Soiffer |
| G | 1321 | Jacob Slavik, Ethan Allison, Torrey Gage-Tomlinson, Zach Koontz |
| H | 1262 | Leo Deng, Nathan Jewell, Valentin Molchanov, Quinn Stearns |
| I | 1219 | Dennis Petersen, Rex Allison, Craig Still, Alex Petersen |
| J | 1156 | Jake Winkler, John Ornes, Duncan Soiffer, Kaitlyn Davidson |
| K | 1063 | Colin Liu, Alex Schoen, Leo Barrios, Thomas Kneeland |
| L | 1016 | Devan Kruse, Everett Carstens, Gil Parnon, Riley Baney |
| M | 960 | Marino Santoro, David Kruse, Isaiah Lee, Zia Wiles |
| N | 905 | Ricardo Marroquin, Neal Ornes, Johannes Freischuetz, Evan Kooyman |
| O | 865 | Adrian Camero, Keshav Siddhartha, Tommy Eblen, Travis Albers |
| P | 826 | Nicholas Kapple, Sierra Bechdoldt, Erick Trujillo, Jennifer Ross |
| Q | 769 | Eric Gibbs, Harvey Beleiciks, Alexander Duley, Quinn Reynolds |
| R | 684 | Crystal Still, Colby Martinot, Collin Good, Jacob DeKlyen |
| S | 656 | Aidan Gardner-O’Kearny, Atticus Crow, Lane Crabtree, Jesse Norgren |
| T | 631 | Max Franklin, Kira Dobbins, Brandon Good, Farayah Martinot |
| U | 551 | Michael Schuff, Andrea Durdel, Edward Puls, Angelina Morones, Victoria Kapple, Logan Parrish, Trevor Allison |
