Higuchi Runs 1st Harper College Event; Bartochowski Wins

 

On April 8, I was honored to host my first-ever USCF tournament at Harper College. 

Even with many other events happening around the state, a remarkable 45 players competed; 25 in the open and 20 in the U1700 section.  Out of 25 players in the Open section, there were six Experts and a Master in the field.

In the Open section, Nicholas Bartochowski was the clear winner.  Winning all three games, Bartochowski raised his rating to 2169. 

NM Ken Wallach and Experts Rishi Narayanan and Abhy Venkat tied for second with 2.5's.

Robby Hecht, Adam Bareket, Eric Starkman and Richard Zhang all finished the tournament with 2.0. 

Zhang had an excellent tournament, beating a Class A player and an Expert before falling to Bartochowski in the final match.  With his performance, Zhang raised his rating from 1797 to 1862. 

Three honorable mentions from the open section:  Aidan Carey finished the tournament with three draws, including against a Master and a Class A player,  edghing up from 1833 to 1843. 

Stevenson’s coach, Vince Springer, attended his first USCF tournament since July 19, 2015, and finished the tournament with 1.5/3, drawing an Expert.

William Wang scored 1.5/3, playing three Experts, beating one and drawing one.

In the U1700 section, Tuoyu Yang and Fremd’s Anthony Mu tied for first, with 3.0/3 points each.  Yang posted an excellent upset in the third round to join Mu for first place.

Nicholas Geannopoulos and Jack Santner both tied for third with 2.5 points each.  Geannopoulos and Santner played each other in the first round to a draw, and won their respective Round 2 and 3 games.  Finishing with 2.0 were Gary Levine, Advitya Batta, Kaushal Dhumal, Kai Dubauskas and Pranay Prabhakar. 

Three honorable mentions from the U1700 section: A quick shout out to Brain Tay and his father, who drove all the way from Virginia!  Rolling Meadows Coach Neil Mott wound up playing Rolling Meadows First board Raymond Liu in the second round to a draw.  USCF-first timer Deepan Dharmarayan earned his first victory in the first round!

Thank you to those who came and was patient with me prior to the first round.  If there are any suggestions, questions or even some future tournament tips, please contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Quick thanks to Maret Thorpe, Bill Buklis, Bill Feldman, Bill Whited and to everybody else that has supported me to become a Tournament Director.  You can find cross tables here