Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Hoyos earns title, Bryant tentatively earns seed into next US Closed

Note: This is a partial republication of my blog post for Northwest Chess concerning the 2012 U.S. Open Chess Championship. The original can be found here.

GM Yasser Seirawan (white pieces) faces off against GM Manuel Leon Hoyos in Round 9 of the 2012 U.S. Open in Vancouver, Washington, August 12, 2012.
Photo credit: jbdadams@hotmail.com

GM Manuel Leon Hoyos won an Armageddon playoff with the white pieces to earn the title of 2012 United States Open Chess Champion. Hoyos finished with an 8-1 record, the same as GM Dmitry Gurevich and FM John Bryant of California. The top two players on tiebreak (Hoyos and Bryant) were seeded into the playoff for an extra $200 in prize money and the championship trophy. An Armageddon style playoff is a one game blitz match of 5 minutes vs. 3 minutes (in this case with 5 second delay), black having draw odds. Hoyos is the reigning Mexican Champion currently attending Webster University in St. Louis. Bryant, as the first American finisher on tiebreaks, will be seeded into the next U.S. Closed Championship, assuming that the current qualifying rules remain unchanged for 2013.

The final crosstable is located here.

People who played in Seattle 1966 and Vancovuer 2012:

Rusty Miller
Mike Murray
Joe Brandenburg
Anthony Saidy
Ronald Gross
Sam Sloan
Viktors Pupols
David Rupel

Historic photo reenacted (Pupols & Seirawan) click here. From the Idaho Chess Association web site.

Webster University makes a clean sweep. (From Susan Polgar Chess Daily News & Information)

Top Northwest & BC finishers (6 or more points out of 9):

GM Seirawan, Yasser WA 2674 7.5
Breckenridge, Steven OR 2349 7.0
FM Raptis, Nick OR 2330 7.0
Sohal, Tanraj S BC 2199 7.0
FM Roper, David WA 2288 6.5
Lee, Nathan Y WA 2123 6.5
May, Andy P WA 2121 6.5
Erichsen, Dan BC 2104 6.5
Lee, Megan WA 2101 6.5
Esler, Brian John OR 2060 6.5
Zavortink, Matt WA 2051 6.5
Tobin, Sean OR 2025 6.5
Saputra, Yogi OR 1990 6.5
Sinanan, Joshua WA 2259 6.0
Gay, Daniel OR 2212 6.0
Pupols, Viktors WA 2200 6.0
Greninger, Harley G WA 2197 6.0
Lessler, Peter WA 2177 6.0
Patterson, Roger BC 2165 6.0
Edwards, Derek WA 2163 6.0
Yu, Corbin OR 2150 6.0
Wang, Michael WA 2148 6.0
Sellers, Matthew B OR 2128 6.0
Rupel, David WA 2109 6.0
Dixon, Dakota WA 2108 6.0
Kleist, Frederick K WA 2098 6.0
FM Bartron, Paul R WA 2096 6.0
Herrera, Robert OR 2044 6.0
He, Daniel Ming WA 2030 6.0
Arganian, David G WA 2002 6.0
Rowles, David WA 1939 6.0
Robinson, Marcus OR 1898 6.0
Warrier, Krishnan V WA 1885 6.0
Kiiru, Joseph K WA 1833 6.0

For USCF online coverage by Al Lawrence, click here.

Viktors Pupols and Yasser Seirawan, reenacting a photo shot by Larry Parr in 1974. This will likely be the cover photo for the September 2012 Northwest Chess magazine. Photo credit: Jeffrey Roland