A new tournament launched the final weekend of February, 2024 – the Inland Classic, Spokane’s replacement for the Dave Collyer Memorial. The new event saw a familiar format and lots of familiar faces, but many newer players emerged to challenge the traditional powers. Michael Cambareri and Brian Lee scored 4.5 to win the 67-player event.
Lee led a contingent of a half dozen players from WSU, several of whom had rediscovered tournament chess years after establishing fairly low ratings in their scholastic days. Buffed up by computers and strong club competition, they returned at this event to gobble up rating points and rack up several large upsets. The chief “upsetter” was Drew Bunch, who scored upset victories over an A player in round 1, an Expert in round 3, and two high class B players on his way to scoring 4 points and tie for third place. He raised his rating from 1258 to 1556 and grabbed the largest upset prize along the way.
The field was led by IM John Donaldson, graciously returning to Spokane once again. He gave a lecture about the FIDE candidates tournament on Friday night, and then scored 17.5 of 19 in the ensuing simul. Another veteran presence on third board was Eric Billaux, the winner of the first two Collyer Memorial tourneys while a grad student at WSU in the early 90s. He returned to Washington last year, settling in the Tri-Cities, after a quarter century in Colorado. Tacoma Expert Paul Bartron came over once again and was seeded fourth.
As is typical in a large open tournament, the chief upsets occur in the early rounds when the rating disparities between opponents are the largest. There were a half dozen upsets in round one, which saw three A players fall. The last game of the round saw Ben Shedlock (1404) – always a good bet for last game of the round in any event — upend Mark Havrilla (1953) on board 7. Facing mate in one with seconds remaining on his clock, Mark sacrificed his rook and attempted to force mate with queen and knight. Living on the five second delay, he chased Ben’s king from kingside to queenside before a safe location was obtained. No one was keeping score in the scramble, but I hope they were able to recreate the last dozen moves. It was an adrenaline rush for the spectators!
The upset trend continued in round two, with another A player falling among the several upsets. Bunch continued his winning ways, defeating Leonardo Wang (1785) in a battle of up-and-coming young players. Wang had played in the Washington Junior Invitational in December and followed that up by gaining 172 points in the North American Open in Las Vegas at the end of the year to sit on the cusp of Class A at the beginning of this event.
The top six boards won their opening two games and seemed immune from the upset fever, although that would change in round three. There were 21 evening round byes, further compacting the field for the round. The chief contest of the night occurred on board 1, with Lee playing white against Donaldson. That one ran until the end of the round, with Lee claiming victory with ten seconds left on each clock. In the time scramble, Donaldson made a mistake and lost a drawn rook and pawn endgame. The victory did not even crack the top five largest upsets. Board three also saw an upset, with newlywed Owen McDevitt, a post-doctorate student at WSU (via Vanderbilt) and recent Collyer contestant, scoring a draw against Billaux. Bunch upended Bartron on board 4 to stay atop the leader board.
Round 4 saw Cambareri and Lee collide on board 1, while Bunch, the only other perfect score, played Cam Leslie on board 2. Leslie worked hard and scored the victory to stop Bunch’s run, although the setback did not derail Bunch for long. Lee and Cambareri engaged in a long back and forth affair with a draw finally being agreed upon with a small amount of time left on each clock. Wang and Donaldson also played a lengthy contest with the IM prevailing in a bishop and pawn endgame. Billaux played an entertaining game against Jeremy Younker, who carried over his tradition of playing only in the Collyer Memorial started by his father to this event. The ending drew quite a number of spectators, with both players having mate threats and very limited time. Jeremy lost his queen to a touch move violation with less than 10 seconds to go in the time scramble, sealing the game for Eric.
There were no perfect scores entertaining the final round, with seven players sitting at 3.5 on the top four boards. One of them, Jim Skovron, had the fortune to be paired against Donaldson, and that game was the first of the round to complete. The IM quickly triumphed and the two spent much more time in the hallway conversing than they did playing! (I know I can expect some tough pairings in October at Jim’s Chinook Open in Great Falls…)
Board one saw Cambareri match up against Dave Rowles in one of numerous encounters the two have had in the past year since Dave retired and returned to weekly club activity. The opening was wild and Cambareri eventually forced resignation. On board two, Billaux and Lee mixed it up until quite late in the round before Lee came out on top. Erickson and Leslie engaged in another match of local veterans and fought to the end of the round before agreeing to a draw. Bunch got back to his “upsetting” ways by toppling high schooler Ben Patterson (1743) to make it four upsets in five rounds. The competitive nature of the event was demonstrated by the fact that the final game on board 22 featured a lengthy endgame that didn’t conclude until all the prizes had long been decided. The winners: Cambareri and Lee were first with 4.5. Five players tied for third place with 4.0: Brad Bodie, Bunch, Donaldson, Erickson, and Leslie. The class A prizes went to Bodie and Erickson, with the B prizes (3.5) split among Curtis, Skovron, and Younker. Eshan Reddy, an eighth grade student at St. Georges School in Spokane, scored 3.5 to claim the top class C prize. Second in the class (3.0) went to Declan Pham (a Missoula eighth grader) and Odysseus Rodriguez of Wapato. Bunch claimed the first D prize, while second place in the D and under section (3.0) was shared by Eastern Oregon newcomer Arlen Calley (who obtained a 1586 provisional rating from this event) and Adam Porth. Porth took a first round bye to run the scholastic tournament held during the first round in the skittles room. Calley’s travel partner, Benji Johnson of Elgin, OR, scored the second largest upset prize (713 points).