Most nights the wall chart rules and the higher seeds advance to late round showdowns against each other. Not so on October 23 & 30 during a yet to be named two-week four round g/45 event. Sixteen players entered, the perfect figure for a four round Swiss event. However, upsets on boards three and four jumbled the first round results, and then second round saw an upset in all but one game. At the end of the first night, the four perfect scores belonged to sixth, seventh, eighth, and eleventh seeds: Kevin Korsmo, Dave Griffin, Craig Moore, and Devin Wolford.
Third round action on October 30th saw Korsmo and Wolford fight to a draw with only a couple of minutes left each on the clock, while Moore topped Griffin to enter the final round as the undisputed leader of the pack at 3.0. Craig and Kevin, the third and fourth oldest players in the field, battled on board one while Devin had to compete with top seed Michael Cambareri. Kevin won a pawn in the middle game and kept the pressure on, resulting in a late game mate. Michael’s sacrificial mating attack failed, but Devin was able to force a repetition of postion while facing a forced mate in two. When all was said and down, Kevin (3.5) was on top, while Devin, Craig, and Dave all finished a 3.0 and won the u/1800 prize (Craig and Dave) and the u/1400 prize (Devin). Pat Kirlin took the second u/1400 prize.
The USCF crosstable link: A Very Upsetting Tournament | US Chess Ratings