After 1st Board Robert Moskwa upped his rating to 2017 over my 2011 two weeks ago, I decided that I had to play in the Midwest Class last weekend in order to see if I could put myself back ahead. For a brief moment Friday night, I had some hope when Robert only managed a draw in the first round with 2137 rated Vijay Raghavan while I beat 2134 rated Robert O'Donnell. Had we stopped then, I would have had the edge by a couple of points. Alas, we played Saturday and I lost twice while Robert won twice. On Sunday, I managed to redeem myself with a couple of wins while Robert picked up a win and a draw.
End result: Robert Moskwa goes 4-1 to tie for 1st in the Expert Section and ups his rating to 2048; Vincent Hart goes 3-2 to tie for 8th and ups his rating to 2016.
Interesting side note for those those of us who get frustrated losing to the youngsters. Ninety-seven year old (That's right 97!) Erik Karklins went 3.5-1.5 to tie for 3rd beating Matthew Stevens 11, Alex Bian 12, and Troy Zimmerman 16.
6 comments:
Erik Karklins is the most amazing player in the entire country!!!
How old were Karklins' other opponents? It would be very cool if he's older than all five of his opponents combined.
Probably by fifteen years or so. Based on how long ago they were playing in high school tournaments, I'm guessing that his other two opponents are both in college.
Somebody should nail that down. That can't have happened many times in history - that a tournament player is older than his five opponents combined.
I don't know how someone would get the age information. The USCF lists the top players by age and any junior playing in the expert section is likely to be on one of those lists, but otherwise I don't know that players' ages are published anywhere.
In any case, I'm not sure that it would be as unusual as you think these days. I'm only fifty-five and I've had tournaments where I played four consecutive opponents with an average rating over 2000 whose ages didn't add up to mine. I don't think that it would be that hard for an older guy playing in a lower section to come across five in a row.
Hmm, yes, I suppose if an old guy is playing in an under-1400 section or some such he could easily play a bunch of kids with an average age lower than 15. Never mind.
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