Friedel ½ - Finegold ½

Hmm. Ben Finegold guaranteed victory, then played the passive 4...Bd7 variation of the Rubinstein French. It's not necessarily bad match strategy, but one would think that it's not fair to one's teammates to say the Blaze "are going down next week" without trying to win one's own game as Black.

Friedel got an edge, Finegold defended correctly: the draw was logical.

Board 3: Mr. Formerly Undefeated

It's never embarrassing to lose to a Grandmaster, but I liked Angelo's chances in this matchup....

Final standings, 25th North American Masters

GM Ben Finegold of St. Louis and Mackenzie Molner of New Jersey tied for first with 6.5 points in 9 games (+4).  Molner simulatneously earned his final IM norm and his first GM norm.  Siddarth Ravichandran of India also earned his final IM norm with a score of 5.5 (+2).

Jon Burgess has a preliminary report on the ICA forum.  (Apologies for falling behind with so many great events going on--it's my busy season!)

Ben Finegold annotates Aronian-Nakamura

From the St. Louis CC site: again, not to be missed.  It's funny that 41...Ng7? may have been Nakamura's losing move, as you don't see shots like 42.Rb6!! every day.  This is an early entry for Best Game of 2010: both players should be proud.