Eastern Ontario Open

The Eastern Ontario Open returned to the RA Centre in Ottawa this year, drawing 56 players from Ontario and Quebec. For the first time in many years in Ottawa, this weekend event ran over three days, with longer time controls to match those of the upcoming Canadian Open in Ottawa this July.

This change in format seemed to especially attract more stronger players than usual, with 21 players rated between 2022 and 2479! As a result, the top section was limited to players rated 1900 and up.

This top section was challenging, with many battles. Heading into the final round, the two IMs from Ottawa, Deen Hergott and Tom O'Donnell, were a half-point ahead of the field, and met for the final round on the first board. Having played each other countless times over many years, their game was a draw, opening the door for Nicolas Arsenault on the second board to catch them. In a spectacular game full of sacrifices with Lloyd Mai, that game also ended in a draw, leaving Deen and Tom tied for first and second with scores of 4-1. Then with scores of  3.5-1.5, Nicolas tied for third with David Gordon and Kevin Pacey, who both finished very strongly after battling with the IMs in earlier rounds.

The top section also featured a class prize for players rated under 2100. Interestingly, due to the high strength of this section, the 2099-1900 class prize was shared by seven players with a score of 2-3, with two other players playing as Amateurs also having that score. Such parity was quite widespread throughout this tournament, with 17 players sharing the six big prizes across the two full sections!

Section B, for players rated under 1900, was won by Mate Marinkovic and Ruokai Li with scores of 4-1, with both players winning crucial games in the last round on the top two boards of the section. In the humble opinion of the Organizer, these nice polite young lads seem to have great chess futures!

Section B also featured a class prize for players rated under 1600, shared by Saul Schwartz, Brent Tremblay, Danail Donev, and Grant Schaper (registered as Amateur), with impressive scores of 3-2.

In closing, I would like to thank two key people who, without their assistance, there is no way that we could have started the tournament even remotely on time, and who saved me literally hours wrapping up at the end. To Grant Schaper and David Gordon, thank you yet again for your great helpfulness.

Hopefully everyone had a great time, which included the TD handing out during the third round, some wonderfully rich chocolates in the shape of chess pieces. These were also the courtesy of Grant, who always seems to ensure that Aris is well fed! If you didn't get one of these, sorry, they went very fast!

Finally, please note that while we were cleaning up at the end of the tournament, that we found some eyeglasses. If they are yours, please email Aris Marghetis so that we can arrange to get them to you.

P.S.    The next event by this Organizer/TD will be late October. Details will be available late July.

Aris Marghetis
Organizer/TD