2018 Washington State Championship

2018 Washington State Championship / Premier / Invitational / Challengers

The 2018 Washington State Championship / Premier / Invitational / Challengers chess tournaments were conducted as round-robins the weekends of February 10-11 and 17-19, 2018 in Redmond as detailed below. Rounds began at 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM on the weekends, and at 5:00 PM on President's Day, Monday, February 19.

Four Sections! Format: Four invitation-only 10-player Round Robins by rating: Championship, Premier, Invitational, and Challengers. The field of each section was determined by seeding and by the highest rated players to respond to an invitation based on the January 2018 U.S. Chess rating list. All sections were dual U.S. Chess and FIDE rated. Fred Kleist was the TD for all four sections.

2018 Washington State Championship

View on US Chess

Time control: 40/2, SD/30; d10.

Entry Fee: Championship/Premier: Free, Invitational: $50, Challengers: $25.

Schedule: Rounds 1-8: Feb. 10, 11, 17, 18 at 10 AM and 5 PM. Round 9: Feb. 19 (President's Day) at 5 PM.

Site: Microsoft Building 99 rooms 1915 and 1919: 14820 NE 36th St., Redmond, WA 98052. Note: registration and badging were required to access Microsoft building for this event.

Prize Fund: The initial prize fund for each section was guaranteed by the WCF, and may be increased based on donations. Championship: $1,500, Premier: $1,000, Invitational: $500, Challengers: $250. Prize distribution (each section): 1st 45%, 2nd 25%, 3rd 15%, 4th 10%, 5th 5%. Brilliancy Prizes: $400 ($100 for best game in each section). The winner of the Championship section received the title of Washington State Champion. Plaques were awarded to the winners of each section.

Drawing of lots: Feb. 3 at 10 p.m. at Seattle Chess Club after the Seattle Masters. Attendance was optional, though encouraged.

Byes: Since this is a prestigious round robin, there were no half-points byes or rescheduling of games allowed in any of the sections. All games were played on site under TD supervision at the scheduled round times.

Seeds: (note not all accept invitation; see below for actual player fields for each event)

Championship: FM Nick Raptis (State Champion), IM Georgi Orlov (Open Champion), FM Roland Feng (Championship Runner-up), Joseph Truelson (Challengers Cup Champion), Alikhan Irgaliyev (Premier Champion), FM Anthony He (Junior Closed Champion).

Premier: Vikram Ramasamy (Premier Runner-up), Timothy Moroney (Invitational Champion), WIM Naomi Bashkansky (President's Cup Champion), Chouchanik Airapetian (Women’s Champion).

Invitational: Eric Zhang (Invitational Runner-up), Samuel Deng (Challengers Champion).

Challengers: Anshul Ahluwalia (Challengers Runner-up), Dan Mathews (WCF Nominee).

Registration: Invited players were requested to register online via online registration, or reply to the email they received. The deadline to reply was Friday, Feb. 2.

Questions? Josh Sinanan, WCF President, (206) 769-3757, joshsinanan@gmail.com.

Brilliancy prizes - See the 2018 WA State Championship Brilliancy Prizes report (PDF file).

Fields of the Championship, Premier, Invitational and Challengers sections. Note: Since there were several changes to the fields due to substitutions, please see the crosstables below for the final fields and results.

Schedule and Other Information

Schedule/Location: See above.

Requests/Updates:

Please arrive at Microsoft on Saturday morning by 9:45 a.m. for a mandatory players meeting in which Fred will remind us of the FIDE rules. All players must be present by 10:00 a.m. or may risk forfeiting round 1 and being withdrawn from the tournament.
Boards, sets, scoresheets, and digital clocks will be provided. Please bring an extra set/clock for skittles and game analysis.
We kindly ask that each player send a brief chess bio with picture for publication in Northwest Chess magazine. Only players who submit a bio and annotated game upon completion of the tournament will be eligible to win prize money. Please send the bio to Josh Sinanan or Jeff Roland (jroland@cableone.net) by 2/10. Annotated games should be submitted no later than 3/5.
The group photos for all sections were taken on Sunday 2/18 at 4:45 p.m. prior to round 8. Players were requested to please dress nicely!

Pairings

Pairings are released after the drawing of lots.

Here is the pairings schedule for the rounds in each section. This is from the Berger tables.
See the crosstables below for the players corresponding to each pairing number.

Rd 1 - 1:10 2:9 3:8 4:7 5:6
Rd 2 - 10:6 7:5 8:4 9:3 1:2
Rd 3 - 2:10 3:1 4:9 5:8 6:7
Rd 4 - 10:7 8:6 9:5 1:4 2:3
Rd 5 - 3:10 4:2 5:1 6:9 7:8
Rd 6 - 10:8 9:7 1:6 2:5 3:4
Rd 7 - 4:10 5:3 6:2 7:1 8:9
Rd 8 - 10:9 1:8 2:7 3:6 4:5
Rd 9 - 5:10 6:4 7:3 8:2 9:1

Championship

Congratulations to Washington State chess champion, FM Roland Feng! Feng, who first won the champiosnhip in 2015 and tied in 2017, is now the sole champion again!

The Championship is registered and FIDE rated. Titles: IM = International Master, WIM = Woman International Master, FM = FIDE Master, CM = FIDE Candidate Master, LM = US Chess Life Master. Latest pre-tournament US Chess ratings shown below.

The winner of the Championship section receives the title of Washington State Champion.

Average rating: 2298
Prize Fund: $1,500

Premier

Congratulations to Premier champion, Brendan Zhang!

The Premier is registered and FIDE rated.
Titles: FM = FIDE Master, NM = US Chess National Master, WIM = Woman International Master, WFM = Woman FIDE Master. Latest pre-tournament US Chess ratings shown below.

The winner of the Premier section qualifies for the next state championship tournament.

Average rating: 2072
Prize Fund: $1,000