[imagefield_assist|fid=17454|preset=fullsize|lightbox=true|title=GM Wesely So was one of the five top-place finishers at the Saint Louis Open.|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=800|height=533]
By Brian Jerauld
Finally, the weather warmed and the sun said hello - but there were no walks in the park in Saint Louis last weekend.
Titles collided when more than 100 players turned out for the Chess Club and Scholastic Center’s annual Bill Wright Saint Louis Open, one of the strongest and largest Open tournaments in Missouri - and this edition was no exception. The FIDE-rated, five-round swiss, held April 11-13, featured 20 titled players and seven Grandmasters who showed up to the Club’s flagship open event - to fight over the lion’s share of $10,000 guaranteed.
“Tournaments in Saint Louis used to be so easy,” quipped GM Alejandro Ramirez, who was part of a five-way tie for first place, with 4.0/5. “Now it has flipped completely on its head. As Saint Louis continues as the center for chess in the U.S., now all the tournaments are becoming so strong. Even small weekend tournaments are getting great turnouts that make them so strong nowadays - and this one was definitely no exception.
“You see the Saint Louis Open with seven GMs - there are many countries who struggle to ever make a tournament with that many GMs. Saint Louis is able to do it any weekend they want.”
Ramirez was, perhaps, the only “outsider” to the event: the Texas native was finishing a stint as the CCSCSL’s Resident Grandmaster, with the Saint Louis Open falling on his final weekend. The tournament served as a first “tune up” event in a month-long preparation for his return to Saint Louis and the 2014 U.S. Championship, which the Club will host beginning May 7.
And the locals came out in full force to see him off.
Of highlight was the appearance of Webster University’s national championship team, who descended on the Club in peak form - one week removed from defending the Saint Louis suburb university’s collegiate crown at the 2014 President’s Cup. GMs Georg Meier, Manuel Leon Hoyos, and Wesley So each tied with Ramirez for first place, with fellow Webster teammates GM Fidel Corrales Jiminez (3.5) and GM Anatoly Bykovsky (3.0) finishing just short. Illinois NM Tansul Turgut also tied for the Open’s top prize.
The 2014 Saint Louis Open also featured local GM Ben Finegold, Lindenwood University IM Priyadharshan Kannappan, WGMs Viktorija Ni and Anna Sharevich, WIM Inna Agrest and an impressive array of regional National Masters. With so many titles, fantastic matchups were a mainstay throughout, including a third round that featured three GM vs. GM games - two of them resulting in full-pointers.
The U2000 section featured 60 players and several outstanding efforts over the weekend. Dean Arond was the surprise of the section, a class B player (1783) out of Illinois who took first place with 4.5/5, including 3.5 points taken from Class A players - three of them above 1900. Three days in Saint Louis added 117 points to his rating.
Arond’s only draw of the day came against Alex Vergilesov (1994), who also scored 4.5/5 to split the U2000 top prize. Vergilesov entered as the second-highest rated player in the section, and earned his final point in an impressive fifth-round thrashing of Adil Skuka - the section’s highest-rated player (1998). Skuka finished in third place (4.0/5), with four others.
“With more than 100 participants and 20 titled players, this installment of the Saint Louis Open was one of our most successful ever,” said CCSCSL executive director Tony Rich. “It’s exciting to see a growing interest in tournament chess in St. Louis and across the country as a whole.”
Click here to see all the standings from the event and to download the pgn database.
