What a start to 2021 for Alabama chess!
Over the board (OTB) chess is coming back strongly! Not only did we see the long-awaited return of tournament director Caesar Lawrence with his Dothan Open 2020, but Doug Strout held the event Evangel 2021 Open this January as well. Online, the Madison City Chess League (MCCL) hosted the 2021 Winter Knights and the Alabama Chess Federation (ACF) kicked off its 2021 Grand Prix with the January Event.
The 19th annual Dothan Open 2020 (so named because Caesar wanted to bring back last December’s canceled event) was a success! Caesar’s first tournament in 10 months brought in 21 competitors from Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Two juniors took home the first prizes with Georgia’s Sanjay Kumar (1840) taking first place in the Premiere section and Shawn Choi (1299) of Mobile who created a few great upsets to win the Reserve section took home the top prize.
The Evangel 2021 Open held in Montgomery also brought in many OTB players. Doug Strout and Evangel Chess hosted 22 players from Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin, and North Carolina! The IM from New York, Justin Sarkar (2464), took first place easily, only dropping half a point to Zachary Snow (1998). Taylor Kent (1375) of Alabama swept all four rounds to take first in the U1700 section.
The largest tournament in Alabama this January belongs to the MCCL and the 2021 Winter Knights. Over 90 scholastic competitors duked it out on chesskid.com. Victor Lundy took first in the Rated K-12, Caleb Chen won first in the Rated K-8, in the Rated K-5 Sophia Jerez won, her brother, Esteban Jerez took first in the Rated K-2 section, Victor Stephenson took first in the Unrated K-5, and Jimmy McHugh won the Unrated K-2 section.
The ACF’s 6 tournament Grand Prix kicked off on January 23 with 46 competitors over three sections. The results will be released next Saturday, February 7th to allow time for chess.com to process the fair play of all players. See the February look ahead for information on how to join the Grand Prix season February Event.
If you played in any of these events and have games or photos you’d like to submit to us for possible inclusion in our Antics and a shot at our game and photo of the quarter competitions, please email your games (with annotations preferably) or photos to Scott Varagona at alabamachesseditor@gmail.com.
The Fall 2020 Antics, edited by Scott Varagona, were released in January! Through our new parallel game and antics viewer, you will be able to travel along with National Master Scott as he explains the positions that were the most fascinating last fall! The game viewer will allow you to cycle through the moves watching the games as they go, and with the antics viewer, you will get to read the comments and thoughts of our editor at each major step during the game. Side-by-side you will be able to learn much deeper than you would have ever been able to do online without having your 3D set beside you. The link to the antics is: https://alabamachess.org/antics-magazine/
January was awesome, but February will be even better! For more information on next month’s news and events, click here for the February 2020 Look Ahead!
Jonathan Rasberry
President of the Alabama Chess Federation
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