Blame Ben Open Results

Blame Ben Open Tournament
January 30, 2010
Game 30

See the 'Blame Ben Open' tournament results here:
http://main.uschess.org/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,201/
(The tournament ID = 201001304981)

Back in the early Fall of 2009, Ben Clayton approached the leadership of the Westport Chess Club and brought up the subject of a one-day, game-30 chess tournament to be held at the end of January the next year. After just barely getting the ad in to the USCF in time to make one issue before the event, we had a tournament. All we needed after that was a bunch of players to show up. The owner of the Westport Flea Market, Joe Zwillenberg, came through with a generous offer of a rent-free room for the site, which allowed our prize fund to not depend on 25-30 players to show up for a break-even. As it was, our $100 expected 1st prize paid out at $80!

Advertised Expected Prize Fund
General | <1795
1st $100 | $75
2nd $75 | $60
3rd $50 | $40

Actual Prize Fund
General | <1795
1st $80 | $50
2nd $50 | $40
3rd $35 | $30

In actuality, the four players with 3 points got $45 each (slightly more than the $43.75 they should have received). The two 2.5s got $15 each and all four student entrants got a book prize including a big encyclopedic-sized book on all Indian Openings (approx. $35 value) and three others donated by Ray Birt and Brent M.

On Saturday, January 30, 20 local players heeded our call and made the event a success. Oddly enough, after the first seed, IM Michael Brooks, there was a 600+ drop to the second highest rated player: Chris Fieber, just out of several years premature retirement, at 1807. All other players had tournament ratings that were B-players (1600-1799) or below! The odd cutoff—the subject of much grumbling—was devised by Ben Clayton and was probably the #1 reason for my selection of “Blame Ben Open” for the tournament’s name.

Given the success of the event, we are considering future events, though probably with normal prize cutoffs. If anything, the odd lack of players over 1800 (not one other A-player or Expert!) might need some attention for future events. Had only five more of these people from the Metropolitan Kansas City area showed up, we could have met our original prize fund.

Ray Birt
Tournament Director