| Chumachenko, Mabe Share Top Honors
at 1st Annual Carolinas Challenge; South
Carolina Wins Title! Ft. Mill, SC 11-12-06: An extremely disappointing turnout of only 42 of the most talented chessplayers from North and South Carolina stepped into the ring this past weekend at the beautiful Plaza Hotel at Carowinds in order to claim bragging rights and take home the Carolinas Challenge Cup! Amazingly, 27 different players were cash prize winners!  In
the Top Section, FM Andrey "the Giant" Chumachenko (2470) of
Charlotte survived a extraordinary
final round game versus FM Ron Simpson
(2292) of Raleigh (See
Game 0577) to tie for =1st-2nd Place with Expert Chris "the Babe" Mabe (2130) of Charlotte who had
been granted a final round 1/2 point Bye. Each scored 4-1 and took
home $225.
Chumachenko won the
Trophy on tiebreaks. (All other winners are listed below). After the
smoke cleared and the final calculations were done, (hanging chads
not withstanding!?) South Carolina
edged out North Carolina by 1.5 points!
Very special thanks  to Assistant Tournament Director David Causey
of Charleston who not only solved many never before seen pairing
problems, but also endured the unfriendly comments and complaints of
one bombastic malcontent who made no friends at this event. Otherwise,
the hotel rate was great, the playing hall was superb, the restaurant
was excellent and a good time was had by all! {I am extremely
disappinted with the overall turnout and lack of support from my own
club members. The event was advertised on websites and via E-mail, in
Chess Life and at least 500 flyers were mailed out to players from both
states. According to Georgia based Organizer Thad Rogers, "the numbers
have been way down over the past 2 years for all of my tournaments..."
Nevertheless, this organizer lost $900. Thanks to all who participated.
I had hoped that this event would start an annual tradition. I'm
not so
sure now. Congratulations to Team SC! LF} Ps. Because of my poor
vision, I inadvertantly handed out two $50 dollar bills for $20's, and
would the person who stole the Class "C" trophy please return it? |
SC Wins by 1.5! Top Section: =1st-2nd - 4-1 FM Andrey Chumachenko - Charlotte, NC Chris Mabe - Charlotte, NC Top Under 2200: Keith Eubanks - Columbia, SC Top Under 2100: Dr. Edsel Pena - Columbia, SC Top Class "A": James MacDougall - Columbia, SC Top Under 1900: Bobby Waddell - Elkin, NC Top Class "B": Carl Vero - Charleston, SC Top Under 1700: Linu Ramachandran - Ermo, SC Top Class "C": Bob Halliday - Lexington, SC Top Under 1500: Slava Fedko - Charlotte, NC Top D/E: Josh Nissenboim - Charleston, SC =1st-2nd Under 1200: Kevin Blackwell, Charlotte, NC Austin Zhu, Lexington, SC Top Team: Dr. Edsel Pena, Keith Eubanks, NM Timur Aliyev, James MacDougall (Click here for USCF crosstable) |