By Dan Stock
It was a small group again in Hudson, as 11 souls ventured into one of the continent's longest-running series of open tourneys.
The first day featured seven games modified Swiss pairings, with the top two from that day to play a Sunday best-of-five match to determine first and second places.
Top seed Dan Stock (hey, that's me) went 5-2 on the first day to qualify for the finals. However, the two losses were enough to assure that my rating should drop enough that Jean Carol will soon be back into her usual place atop the Ohio ratings. I lost to second seed Daniel Shapiro and -- for the first time ever in tourney play -- I lost to my wife Joyce.
The other finalist was the only other player with five wins, fifth seed Walter Konicki.
In the finals, I beat Walter in three straight games to win top prize. It didn't hurt to draw an opening bingo-bango-bongo -- all naturals -- in the last game.
For the first two games on Sunday, the rest of the field competed to see who would qualify for a best-of-two match for third place. Amazingly, every player in the tourney was within reach of third place at the beginning of the day, since every player except the two finalists had either a 4-3 or a 3-4 record on Saturday.
Second seed Daniel Shapiro recovered from a disastrous start -- losing his first three games -- to qualify for the third-place match by beating sixth seed Dallas Johnson in the ninth round, in a game where only the winner would get into that match. (Yes, the top two seeds were both named Daniel.)
Fourth seed Christopher Walleck, who just barely missed qualifying for the finals by losing his last game on Saturday to that upstart Joyce Stock, won his first two games on Sunday to be the other qualifier for the third-place match.
In that match, both Shapiro and Walleck won one game, but Shapiro had a slightly larger total spread in the match and so was awarded third place. Walleck won fourth place.
While the match play games were going on, the remaining players continued on with modified Swiss pairings to find who would win the remaining prizes. Seventh seed Pat Hardwick had a couple of big wins in the last two rounds to get fifth place. Third seed (and tourney director) Christopher Sheppard recovered from a tough first day to finish in sixth (Yes, the third and fourth seeds were both named Christopher). And new tourney player Zac Krislov -- a high-school friend of Christopher Walleck -- pulled out seventh place, for the last money prize and the coveted purple ribbon. (But no, I wasn't willing to trade my trophy for the purple ribbon.). Eighth place and a ribbon went to a fairly new player, Lisa Green, who had come up from Charleston with her friend Tina Totten King. The last two ribbon places went to Joyce Stock and Dallas Johnson, both of whom had the tiles turn against them on Sunday after very good days on Saturday.
Chris had bought ten ribbons for the tourney, and it turned out that eleven players signed up. Could it be a coincidence that the player who did not get a trophy was the one who had traveled up with her kids and child care provider, er, husband in tow? Tina can be consoled by those rating points she'll be gaining.
Results follow, courtesy of director Christopher Sheppard (thanks Chris!)
FIRST DAY RESULTS – Preliminary Session
Note: x = Grand Finalists (to play for 1st and 2nd places on second day)
x-Daniel Stock, 5-2 +311
x-Walter Konicki, 5-2, +108
Christopher Walleck, 4-3, +257
Joyce Stock, 4-3, +107
Daniel Shapiro, 4-3, +84
Pat Hardwick, 4-3, +42
Dallas Johnson, 4-3, -81
Christopher Sheppard, 3-4, +63
Tina Totten King, 3-4, -146
Zac Krislov, 3-4, -189
Lisa Green, 3-4, -206
SECOND DAY -- Match play details
Note: After nine rounds, the top two records among those not involved in the championship match belonged to Christopher Walleck at 6-3, +420 and Daniel Shapiro at 6-3, +154.
Third Place Match (best-of-two)
Daniel Shapiro d. Christopher Walleck, 1-1 (+17) Game 1: Shapiro, 396-360 Game 2: Walleck, 416-397
Championship Match (best-of-five)
Daniel Stock d. Walter Konicki, 3-0
Game 1: Stock, 427-329
Game 2: Stock, 385-360
Game 3: Stock, 534-386
FINAL STANDINGS AND PRIZES
1st Daniel Stock -- won championship match -- $63, larger trophy
2nd Walter Konicki -- lost championship match -- $49, smaller trophy
3rd Daniel Shapiro -- won third-place match -- $35, ribbon
4th Christopher Walleck -- lost third-place match -- $28, ribbon
5th Pat Hardwick, 7-4, +403 -- $21, ribbon
6th Christopher Sheppard, 6-5, +197 -- $14, ribbon
7th Zac Krislov, 6-5, -303 -- $14, ribbon
8th Lisa Green, 5-6, -54 -- ribbon
9th Joyce Stock, 5-6, -173 -- ribbon
10th Dallas Johnson, 5-6, -261 -- ribbon
11th Tina Totten King, 4-7, -252
