By Dan Stock
Brian Bowman made a convincing statement at the 25th Summit Open in Hudson, Ohio, this weekend: he's a force to be reckoned with in this country, in addition to his recent fine performance at the Worlds. Bowman swept Winter in the best-of-five championship match, winning all three games by at least 90 points.
Before the tourney, Winter had posted an ethical question to CGP: since his goal is to play as many tourney games as possible this year, would it be ethical to intentionally lose some games in a best-of-five match to allow playing more games (since in this tourney format, the fourth and fifth games of the championship match are played only if needed)? However, the question was posed before two experts joined the field: Bowman and Pete Zeigler. Bowman's performance made the question moot, at least for this tourney.
Bowman lost only one game over the weekend, to Zeigler during the qualification portion of the tourney on the first day. Winter lost his game to Zeigler and all four games to Bowman (including one on the first day). Zeigler ended up with the second-best record in the tourney at 8-3, but due to the tourney format and some bad luck he ended up in fifth place. He was a couple hundred spread points behind Winter after the first day to miss out on the finals. That put him in the group of four that played for third though sixth places. He played Dan Stock in a preliminary best-of-two match, with the winner to meet the winner of a similar best-of-two match between Kevin McCarthy and Frank Lee for third place.
Stock drew nine power tiles in the first of the best-of-two match against Zeigler, but misplayed the endgame (missing a huge spot for the E front hook to SQUIRES) and won by only 105. The drawing was much more even in the second game, and at first it seemed like Zeigler had won by 106 to win the best-of-two match by a single point. However, a recount showed that there had been a two-point error in Zeigler's favor ... so Stock ended up winning the match by a single point! Note that if the match had ended as a tie, Zeigler would have moved on to the third-place game due to his stronger record on the first day.
In the McCarthy-Lee best-of-two match, Lee won the first game by 56 points but McCarthy won the second game by 120 to take the match. In the third-place match, Stock defeated McCarthy in both games. In the fifth-place match, Zeigler defeated Lee in both games. The rest of the field continued to play modified Swiss pairings. Heather Steffy won her last three games to get the last money place. Christopher Sheppard, Connie Breitbeil, and Eileen Popich won ribbons.
Hoping to see you at a Cleveland-area tourney soon,
Stocky (Dan Stock)
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25th Summit Open final results
Place. Name (Seed): Won-Lost,Cume -- Rating Before ± Change => Rating After (prize)
-- Best-of-five championship match players:
-- (Best record after Day 1)
1st. Brian Bowman (#1): 10-1,+943 -- 1838 + 33 => 1871 ($99, trophy)
2nd. Winter (#2): 6-5,+117 -- 1806 - 28 => 1778 ($77, ribbon)
-- Best-of-two 3rd-place match players
-- (In prior best-of-two matches, Stock beat Zeigler and McCarthy beat Lee to qualify)
3rd. Daniel Stock (#4): 7-4,+384 -- 1637 - 1 => 1636 ($55, ribbon)
4th. Kevin McCarthy Sr (#5): 5.5-5.5,-42 -- 1490 - 5 => 1485 ($44, ribbon)
-- Best-of-two 5th-place match players
5th. Pete Zeigler (#3): 8-3,+541 -- 1739 + 6 => 1745 ($33, ribbon)
6th. Frank Lee (#7): 5-6,-98 -- 1315 + 13 => 1328 ($22, ribbon)
-- Non-match players
7th. Heather Steffy (#6): 7-4,+194 -- 1359 + 17 => 1376 ($22, ribbon)
8th. Christopher Sheppard (#12): 6-5,+127 -- 1145 + 27 => 1172 (ribbon)
9th. Connie Breitbeil (#9): 6-5,-73 -- 1296 - 12 => 1284 (ribbon)
10th. Eileen Popich (#11): 6-5,-170 -- 1181 + 16 => 1197 (ribbon)
11th. Michael Bassett (#8): 5.5-5.5,-73 -- 1305 - 13 => 1292
12th. Pat Hardwick (#13): 4-7,-164 -- 1068 - 12 => 1056
13th. Dallas Johnson (#10): 4-7,-300 -- 1235 - 35 => 1200
14th. Dick Shellenberger (#14): 4-7,-419 -- 1053 - 1 => 1052
15th. Joyce Stock (#15): 4-7,-517 -- 1015 - 10 => 1005
