Sunday, January 01, 2006

2006 Herb Healy - Flash Report

We had a nice turnout for the Herb Healy Open House today. Among the Master class, FM Bill Kelleher, FM Chris Chase, SM Jacob Rasin and LM Eric Godin competed in the rated section. The unrated section was headed by GM Larry Christiansen, along with NM Charles Riordan and NM Alex Cherniack. FM Paul MacIntyre and NM Vadim Martirosov were both around but not playing. I had the opportunity to play GM Christiansen in the second round which provided more than enough value to cover my entry fee for the day. I'll share our encounter in a later post (needless to say, had I won, this would have been the post about our game).

There were also many regulars and not so regulars around (my apologies in advance since I will undoubtedly leave out many names). I chatted with Bob Oresick, Jon Lee, Ed Foye, Walter Driscoll, and Hal Fishbein among many others. I also caught up with Joe Perl, who I hadn't seen in quite some time.

The newspaper men were both playing -- the Dean of New England Chess Journalism, Harold Dondis of the Boston Globe, and Mike Henroid, formerly of the Boston Herald and for the past six months the chess columnist for the Denver Post. Tony Cortizas (do I have the spelling right?) was also there taking photos.

Even the blogosphere wasn't left out. Knight Errant Takchess made the trip down from New Hampshire to play in the rated section. I'm sorry to say that the locals were showing him no mercy, at least in the early rounds. And, occasional BCC blogger Jason Rihel was also there.

Mike Griffin put out a very nice spread for lunch, as usual. This year's surprise was a large crock pot of Larry C's extra-special Grandmaster Chili.

I left after the third round (so as to maintain some peace on the home front), but not before seeing a few upsets in the rated section. 2005 USCF 11th Grade National Champion Chris Williams took down SM Rasin and Expert Lawyer Times did the same to FM Chase. I'll link to the final results when they are posted.

Finally, let me not forget to mention the (usual) excellent TD work by Bernardo Iglesias and Kent Leung.

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