IM Jay Bonin Regains Queens Chess Club Champion’s Title

The 2016 iteration of our club’s 7 round championship event took place from October 7 to November 18. Our prize fund was based on 24 players and we ended up with 31, plus one house player. Seven former champions (Bonin (2413), Andrew Ryba (2353), Payam Parhami (2221), Ed Kopiecki (2050), Brian Lawson (2024), Ed Frumkin (2007) and Joe Felber (2002)) took part, as well as another four experts and 9 class A players. For accounting convenience we raised the prizes 25% across the board.

The Round 1 cut left Ken Sasmor (1855) across the table from Bonin, who ground out a win in a Rook ending. On Board 2 10 year old Charles Hua (1840), who nearly won last year’s event, held Ryba to a draw and on Board 5 Tony Lorenzo (1800) defeated blitz whiz Lev Zilbermintz (2066) to take a lead for the upset prize that he maintained for the entire month and a half. In Round 2 Frank (1594) and Paul (732) Drazil joined in and unsurprisingly lost to Ryba and Hua. Lorenzo pulled off another, milder upset by drawing with Lawson, even missing a win. Bonin, Parhami, Bill Arluck (2071), Kopiecki, and Dick Murphy (2014) defeated Felber, Mulazim Muwwakkil (1908), Ira Cohen (1859), Frumkin and Jay Kleinman (1957) to lead at 2-0, with Ryba, Lawson, Hua and Lorenzo at 1½. In Round 3 Arunas Simonaitis (2029) and Jonathan Phanstiel (1709) came in with two byes each (the limit was three). Bonin and Arluck drew, Kopiecki beat Parhami and Ryba beat Murphy to leave Kopiecki as sole leader. Lorenzo got another draw, this time with Simonaitis, and Charles Hua somehow held off Lawson with Knight vs. Bishop and two. Al Casanova (1780) beat Muwwakkil to take the lead for the U1800 prize and Philip Mathew (1373) beat Guy Rawlins (1530) to take the lead for the U1500 prize. In Round 4 Ryba had to take a bye for a work-related function, leaving him half a point behind Bonin after Jay knocked Kopiecki out of the lead. Bill Arluck kept pace with Jay by beating Parhami while Frumkin and Felber stayed in the picture with 3-1 scores after their Round 2 losses.

In Round 5 Bonin and Ryba drew while Kopiecki beat Arluck and Frumkin and Felber drew. Dave Spigel (1899) beat Zilbermintz to reach 3½-1½ after byes in Rounds 2 and 3 and a draw with Murphy. Lorenzo defeated his Bronx buddy Murphy to catch Bonin and Kopiecki at 4-1. In Round 6 Lorenzo finally lost one (to Bonin) while Kopiecki lost to Ryba. Felber beat Arluck to catch Ryba at 4½-1½ but Frumkin was held to another draw by Spigel. Going into the final round the leader board read Bonin 5, Ryba and Felber 4½, Parhami, Kopiecki, Frumkin, Spigel and Lorenzo 4. Casanova led the U1800 group with 3, followed by Phanstiel and Frank Drazil at 2½.

In Round 7 Bonin narrowly defeated Parhami while Ryba beat Felber, Kopiecki beat Spigel and Frumkin drew with Lorenzo. Bonin thus finished first at 6-1 to win $400, Ryba 2^nd at 5½ for $240 and Kopiecki 3^rd at 5 for $160. The $144 under 2100 prize was split four ways among Frumkin, Felber, Sasmor (last round win from Arluck) and Lorenzo with 4½ ($36 each). The $120 under 1800 prize was split among Casanova, Rito Ilao (1698) and Rawlins with 3 ($40 each). Philip Mathew took the $96 under 1500 prize with 2, which included byes in the last two rounds and Tony Lorenzo never relinquished the lead for biggest upset ($40). We thank all our participants and especially house player Long Hua (1431) for making full point byes unnecessary. This was our maiden voyage with SwissSys, whose suggested pairings we frequently couldn’t justify and ended up changing. Ed Frumkin, Jay Kleinman and Joe Felber directed. Games can be accessed through our website www.queens-chess.com. This was Bonin’s eleventh Queens CC title and seventh won solo, in seventeen attempts.