Sunday, September 25, 2016

FM Kevin Gentes wins Langley Open

From BCCF Bulletin:

Now in its eleventh year after moving to Langley from Victoria, this traditional Labour Day weekend
event is the last qualifying event for the upcoming provincial championship. As a result the
competition is perhaps a bit keener than in the average event. This year there was a record turnout
of sixty-one players, up from the previous record of sixty in 2012. Among them were nine players
over 2000, including former BC Champions Tanraj Sohal, Mayo Fuentebella, and Brian McLaren,
2015 Manitoba Closed Champion Kevin Gentes who has been living in Surrey since February, and
more recent arrivals Javier Cortes and Xie Qiu. After five rounds Tanraj and Kevin were leading,
having drawn with each other and beaten everyone else. Gentes defeated Joe Roback in the last
round but Sohal lost to Cortes, leaving Gentes the sole winner. Cortes, the only other undefeated
player (he gave up two draws) tied for second on 5.0 points with two juniors who had excellent
events, Andrew Hemstapat and Michael Su. Somewhat surprisingly the qualifying spot for the BC
Closed went to the sixth-placed player, Daniel Salcedo; everyone ahead of him had either already
qualified or didn’t meet the residency or rating requirements for the Closed. There was a four-way
tie for the U1700 prizes between Callum Lehingrat, Elliot Lupini, Ulvi Ibrahimov, and Daniel Wang,
all with 4.0 points; Lupini and Wang are actually only rated 1090 and 1360 respectively. Finally
Joshua Imoo was recipient of the upset prize for beating Xie Qiu in the first round, a difference of
some 823 points. The tournament was organized by the Langley Chess Club (Hugh Long,
President), promoted by Andrew Hoyer, and directed by Brian Davidson. Standings

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