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NM Ryan Hamley takes home the first place trophy in the first Orlando Chess Open
The inaugural Orlando Chess Open was held in Winter Park, Florida on Saturday, August 10, 2024. The event was a collaborative effort by several of the chess clubs located in the Orlando area, and all of the tournament proceeds were donated to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Florida.
National Master Ryan Hamley was crowned the Orlando chess champion after going 5/5 in his rounds in the First Annual Orlando Chess Open. NM Ryan Hamley displayed dominance, grinding past the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 7th place finishers in methodical fashion.
Monessh Vigneshwaran was declared the Orlando scholastic chess champion after going 5/5 in the scholastic rated section of the tournament. Monessh thrust himself into first-place contention by knocking off top seed Sammy Lou, who was rated 300 rating points higher than Monessh. Monessh then pulled off a clutch victory to snatch first place in the fifth round against Carter Joseph Brooks, as both were 4/4 going into round 5.
In a shocking upset, Indiv Kota defeated Jackson Blouet, an opponent rated over 500 more points than him, winning him the “Best Upset Win” award in the scholastic section.
In another notable scholastic match, Gabrielle Hensel was victorious in her fifth round matchup against Gus Bleakley, an opponent rated over 200 points higher than her, to finish in second place at 4.5/5.
The tournament’s last match of the day was a tough, drawn-out endgame between brothers Fernando Gutierrez and Manuel Gutierrez, who duked it out for first place in the open unrated section. As the crowd looked on intently, Fernando pulled off a hard-fought win, earning him first place in the open unrated section.
“It was all or nothing. I was not aiming for a draw; I just wanted to get the win. We both were under five minutes, and we noticed that over 15 people were watching our game as everyone else had finished their games, so we both felt the pressure,” Fernando Gutierrez said. “My brother made moves that made me stop and think so I would run out of time, but I was able to do a checkmate when we were both under 13 seconds.”
The tournament featured a format of five rounds of G25/d5 over the course of one day. The prize fund included $500 in prize money, 12 trophies, six medals, six certificates of achievement, ten 3-month chess.com diamond memberships and five $25 chessable vouchers donated by Chess.com, and one month of free instruction donated by Mathnasium. Six chess-related items were also raffled off at the event.
The tournament sold out the venue and saw a total turnout of 88 participants in its three sections. There were 46 participants in the scholastic section and 42 participants in the open sections.
"We really made an effort to promote scholastic participation in the chess tournament," tournament co-organizer Sammy Lou of the Florida Junior Chess Club said. "I'm very happy with the number of scholastic players that we ended up getting."
In total, $2537.12 was raised to be donated to charity, including the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Florida.
“This weekend's chess tournament was an outstanding success,” President of the Chess Mates Club and tournament co-organizer Den Ardinger said. “The tournament was a very enjoyable challenge. It was a good building block to build upon to make the next one even bigger.”
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