Douglas Stewart 'Clarifies' April Scramble Title With a 5-0 Result
Tournament Report by Douglas Stewart

After finishing in a tie with Jordana Williams at last year's inaugural with matching 4.5/5 scores, I managed to 'clarify' my ownership of the tournament with a 5-0 result this year.  It was anything but a walk in the park.  Steve Perry finished 4-1 to finish 2nd and Kevin Stidham finished 3-2 to finish as the Top Under 1600 player.  Steve won $19 and Kevin won $29 for their troubles, and I won $39 which I will use to balance the books for the tournament.  The MCA should end up breaking even for the tournament, which is always nice to have happen.

It was an amazingly balanced tournament, with only 400 points separating the highest and the lowest rated players.  That made for very few games where it wasn't competitive.  The tournament also marked the return of Mississippi's own Paul French, who supposedly one year managed to tie for 1st in a State Championship but lost it on tie break.

In the first round the results were pretty predictable.  I played Chris Perry and after some interesting early maneuvering I won an exchange.  I sacrificed back the exchange to get an easier endgame, which was an easy win despite opposite colored bishops.  Steve Perry won against Ralph McNaughton's King's Indian Defense in a pretty aggressive game.  Paul French vs Tony Maneclang  featured two players who were fairly evenly rated.  The rating supplement had Paul higher rated, but the latest MSA ratings have Tony a little higher.  Paul was up an exchange for a pawn but sacrificed back the exchange in attempt to win on time.  Unfortunately for Paul delay clocks have been heavily adopted tournament play since he was last playing, and Tony was able to hold a draw easily.  Kevin Stidham had the bye.

It didn't take long for the two highest rated players to meet.  I got white against Steve Perry in round 2.  I played an English which transposed to the Fianchetto variation of the King's Indian Defense.  I have been experimenting with the English lately after spending some significant time going over the Kasparov-Karpov World Championship games from Seville 1987 where Kasparov primarily adopted the English with White.  Steve got some decent pressure and after an interesting and possibly even sound piece sacrifice I went into an endgame where I had two pieces for a rook but Steve had 3 pawns for it.  Steve misplayed the position in extreme time pressure and let me pick off a couple of pawns.  He then traded off to a position where I had an unstoppable pawn and I won.  Kevin Stidham beat Paul French in a crazy game to go 2-0.  Paul was up a piece but then he dropped a rook and lost.   Chris Perry played Ralph McNaughton with Black and won neatly with a Tarrasch where Black was saddled with an isolated pawn.  Jeff Elliott entered the tournament late and lost to Tony Maneclang.

In round 3 the last two 2-0 players matched up, when I played Kevin Stidham.   I played another English with the white pieces and Kevin allowed me to push a d-pawn down his throat.  I passed up a routine win of an exchange to avoid getting shattered pawns in return and I ended up getting his rook for free a few moves later.  Steve managed to stay one point behind by getting revenge against Tony for his Mississippi Open loss.  Steve dropped an exchange for a pawn but managed to exploit Tony's time pressure troubles to win.  Chris Perry beat Rob Woodyard (who had entered late) to go 2-1.  Jeff Elliott won a crusher against Paul French.  Ralph got the bye.

In round 4 I got the black pieces against Tony, who has given me fits with 1 d4.  I played a Benko Gambit against him, which I had beaten him with at the Mid-Mississippi Open.  I managed to win a pawn with some tactics, but got to a position where Tony's two knights were much better than my knight and especially my bishop.  After a few not so great moves Tony managed to get a position where he could basically force a draw by repeating the position, but he went for the win instead.  I exploited his enthusiasm for his position by playing sharp with Tony under time pressure and I managed to get to a rook and pawn vs rook position which I won.

In the last round I was running out of people to play, since French had previously requested half-point byes at the end of the tournament.  I had played everyone except Ralph, Jeff, and Rob and I got paired against Jeff, who always gives me fits.  Jeff played an 1 b4 against me, which I probably haven't seen since Mike Knobler lived in town.  After allowing Jeff free reign of the center I managed to win a pawn tactically in return for shattered kingside pawns, or so I thought.  Instead Jeff played a neat series of moves which won him back the pawn and I just had shattered pawns for nothing.  Jeff decided to trade off his heavy pieces to a king and pawn endgame, where Jeff had good drawing or maybe even winning chances.  Unfortunately for him he decided to play defense rather than offense and I managed to convert to a win.  Steve beat Rob Woodyard home-grown defense in the last round.  Tony and Chris Perry drew.    Kevin Stidham completed an excellent tournament with a win over long-time nemesis Ralph McNaughton.

Several people had notable rating increases in the tournament.  Once USCF fixes some rating issues I probably hit 1900 for the first time in more than a decade.  I've made it a goal to obtain and maintain a 1900 rating and I might have finished the obtain part.  Kevin Stidham is now around 1450 and probably will continue to move up.  Chris Perry had a solid tournament to climb back above 1600.  Jeff Elliott had a great tournament and a huge rating increase to close to 1450.  Jeff's rating now is around what it was when he lived in Ohio.

I conceived the idea for the April Scramble tournament last year so we could have a Jackson-area tournament where the play was fast (G/45) and there were 5 rounds.  The hope was there would be some exciting games and enough rounds where 1 game wouldn't decide the fate of your tournament and you could play enough games to significantly move your rating.  This year's tournament definitely accomplished all those goals and I look forward to April Scramble III in 2006!