Stewart, Barlett Tie for 1st in 2007 Southern Open
Tournament report by Douglas Stewart

On June 23 the 2007 version of the Southern Open was held in Kosciusko.  What a difference a year makes!  The new Boys and Girls Club in Kosciusko, built with the help of native Oprah Winfrey, was a fabulous site for a chess tournament!

The tournament ended up with 3 sections - K-4, K-12, and Open.

In the K-4 section Justin Yu came back from a 1st round loss to go 4-1 and take top honors.  Tied for 2nd-5th at 3.5-1.5 was Seth Lenoir, Amber Newell, Nathan Yin, and Ethan Williams.

The K-12 section included many experienced players.  Out of the 19 players in the section, 12 had played at least 20 USCF rated games in the past.  Eddie Williams took top honors in the section, only nicked by a draw by Matthew Riddle along the way.  He finished at 4.5-0.5.  Tied for 2nd were Melanie Newell and Jibri Weathers (a regular attendee at the Jackson Chess Club) at 4-1.

In the Open section (adult tournament), 1st place was shared by Douglas Stewart and Riley Barlett.  Douglas beat Randy Riddle, James Morris, and Kenneth Turner before facing Riley in the last round.  The game with Turner was a crazy affair, where Turner as White sacrificed a piece for two pawns on move 11.  The sacrifice appears to be a good but rare idea - I have only one game where it was tried which was back in 2001 in a Toronto tournament game between two amateurs.  Douglas was down to less than a minute on his clock for most of the endgame but managed to prevail.

Riley, the 3rd seed, started with a 1st round victory over Jerelee McGlotha and followed it up with wins over Ralph McNaughton and James Morris.  That set up the last round confrontation between Douglas and Riley.

Douglas had White in the final game.  Riley played a Sicilian Four Knights variation, where Black gets an isolated pawn on d4 and some space.  After a relatively early queen trade, a queen-less middlegame ensued where both players had doubled f-pawns.  Douglas overreached a bit and ended up in a tough endgame down a pawn and with a rook against a knight and a bishop.  Riley offered a draw which was accepted.

Above is the final position.  Fritz evaluations this position as almost -3 for Black, so with best play White is definitely on life support.  This position is a coordination exercise for Black, but it would really take a minor miracle for White to do anything better than a draw.

Douglas and Riley split the Open 1st-2nd prizes, while Greg Turner took 3rd.

Thomas Gilbreath from Alabama won the U1500 prize by beating newcomer Brandon Watts, Randy Riddle, and Sam Parker.  There was a 4-way tie for the 2nd-3rd prizes between Randy Riddle, Randall Warren, Sam Parker, and Brynna Bartlett.

This tournament definitely a breakthrough for Riley Bartlett, who broke into 'B' class for the first time.  Since he's not even in high school yet, he's well on his way to becoming the next great Mississippi scholastic chess player, in the footsteps of Lee Gardner and Bradley Denton.