Comfy Corner Café Active

Chess Tournament

Report by Jim Enman

The first Active Chess Tournament held in Nova Scotia in 7 years was a success. Held at the Comfy Corner Café in Halifax, it attracted 20 brave souls through wind and rain, from as far away as New Glasgow and Sackville, New Brunswick.

The lengthy gap since the last Active tournament resulted in a situation where half the participants had no Active ratings and the other half had old ratings that in many cases did not reflect their playing strength. Pairings were done based on current normal CFC ratings and seemed to work out alright.

Antoni Wysocki captured clear first, surrendering only a draw to Andrew Frazer who at one point seemed to have a superior position before allowing the wily Wysocki to equalize. Fifteen year old Andrew, a rapidly improving New Brunswick junior, beat top Nova Scotia juniors Shane Wang and Charles Lu en route to clear second place with 4 points. Jonathan Bjornson played particularly well to share 3^rd with Brian McKay and Eric Newman.

Also noteworthy was 14 year old Jasmine Du's 3 point result, including draws against McKay and Newman. Jasmine continues to improve and may already be the strongest female chessplayer in Atlantic Canada. It was great to see both Jim Hayward and Leighton Steele come out for their first CFC rated events in several years. Many thanks to Chuck and Gwen for keeping the Café open a couple hours longer to accommodate the event and providing such delicious food.