Pithers Perched Atop SUSPECTS Standings

MrPithers survived a first round scare to finish the night undefeated with a 2.5/3 mark to win the gold medal in last night's USUAL SUSPECTS XXXII swiss event. 

Claiming the silver medal was Tijuanaboom at 2/3 while Mathchew was bronze at 1.5/3. CadvanDecker  was fourth at 1/3 and FlossyFlo was fifth.

For Pithers, things looked sweet in round one as his French defense handled an overly aggressive attack from TJBB handily, picking up an errantly positioned bishop as the middlegame began to unfold. But TJ threw everything into the attack and when Pithers blundered on move 31, TJ found a great move and had mate in two. He missed the continuation but had another chance with mate in four on move 37, again missing the continuation. The game ultimately was an agreed draw.

Mathchew had a tough time for awhile against FlossyFlo but finally got to a kings and pawns endgame a pawn to the good and outplayed Flo from that point to force resignation after 49 moves.

In round 2, Pithers opened e4 and Mathchew launched a solid Sicilian. The see saw game was mostly even until move 46 when Chewy made a critical error that left MP's knight on a rampage, costing Chewy 2 pawns. A blunder on move 56 cost Chewy a knight and led to resignation on move 57. TJ, meanwhile had less trouble, decking Cadvan in 25 moves via resignation.

The final round left Pithers up against Cadvan as FlossyFlo was offline, while Chewy took on TJ's Alekhine's defense. Pithers needed and got a win to stay atop the leader board, but tiebreaks would bump him to 2nd place if TJ could beat Chewy. Chewy could get silver with a win  or bronze with a draw but a loss would put him out of the medals. He had a slight advantage when he accepted the draw offer.

This afternoon's 3 pm tournament is Wojo's Sunday Soiree III, three rounds of G30/5.