Ray Robson Wins 2012 SPICE Cup Open
Webster University freshman GM Ray Robson has won the 2012 SPICE Cup Open. He scored 5 wins, 4 draws, and no losses to win with a score of 7/9.
The competition format was a 9 round Swiss featuring 13 GMs and a total field of 43 players.
There was also a first GM norm for IM Vitaly Neimer, and IM norms for FM Kayden Troff, FM Aman Hambleton and NM Nolan Hendrickson.
The time control was Game in 90 minutes with a 30 second increment from the start.
Ray Robson receiving his trophy from Susan Polgar
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The 2012 SPICE Cup Open final standings
| 1 | GM Ray Robson | 2602 | 7 |
| 2 | GM Fidel Corrales Jimenez | 2605 | 6½ |
| 3 | GM Alejandro Ramirez | 2551 | 6 |
| 4 | GM Victor Mikhalevski | 2538 | 6 |
| 5 | IM Vitaly Neimer | 2384 | 6 |
| 6 | GM Manuel Leon Hoyos | 2603 | 5½ |
| 7 | GM Eugene Perelshteyn | 2528 | 5½ |
| 8 | GM Mesgen Amanov | 2507 | 5½ |
| 9 | GM Benjamin Finegold | 2493 | 5½ |
| 10 | GM Denes Boros | 2492 | 5½ |
| 11 | IM Darwin Yang | 2485 | 5½ |
| 12 | GM Andre Diamant | 2471 | 5½ |
| 13 | IM Leonid Gerzhoy | 2469 | 5½ |
| 14 | GM Yury Shulman | 2595 | 5 |
| 15 | GM Anatoly Bykhovsky | 2522 | 5 |
| 16 | GM Pascal Charbonneau | 2517 | 5 |
| 17 | IM Roberto Mogranzini | 2492 | 5 |
| 18 | IM Justin Sarkar | 2408 | 5 |
| 19 | FM Aleksandr Ostrovskiy | 2377 | 5 |
| 20 | FM Aman Hambleton | 2348 | 5 |
| 21 | FM Kayden W Troff | 2312 | 5 |
| 22 | NM Nolan Hendrickson | 2146 | 5 |
| 23 | IM Priyadharshan Kannappan | 2407 | 4½ |
| 24 | WGM Veronika Schneider | 2313 | 4½ |
| 25 | FM Jouaquin B. Banawa | 2300 | 4½ |
| 26 | IM John Bartholomew | 2446 | 4 |
| 27 | IM Keaton Kiewra | 2442 | 4 |
| 28 | IM Jake Kleiman | 2377 | 4 |
| 29 | IM Levan Bregadze | 2366 | 4 |
| 30 | WGM Anna Sharevich | 2294 | 4 |
| 31 | FM Adarsh Jayakumar | 2290 | 4 |
| 32 | FM Konstantin Kavutskiy | 2287 | 4 |
| 33 | WIM Carla Heredia | 2188 | 4 |
| 34 | NM Spencer Finegold | 2081 | 4 |
| 35 | IM Martha L Fierro | 2387 | 3½ |
| 36 | IM Zhanibek Amanov | 2374 | 3 |
| 37 | WIM Inna Agrest | 2204 | 3 |
| 38 | Iskandar Aripov | 2155 | 3 |
| 39 | FM Hans Jung | 2150 | 2½ |
| 40 | Brian H Cassidy | 2098 | 1½ |
| 41 | Matt D Helfst | 1965 | 1½ |
| 42 | Tom Polgar-Shutzman | unr. | 1½ |
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The invitational 6-player double round-robin invitational SPICE Cup competition is also nearing its climax, with top seed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave leading on 5/8 with two rounds remaining.
The SPICE Cup standings after 8 rounds
| Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | 2705 | 5 |
| Ding, Liren | 2702 | 4½ |
| Le, Quang Liem | 2703 | 4 |
| So, Wesley | 2677 | 4 |
| Balogh, Csaba | 2664 | 3½ |
| Meier, Georg | 2646 | 3 |
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Pictures and games from Susan Polgar's Chess Blog. More photos here.
