Schmakel Blitzes Evanston Field At July Tri-Level

With a fourth round victory over Jason Daniels, Sam Schmakel completed a perfect 4-0 campaign at the July 11 Evanston Tri-Level.

Schmakel took a lead in the opening which he never relinquished. Daniels finished at 3.0, tying for second place with Robby Hecht, Bill Brock and Jonathan Lee. In the penultimate third round, Daniels defeated Hecht, one of the event's two USCF Experts.

A five-way tie for sixth place at 2.5/4 included Nicholas Bartochowski (the other Expert), Bill Smythe, Neel Jay and brothers Tom and Adam Bareket.

Crosstables are published here. 27 competed in the Gold Open sections with three additional players posting single games.

In the 17-player Silver section, Philip Linninger and Stephen Horvath tied at 3.5/4. Linninger drew Michael Wishner in the second round while Horvath drew Daniel Zhang in the first round.

Darek Nowak took third place with a 3.0/4 tally, losing to Linninger in the third round.

There was a four-way tie for fourth place with Adrian Calinescu, Orlan Smith, David Zimmermann and Paul Graham participating.

Zimmermann and Graham drew in the final round, while Calinescu lost to Linninger and Smith dropped his game to Horvath.

In the 11-player Bronze section, four players tied for first at 3.0/4: Tim Gong, David Sun, David Chen and Hui Wang.

Gong defeated Sun and Wang but lost to Chen. Chen lost to Sun in the second round. All other games involving the top four players involved lower-finishing players.

Two players participated in their very first USCF events: Dr. Paul Yarnold who went one and one and Simon Groenendijk who went two and two.

Maret Thorpe officiated.