The 135th Annual New York State Championship was held from August 30-September 2, 2013, in Albany, New York at the Albany Marriott, 189 Wolf Road, Albany.
GM Alexander Ivanov of Massachusetts scored four wins and two draws to win the $1,500 first prize in the 135th edition of America’s longest-running tournament.
Five players tied for 2nd-6th (in order of tiebreaks): New Jersey GMs Alexander Stripunsky and Joel Benjamin, Nicolas De T Checa, Stanislav Busygin of Pennsylvania and FM Igor Nikolayev. They each won $440, while Nicolas De T Checa and Igor Nikolayev also share the $100 Bonus Prize for the top-scoring New York State resident.
On tiebreaks, 11-year-old Nicolas, the 2013 New York State Junior High Champion, also wins the title of 2013 New York State Chess Champion. Nicolas is probably the youngest New York State Champion in the 135-year history of this tournament!
Rifeng Xia was the only player in the Under 2100 Section to score 5,5, giving her the $1,000 1st prize. Arthur Tang and David C Miller scored 5-1 to win $400 each.
Sarah Ascherman’s 5 points was enough to win the $1,000 1st Prize in the Under 1800 Section, with a five-player logjam for 2nd-6th: Darius Jafary, S Warren Lohr, Ernest Wang, Xiaoyu Xu and Brandon Wang each won $190.
Thomas E Clark won the $800 1st Prize for scoring 5,5 points in the Under 1500 Section. Ansgarius Aylward took 2nd with 5 points, and Larry Fredette and Sandeep Alampalli tied for 3rd with 4,5.
Rohghai Gong’s 5,5 points clinched the $500 1st Prize in the Under 1200 Section. Elisha Danzig and Daniel Louzonis finished with 5-1, but Daniel was limited to $150 as an unrated, and the balance of the prize for the two-way tie went to Elisha, who receives $250.
Philip Thibault and Nathan Saint Ours both scored 4-2. Philip won the special plaque for Top Under 1000 on tiebreaks over Nathan, who wins the Top Under 800 plaque. Hani Ahmed won the Top Unrated plaque, and Madison Ford-McKnight won Top Under 600.
Albany Marriott
