April 2013 - Northwest Chess!

higher. His score of 3.0 also won first place in class D,
sending him home with the second largest prize check of
the tourney!
Romie Carpenter (Missoula, MT) in round two. Photo credit: Jeff Roland.
Collyer. Draws on the next three boards settled most of
the remaining top prizes. When the smoke cleared, Mark
Havrilla and Jon Middaugh joined Krasin at 4.0 to claim
the second and third place prizes, as well as the top prize
in class A. Consistent with last year, a score of 3.5 was the
magic number for most of the remaining prize winners:
the expert prize shared by John Julian and Steve Merwin
(who drew in their round five game); second place in class
A, which was shared by Nikolay Bulakh, Dave Rowles,
and James Stripes; and the first and second prizes in class
B which were shared by Adam Attwood and Steve Fabian.
That tally also was good enough for Chu to win first place
in the E/unrated category.
As with last year, the field had a large number of first
time attendees, and 18 of the 53 entrants were in their
first or second Collyer. Several of them did quite well.
Eastern Oregon veteran Clem Falbo could not attend this
year’s event due to a cruise “down under,” but he sent a
couple of younger folk to represent Enterprise, Oregon
– Jacob Beverly and Jose Chavarri. Jose, an exchange
student from Chile, finished with 2.0 in his first USCF
event. Jacob claimed the biggest upset prize of $100 with
a final round victory over a class A opponent 412 points
John Frostad (Spokane) in round four. Photo credit: Jeff Roland
The class C prizes were shared by Missoula veteran Bill
McBroom and Ron Weyland (2.5), while Jim Burney
claimed second in class D with the same score. Second
place in the E/unrated category went to Savanna
Naccarato (also 2.5), while Arlene Hiatt won the second
largest upset with her second round draw against a player
749 points above her. A special prize of a large magnetic
wooden travel set donated by John Dill, coach of the
Northwest Christian chess program, went to third grader
Alex Popescu who scored 1.5 in his very first event.
Kevin Korsmo (Spokane), the Tournament Director during the last round.
Photo credit: Jeff Roland
In all, $1800 in cash prizes was awarded. Dave Griffin
also donated three gift certificates to Luigi’s which were
awarded via drawings to out-of-town players. Several
players donated their winnings back to the Spokane Chess
Club or to the Gary Younker Foundation, the sponsors
of the event.
The tournament was started in 1993 to honor the late
Dave Collyer, the primary chess organizer in Spokane
during the 1980s. Gary Younker, who started the event
and patterned it after the old Harvest Open in Yakima,
himself died young in 2001. Gary’s friends started a
foundation in his name that is devoted to backing the
Collyer tourney and sponsoring youth chess in Eastern
Washington. Many of the participants come back to the
event every year to honor Dave or Gary (or both) and
enjoy the comradeship of old friends. The event is the
highlight of the Spokane chess year and the personal
highlight (whatever the results) for many of us old-timers.
For the 12 th consecutive year, the Collyer weekend was
kicked off by a free Friday night lecture from John
Donaldson. He spoke about the U.S. Team qualifying for
the world team championship next year and shared two
games from the team’s triumphant event in Brazil. After
Northwest Chess April 2013 Page 5