Goshen Winter Tournament
21Jan 2014. If you were to draw up a list of indispensable names in the chess history of Indiana, Joe Riegsecker would be on any version you might care to produce. The number of chess players helped along by his knack for skilled tournament organization must easily number in the hundreds – the author of these lines fondly remembers his monthly Joepye tournaments in Middlebury and how much they benefitted a young chess player ravenous for opportunity.
Joe has created yet another fixture on the calendars of northern Indiana chess players – his yearly Goshen winter tourney has become a destination for chess enthusiasts seeking competition and a warm distraction from the wintry outdoors. And as this is consistently held at the beginning of December in northern Indiana, you can imagine what a welcome distraction it must be!
This tournament, held at Goshen High School in their spacious lunch room and gymnasium, brings both experienced old buzzards (like myself) and unrated young scamps together in a seamlessly well run and cordial atmosphere. But there’s certainly no cordiality when the pieces start moving…
This year’s version brought 175 players into action – fifteen battle tested veterans in the Open section, 31 up and comers in the Reserve section, and a whopping 129 players in the unrated scholastic sections that dominated the main part of the gymnasium. The Open section featured four games at G/45, while the Reserve and unrated sections had five rounds of G/30.
After a long tournament of wild and wooly action, the author of these lines proved victorious by winning four hard fought games. Local experts Les Kistler, Mat Leach and Jon Gotz all tied for 2nd-4th with 3-1. The Reserve section was captured by Alex Ramirez with a perfect 5-0 score. See the full crosstable. I know I can speak for many other chess players in this neck of the woods when I say that I’m already looking forward to the next edition of this tournament!