FEO II - Charles Unruh sweeps to 4-0
The Second Annual Flat Earth Open was held at TCC’s 81st and HW169 campus. The tournament was a fun event with 21 tournament goers in attendance. Of the 21, 7 were class A and 2 were B including Howard Zhong an ever improving youngster who went on to win Dove Science Academy’s Scholastic Tournament in December. There were six scholastic players total, one was new comer to OCA chess Corey Wooden shows promising tactical abilities and took 2nd in section 3 of the scholastic tournament. Clarrisa Santos shows great improvement over a year and went on to beat Corey (Who is her teammate also) in the last round of this tournament and the one during the following week. Another promising youth present was Daniel Rhoads who has studied under John Cope and other strong A players had a successful round against Clarrisa and went on to win section four a week later. Several of the tournament goers were within ten points of achieving expert. Including David Zelnick, and Joe Veal.
First round saw Howard draw an opponent who has only recently come out of retirement, John Taylor. Second round saw a battle royal of the A players having Charles Unruh versus David Zelnick, Chuck Unruh against Shaun Graham-Bowcaster, and Joe Veal opposing Chuck Johnson. The clash of these Oklahoma chess titans resulted with Unruh Jr. upsetting the David, Chuck winning out against Shaun, and Joe besting Chuch J.. Third round saw the perfect scores thin to just one as Mark Anderson drew Chuck Unruh by locking up the board leaving Charles with the only 3-0 after upsetting Joe Veal in an off version of a Benko Gambit. The final round saw chance for Chuck Sr. if his son won or drew Dr. Anderson. The tournament was decided with an English attack leaving Charles Unruh the Second Flat Earth Champion.