4th Peter DuPuy Memorial

The 4th Peter DuPuy memorial event was held June 3, 2017 at the Benedum Civic Center in Bridgeport.

Jim Anthony, a friend of Peter DuPuy, attended the event and told us a little bit about Peter. Jim and Peter had been friends for some time, and Peter would always tell Jim how he was in the middle of playing chess on the computer when Jim would call. Charles McCallister began working for Jim at a nuclear plant in Vermont several years ago. Jim found out that Charles played chess and introduced him to Peter. The three of them were good friends from then on.

Peter had heart trouble and died seven years ago with Jim and Chuck at his side. Chuck decided to hold a memorial tournament in Peter’s honor and has held the event four times now in West Virginia where Chuck resides.

21 players attended the event, including Grandmaster Alex Shabalov of Pittsburgh, who has played in all four. Alex won the event with a 4-0 score. The running joke of the event was to see who could last the longest against him.

Lawrence Iorio was up first and lasted 19 moves before impending checkmate. Michael Felton was next and faced the same fate in 9 moves. Markle Butcher castled into fire in an 6. h3 Najdorf and lasted 22 moves.

Your webmaster (Benjamin Good) was the only other 3-0 going into the last round. I made some early mistakes and was faced with a 2 pawn disadvantage and a weakened king position. However, I had a slight bit of counterplay with an active queen and rook and weakened dark squares near Shabalov’s king. Alex thought for a good twenty minutes about how to handle the situation. He gave up one pawn to trade off the pieces, and won a rook and pawn endgame. The game was the last game to finish in the tournament and went 46 moves.

Thanks to donations from Jim Anthony and Chuck McCallister, nearly everyone received a prize. The math was a bit difficult, though!

1st – GM Alex Shabalov 4
2nd – Ed Garner 3.5

USCF Crosstable