DCC 2025 Denver Open
10:32am Tuesday, May 20th, 2025
...who is not at all easy to win against.
All the photos used in this report are by John Brezina. The heading photo is Sullivan McConnell, maybe showing Mr. Colorado Chess, Brian Wall, that he is already completely winning :-) I went mostly retro with the pictures within the text, just because black and white photography is rarely seen anymore. Note that the photos are not necessarily related to the text. See all of Mr. Brezina's photos. I should mention that Mr. Brezina was only able to get to the tournament late in the last round. Thus, no room shots.
The 2025 DCC Denver Open registration of 141 players was certainly not bad, but somewhat short of the average of 185 players at the three previous DCC Denver Open tournaments. Anyway, this year in the Championship section, Sullivan McConnell, with 4.5 points, took 1st place and won - are you ready for this - 1200 dollars!! Which I think is the highest DCC tournament prize ever. I'm sure that if Sullivan had not been paired against his brother, Griffin, in Round 4, his score would have been 5-0.
Griffin McConnell, figuring things out.
Suhaas Narayanan and Sikander Baker-Nagar ended up with 4 points, and they share the combined 2nd and 3rd place prize of 1250 dollars. There was a four way tie for the 4th place prize. Brian Wall, Rhett Langseth, Daniel Herman, and Christopher Motley each won 80 dollars. Mr. Motley (2001) had the pleasure of upsetting both Eamon Montgomery (2259 ) and Griffin McConnell (2223). See Chris Peterson's Best Game below.
Quite a range of ages in this picture.
With 3 points, Caleb Koeller, Jason Nigatu, Forrest Lundstrom, and Kaavya Sakthisaravanan share the U2000 Prize of 240 dollars. Kaavya had a full point 1st round bye, lost her Round 2 game, then upset her next three much higher rated opponents to earn her share of the prize money. The 80 dollar Championship section Upset Prize went to Leif McFadden (1742) when he took the full point from the potential Candidate Master, Rhett Langseth (2135) in Round 2.
In the U2000 section, Sean Pearson took no prisoners and won the 1st place prize of 480 dollars with a perfect 5-0 score. Candidate Master, Mike Maloney, only lost to Mr. Pearson, and he won the 320 dollar 2nd place prize. Ethan Crane, Khris Mathimaran, Logan Stewmon, and Rohan David all finished with 3 points and they each won 80 dollars. In addition, Mr. David (1585) also won the U2000 80 dollar Upset Prize for his win against Jeremy Roldan (1886) in Round 2.
I got this. The rest is going to be easy.
In the U1700 section, Scott Marvel and Ashwin Mathimaran each finished with 4.5 points, and they share the combined 1st and 2nd place prize of 720 dollars. Colin Schaub (1287) won the 3rd place prize of 180 dollars in addition to winning the 80 dollar Upset Prize for his Round 2 win against Nii Codjoe (1615) The 4th place prize was won by Jack Gottlieb, Anthony Cordova, Philip Schiff, Trever Bradford, and Dustin Ferguson. They all finished with 3.5 points, and each player won 20 dollars.
Emma Hellmer (b) vs. Madeleine Finch (w). More women in chess would be a good thing.
In the U1400 section, Unrated Emma Hellmer took 1st place with 4 wins and a Round 2 draw. But being Unrated, only qualified to win 250 dollars instead of 400. The extra I50 dollars was added to the Tarun Karthikeyan and Quinsen Joel prize. They each won 4 games, and instead of winning 200 dollars each, they both took home 275 dollars. Viaan Khandelwal ended up in 4th place with 3.5 points, and that was worth 80 dollars. Jinhyun Shin (920) won the 80 dollar Upset Prize for his Round 1 win over Madeleine Finch (1301), who is not at all easy to win against.
This player has just hit the clock and, too late, maybe thinking, uh-oh :-)
In the U1100 section Eric Zhang, Ryan Gupta, and Robert Downes all scored 4 points, and they each won 266 dollars and 67 cents. Liam Newell and Jacob Just ended up with 3.5 points, and they each won 40 dollars. Anirudh Saibalan (848) won the 80 dollar U1100 Upset Prize when he won his game against Mr. Downes (1036) in Round 1.
Total concentration.
DCC President Earle Wikle and I don't always see eye to eye, but I sure cannot gripe about his prize fund money distribution. It's as fair as fair can be, with as many winners as possible. 7290 dollars was shared by 39 winners!! Who has ever heard of rewarding 4th place? Not to mention that having five sections means that, regardless of a player's rating, they have a chance to win prize money. Plus, adding an 80 dollar Upset Prize for each section is great. Not only does the player win USCF rating points, and bragging rights, but they also win bonus money to spend. In addition, Mr. Wikle sets up the DGT boards at DCC tournaments.
I've said that I was going to quit writing these DCC reports, but a couple of people, whom I regard highly, have encouraged me to continue. So I will, even though I'm old and tired - but still good looking :-) Besides, what else do I have to do? I am truly grateful to the thousands, ok hundreds, of chess players who read these DCC reports regularly.
Best Game
by NM Christofer Peterson
There were a lot of great games played at the 2025 Denver Open, and picking just one to write about wasn’t easy. I want to give a quick shoutout to Mike Maloney, who had two excellent games I seriously considered covering. Brian Wall, as always, played entertaining, chaotic chess — his games were also in contention.
But ultimately, I decided on the game between NM Eamon Montgomery and Christopher Motley. Eamon had a tough tournament, and Christopher had a great one. There’s always something interesting about a matchup where a higher-rated player is struggling and the lower-rated player is in form. As someone who’s often near the top of the seed list in tournaments I’ve played, I know what kind of pressure that creates. When you’re rated ~300 points higher, everyone expects you to win. If you do, no one says anything. If you don’t, it becomes a spectacle.
So I’m not highlighting this game just because a lower-rated player won — though that’s always fun to see — but because of the clean, principled play Christopher showed throughout. His opening was sharp, his middlegame plans were clear, and he played with confidence. It was a really nice game. As for Eamon, everyone has an off tournament now and then, and I don’t think anyone doubts he’ll be back in form soon.
NM Montgomery, Eamon (2237) - Motley, Christopher (1960)
Round 2 of Denver Open 2025 [ 2025.05.?? ]
2025.05.17
Congratulations to Christopher Motley on an excellent game and a strong tournament performance. If your rating had been just two points lower, you would have earned quite a bit more prize money — one of the quirks of using the latest US Chess supplement instead of live ratings. Either way, this game was a standout, and I hope we get to see more like it from you in future events.
Quick Note on the Monthly Write-Ups
I also want to apologize for not doing write-ups for the last couple of DCC Monthlies. As some of you know, I’m in medical school, and we just wrapped up our final preclinical semester. It’s been a lot. For context, most college students take around 12–16 credit hours per semester. Medical students do 25–30, and the material is way more intense. Now that we’re done with preclinicals, I’m heading off to Minot, North Dakota to start my clinical rotations at Trinity Health Hospital. I’ll be learning on the job and getting a real sense of what it takes to be a doctor.
I’m hoping to keep these write-ups going when I can, but school has to come first. Thanks for your patience — and keep sending in your best games.
Thank you, kindly Chris. Your instructional analysis of the Best Game benefits the players in addition to everyone who plays through the game.
Thanks again to all,
J.C. MacNeil