The Lakdawala Championship series is in its inaugural year.  The SDCC Board has decided to honor its favorite and most longstanding son, International Master Cyrus Lakdawala

with this new tournament appellation for the years of service and chess excellence Cyrus has demonstrated and  given to the chess community in San Diego.  This year we are proud to kick off the Lakdawala Championship Series with a collection of tournaments running concurrently starting February 28, 2009.

 

by Rick Aeria

The premier event is the San Diego Chess Club Men's Championship Finals where sixteen top qualifiers vie for the title of club champion; this year, the club also decided to run the women's championship concurrently; also very popular and interesting is the club Reserve championship which is for players rated below 1800; for club members rated above 1800 there is the Fred Borges Open and even the Fred Borges Reserve for players under 1800; and finally there is one individual match being played.

 

There were four berths set aside.

 

Pre-qualified by virtue of being the defending champion from the previous year is Master Ron Bruno.

 

Seeded into thre final was the 2008 San Diego County Champion, Master Peter Graves.

 

The winner of the 2008 Fall Event IM Felix Villarreal was seeded but had to decline his berth because of work commitments.

 

The winner of the 2008 Masters was Dimitry Kishinevsky.

 

Twelve qualifiers from the 90+ player Markowski Open were tournament winner Master Bruce Baker, Master Carl Wagner, Alejandro Garamendi, Carey Milton, Master Todd Smith, Ben Barquin, Brad Salz, Ignacio Sainz, Thomas Fries, Manuel Herrera, Raoul Crisologo, Master David Hart and John Funderburg who replaced Felix Villarreal.

 

 

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