Oct 2nd 2009
Sept 09 League Summary
After being out of the country for most of September I apologize for not posting an August Summary, but now I like to pick up where I left off a month ago.
As you probably all noticed, September was an experimental month. The boxes this month had 6-7 players instead of the typical 5-6. I am pleased with the outcome; most of the games were played which is so crucial for fun competition. Increasing the number of players to 7 is now a viable option.
In the beginning of the month I was so curious to see how box A will turn out since this is the first time we didn't have the strange box A/B divide. Adam Rafalovich made sure to show who rules the house. My personal prediction is that he will soon rise even further in the player ranking and eventually wake up Kartik Gopal from his long "beauty sleep". As usual Mr. Consistency, Callum McCowan, finished with a very solid performance in 2nd place. Check out the Ranking Analyzer to see what I am talking about. There is no question, if you want to rise to the top you have find a way to score against Callum. In the 3rd spot there was a little surprise. Sandeep Dube managed to steal away the bronze medal from Ravi Lal. I will keep watching this battle in the month to come. Sandeep caused multiple upsets in the past, but maybe wasn't most consistent yet. Another player to mention is Joe Zhang; he has been advancing his game over the last year and found a way to establish himself in box A. Brian Dallenbach and Jan Halvorsen are great examples to showcase how stiff the competition in box A is. Both are really strong players, but life is tough up there.
Box B has been equally interesting this month. Similar to the top box there hasn't been this unnatural divide. It appears that there has been a changing of the guards. In the past Loralee Campbell simply dominated in this category. However this time around Rupesh Shelar secured 1st place followed by Andres Ariza and Raymund Mui in 2nd and 3rd. It needs to be seen whether this was just a bad month for Loralee or we are seeing rising stars. I am very curious myself since I will resurface the league somewhere in this mix in October.
The box C players had a hard time to get all their matches in. Scheduling 6 matches in a month can be challenging especially if one waits too long and the last week approaches. We all have been there! Playing all but one game, diligence paid off for Denis Langlais. He finished first putting Ivan Castellanos in 2nd place. Chris Evans came in 3rd separated by only one point. I wonder what would have happened if Ivan and Chris would have played all their games. Given the spotty games it is hard to imagine how everything would have played out in a regular month. I guess we have to wait until October to find out.
Sandeesh Putturaya scored 1st place in box D by winning all his games. Closely in 2nd finished Bob Anderson. The mid field was set by Don Evans and Jason Giddings. It's a bummer that Jane Cerna wasn't able to finish all her games. It would have been interesting to see how she would have mixed up the final outcome of this box.
In the final box this month Bruce Hergert set the tone. He was the top mark here followed by Greg Kautz in 2nd. The rest of the games ended up in an almost even exchange leaving behind a almost level playing field for Ben Bory, Carlos Tokunaga, and Nicholas Zhang. We have to wait another month to learn more.
I am excited for October since it will be another fun month to see how players find ways to advance their game to the next level.
See you at the courts!
Milan
