Massive Tie at 30th Space Coast Open
- Evan Dyson
- May 30
- 17 min read
Updated: Jun 16
May 2-4, 2025
By Peter Dyson, Co-Chairman, Space Coast Open Organizing Committee
Springtime, sun, sand, surf, and … chess! While the closing of past venues and escalating costs at the remaining beachfront resorts have forced the Space Coast Open to move a few miles inland, the Space Coast Open Chess Festival in Melbourne, Florida still brings you the most chess you can pack into a weekend with the beach still just a short drive away.
Most years at the Space Coast Open, when the dust has settled at the end of the weekend, a clear champion emerges. Past repeat winners such as GMs Zhou, Gareyev, Becerra, Wojtkiewicz, and Kudrin, along with IM Maharramzade, preferred not to share their glory and first-place prize. The four-way tie in 2000 stood for more than two decades as an outlier. Until now. This year there were not four, or even five, players at the top of the standings. Indeed, we saw a massive 6-way tie.
The Knot at the Top
Going into the last round four players were tied at 3.5, including GM Jianchao Zhou and GM Nikola Mitkov. Playing on boards 1 and 2 they were paired down against FM Ryan Amburgy and IM John Ludwig, respectively. On paper, this looked like a favorable pairing for Zhou, a nearly 300-point rating favorite. But Amburgy secured a draw, and the board 2 matchup was also a draw, giving all four players a share of first. The question remained whether any of the players on 3 points could catch up with a win. This seemed likely given the five contenders comprising the 3-point group: FM Eric Rodriguez (our Champion back in 2010), FM Brejesh Chakrabarti, NM Mel Goss, Vivan Mulay and Antony Gospodinov. Rodriguez and Gospodinov were paired in the final round, as were Chakrabarti and Mulay, with wins scored by the rating favorites in both games. Meanwhile Mel Goss was paired “down” into the 2.5-point group, only to find himself paired with the strong FM Corey Acor. The resulting draw left both these players out of the money. Thus, only Rodriguez and Chakrabarti joined Zhou, Mitkov, Amburgy and Ludwig in the 6-way tie for first place, each winning $975. The fantastic result by FM Amburgy earned him the beautiful first-place teardrop crystal trophy.
“The overall experience was great, the environment was nice, and I met a lot of new really friendly people!” …the best part was “the satisfaction of playing at my full potential after being stuck at around 2200 FIDE for the past few years” - FM Ryan Amburgy, SCO Co-Champion (tie)
This result catapulted Ryan above 2400 for the first time. Commenting about this he said, “I’ve been in the mid-2300s (USCF) for a few years now, but I’ve made some nice progress with my ratings over the past six months, which I am hoping will lead to the IM title!” Recently, Ryan has crisscrossed the country playing chess. He said, “I try to play as much chess as my schedule allows. I often travel to Charlotte, Chicago, Austin, and Dallas, but this was my first time in Melbourne. I am very passionate about chess!” At the Space Coast Open Ryan felt he made some careless mistakes in a few of his games that he wasn’t punished for, but he suspects a stronger opponent would have capitalized on those mistakes. He said his toughest game came in round 4 against FM Rose Atwell (see his annotations of this game in the Games section).
FM Rodriguez was the only co-champion with all his games ending decisively, while each of the other co-champions had 3 wins and 2 draws. Rodriguez suffered a loss in his round 4 matchup with Co-champ Ludwig, but won his other 4 games, including one of the longest games of the round in the last round on Sunday in his aforementioned win over Antony Gospodinov. Rodriguez provided his annotations for this game (see Games section), which is also covered in detail in WGM Foisor’s commentary. Rodriguez has been largely inactive in tournament competitions in recent years. Perhaps his standing as a past champion (free entry!) encouraged him to attend. He shared his thoughts after the event, saying, “Yes, [it’s been] quite a while away from competitive chess. It's interesting visiting a tournament again. Chess still plays a part in my life, and I still have an interest in learning and teaching. I enjoyed driving up to Melbourne, woke up early to the round on Saturday and got to drive over the bridge, enjoyed a short time by the beach. It was early, no traffic. Beautiful houses and area. Both games on Saturday were fun to play with two young talents. The tournament schedule is always so tough to have any time once the rounds get going. I thought the poster was awesome. I liked that tea and coffee were provided outside the playing hall. It was fun seeing and talking to some players I knew from the past.”
“Besides winning, I was most happy with my goal of just playing some good fighting chess every round.” - FM Eric Rodriguez, SCO Co-Champion (tie)
IM Ludwig is another player who has been inactive in recent years. I asked him about this after the tournament. “It was very good to be at Space Coast Open and be playing again,” he said. “In fact, it was my first tournament in over three years! My wife and I got married almost three years ago, and I was also focusing on my full-time job, which definitely impacted my ability to play tournaments,” said Ludwig. He also reflected on the challenges and impacts to his chess due to COVID-19, saying, “after Covid, I definitely lost a lot of passion for the game and needed to regain it back. It was very hard just becoming an International Master and then losing my momentum when tournaments shut down. I really enjoyed the competitive feeling again and overall, just the feeling of playing well. It was also really great to reconnect with Florida players again.”
Ludwig started playing in the Space Coast Open with our 17th edition back in 2010 and then reeled off 10 consecutive appearances. He said, “Space Coast has always been my favorite tournament with the people, location, and strong players who come in. I think some of my opening knowledge could definitely be improved as I was basically just playing off intuition and principles because I have hardly studied in five years.” About this year’s competition, where he achieved his best result, he added, “I would say my toughest game was against Zhou because of how strong he is and how I had to find a creative resource to force a draw, but my best game was against Mitkov in the last round. I feel like I played very confidently and freely in a complicated position, which felt even better knowing I had not played in so long.” See Games Section for both of these games.
"Space Coast has always been my favorite tournament with the people, location, and strong players who come in." - IM John Ludwig, SCO Co-Champion (tie)
In the other battles for a share of first, despite losing their last game, happily for Mulay and Gospodinov, no other experts could pass them. Instead, they ended in a 4-way tie for top Under 2200 after wins by Truman Hoang and Zhihan Samuel Xu enabled them to catch up at 3 points, each winning $525, with 9-year old(!) Mulay claiming the crystal trophy on tie-breaks. No doubt Mulay was discouraged after his last round loss and assumed this would put him out of the prize money, so his family got an early start on the long drive back to Tallahassee. It was no doubt a pleasant surprise to learn days later that he tied for first Under 2200. As for Hoang, he may have had a sense of déjà vu as he also tied for top Under 2200 at the 29th Space Coast Open.
(Sort-of) Sweep in Class A
Three sections saw the player at the top of the standings sporting a 5-0 score, and Leandro Blanco Milhet in Class A was one of them. Leandro started in the 3-day event, but had a setback on Friday night, losing his first game to Benjamin Sisler (Sisler went on to finish in a big tie for 6th place, just out of the prize money). For Blanco Milhet, we can call this game a warm-up game, as he took advantage of the opportunity to switch to the 2-day schedule, winning his next 5 games in a row. Sometimes it pays to re-enter!
Blanco Milhet said, “Winning the tournament was wonderful. I went with the mentality of being among the top three places. Already in the third round I began to visualize that I could win the tournament if I continued to play without making mistakes and in the aggressive way I had been approaching my games. In the 5th round a draw was enough to win the title. But I am very competitive and I never take anything for granted, so I played to win as always and it was the best decision I took since on move 11 after a bishop sacrifice I did on the h7 square, I was completely winning although the game extended many moves and I had to finish it technically (see Games section). That last round was supposed to be the strongest because my opponent was undefeated, but paradoxically it was my easiest win since the rival fell in all my opening preparation.”
Blanco Milhet added, “my hardest and most brilliant game was the one against Stone Wang in the third round. The game is a model on how to attack in various sectors of the board and create latent weaknesses, how to undermine a pawn center and destroy it and finally culminate the game with various types of sacrifices … forcing a surrender.” See Games section.
“Overall the whole experience was very good. I look forward to participating in future Space Coast Chess events. I would definitely recommend it to other chess players” - Leandro Blanco Milhet, Class A Champion
Class A was the largest section in the event, and perhaps stimulated by the significantly increased prize fund, it was hotly contested. After 3 rounds only three of the 50 players in this section stood on perfect scores. In round 4, the top board had Blanco Milhet with the black pieces facing Katerina Morgaenko. As the board cleared of pieces, Blanco Milhet’s 2 rooks and bishop seemed to gain in power over their counterparts and the White position collapsed. Blanco Milhet then completed his 5-game winning streak in the 5th round, defeating Aviva Smith, knocking Smith out of contention for prize money. This left Morgaenko on the second board in the section fighting for a share of 2nd place, facing Henry Miranda. Some interesting facts about Morgaenko, she was playing in only her second tournament in the US. Originally hailing from Belarus where she started playing chess about 20 years ago, Morgaenko is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University in Atlanta. This was not to be her tournament however, as she lost her second game in a row. The win by Miranda left him in clear second place with an undefeated score of 4.5 points. There was a big fight for the remaining prize money, with $900 still on the line for 3rd-4th places. Going into the final round, and not counting the top two boards, no less than 10 other players had a chance to tie for third place with 4 points. Three of these players were successful, with Victor Barrios, Liam Murphy, and 8-year-old Landon Meadors winning their games. I learned from his mom, Rachel, that Meadors hails from the relative chess desert of St Simons Island in GA, and they travel around the southeast so he and his younger brother, Christian Meadors, can play chess. This appears to be working as Landon has been rocketing up the rating chart since his first tournament just a year and a half ago.
Bouncing from Class B
Class B also headlined a clear winner, Alexander Kristjansson. In this case Kristjansson was held to a draw in the first round versus Janusz Gromnicki. After round 4, this left Kristjansson in sole second place behind Jacob Tran, who was on a perfect 4-0 score. Kristjansson’s win in this game catapulted him past Tran and bounced him up to a Class A rating for the first time, while winning what might be his last Class B prize of $1100. Kristjansson has played in only 26 rated events, and until last year he played infrequently since his first tournament back in 2016. This relative inactivity does not seem to have affected his play, as he has gained 300 rating points since last fall.
Commenting on the tournament, Kristjansson wrote, “My experience at the SCO was awesome! I would say besides winning the tournament, my favorite part was playing good chess (winning and playing well are not always synonymous). To be more specific though, I was happy with some of my opening preparation paying off and being able to capitalize on tactical opportunities. It was also nice to meet and talk to some of the other chess players in the tournament.”
He said, “my toughest game was in round 4 when I faced an opponent I actually lost to in another recent tournament. I had Black in a weird kind of English opening (I think it’s called the Neo-Catalan) and ended up occupying the center, reaching a reversed Benoni position. The middlegame was very tactical and both of us had to keep an eye on the respective pawn breaks. My opponent undoubtedly had a more difficult task to manage a position with less space and eventually I was able to break through with the move e4 on move 25, making ample use of tactics to justify the advance. After the advance, I had an overwhelming position, the engine actually gives -6.7 to Black despite material equality, and my opponent chose to resign. Overall, I was really satisfied with the quality of my play in some complicated positions and against a strong opponent as well.” See the Games section for Kristjansson’s annotations to this game.
As for Tran, his fast start ensured him a share of second place. Joining him on 4 points were Aniketh Karra and Angel Barrios who won in round 5 over Amiel Hernandez and Platon Kaidash, respectively. Barrios, who also tied for second last year, was the second player in this section to also bounce up to a Class A rating, his highest rating so far.
Class C Crunch
Class C followed the pattern of the Class A section, with our winner suffering a round 1 warm-up loss in the 3-day schedule, followed by a 5-0 tear in the 2-day schedule after re-entering. Vicentiu Iorga was our winner, claiming the $1000 top prize. Here he improved over last year when he shared first place in a 4-way tie. Meanwhile, Richard Brent, after starting with a draw in round 1, went on a 4-game winning streak to land in clear 2nd place, while only two players tied for 3rd place with 4 points. These were Ryan Yates, whose only loss came to Iorga in round 4, and Braden Blackwell, who lost to Yates in round 3.
Class D Drawfest
Late round draws by many of the Class D section leaders led to a 3-way tie for first place at 4 points and a 4-way tie for 4th place at 3.5 points. Of these 7 players, only one player, Anthony Hans, emerged without any draws. He suffered one loss in round 3 vs. Jetro Tenerife, but won his other 4 games to join the tie for first place. He was joined by Allan Griffin (trophy winner on tie-breaks) and Yuriy Meshkov. Since Hans was unrated, his prize was subject to the unrated prize limit of $300, increasing the prizes for all the other prize winners. Griffin and Meshkov each won $567, while the players tied on 3.5 points each won $117. These were Jetro Tenerife, Nitin Warekar, Alyssa Mogg, and Dereck Fajardo.
The Man in the Fedora Lands Ahead in Class E/Under 1200
The 5-0 winners in Class A and Class C both needed a warm-up round loss in the 3-day schedule before going on their winning streaks. Not so for 10-year-old Xander Brink, a homeschooled 4th grader, who racked up a perfect 5-0 score, no re-entry required. Aside from winning clear first place, a cool $800, and the crystal trophies for both the overall section winner and Top K-5, Xander said for him the best part was, “…I liked the t-shirt/hoodie shop. They have really cool designs and lots of colors and designs to choose from. This year I got one that celebrated May 4th –May the E4th be with you!”. Brink also graciously complimented the TD staff, saying, “…they started on time for most rounds. It was well-organized and easy to find my pairings. I really like that the pairings are posted earlier than some other tournaments I’ve done.” Brink does not play in many large chess tournaments with cash prizes. Last year the Space Coast Open was his first large chess tournament where he finished well out of the money. His prize this year was unexpected, causing Xander to say, “I wish my parents had told me I won money sooner than when I was handed a check. It surprised me!” Still, not bad as surprises go.
Brink said, “my toughest game was game 4 because it turned into a very offensive game. and my attack ended up working better than his. My best game was game 3.” Both of these games are presented in the Games section.
Going into the last round, only Brink and Shivbhagat Hegde stood on 4-0, and there were no players with 3.5 points. So a draw in their game would be result in shared first place, and a win by either player meant sole first place. With Brink winning, this dropped Hegde into a tie for second place which nevertheless enabled Hegde to win both the Under 1000 trophy and the Top K-8 trophy. Now it was just a question of how many of the players on 3 points could catch him. With ten players on 3 points, Hegde had to hope for a lot of draws. This was not meant to be, as these 10 players were paired against each other, and every game was decisive. Natalie Macon had the easiest road as her opponent was a no show, giving her the full point after an hour passed, and she could claim the forfeit. In the other games, Eric Speer defeated Oxford Bates, Aaron LeBlanc defeated David Pratt, Parvati Chakrabarti defeated Aariv Cherukuri, and Thomas Ledbetter defeated Duane Schindler. This resulted in a 6-way tie for second place between Hegde, Macon, Speer, LeBlanc, Chakrabarti, and Ledbetter. Each won $330 except for LeBlanc who claimed the higher Under 800 first prize of $400. Despite losing their games, Schindler won the second Under 800 prize of $250, while Cherukuri claimed the Top K-3 trophy.
Blitzing the Night Away
This year we modified the event schedule format so that the main tournament games would finish early enough on Saturday to hold the Blitz tournament after the third round, rather than after the main event ended on Sunday. We also updated the format. In prior years, the Blitz was 4-Rounds with two games against each opponent. This meant some of the top contenders did not have the chance to play. This year, we changed to a 6-round Swiss event with one game per round. We provided the chess sets to ensure there would be no delays as players moved boards and pieces from table to table. These changes seemed like a smashing success. This was most evident by the record turnout of 50 registered players. Also, by the final round there were two players that had pulled slightly away from the pack, and they were paired for the tournament-deciding game. Top seed Jacorey Bynum had won his first 5 games, and faced UF computer engineering student Quan Tanksley, the sole player with 4.5 points. The resulting draw secured clear first place for Bynum, while Tanksley shared second place with two players who won their final game to catch him. Reflecting on the event, Bynum said, “My overall experience was great. The only thing I wish would happen in the future is to have more DGT boards. I feel like playing on DGT boards feels nice. This was my first time playing the blitz tournament at SCO, and I think the 6-round tournament is better than a 4-round Swiss event.”
The Blitz prize winners were:
Place | Winner |
Champion | Jacorey Bynum |
2nd place (tie) | Quan Tanksley Brayan Angel Amaya Alexander Jasinski |
Under 1600 (tie) | Braden Blackwell Amiel Alexander Hernandez Joseph Toth Ryan Yates |
Under 1400 (tie) | Jacob Vassiliev Daneel Kuznetsov |
Under 1000 (tie) | Benjamin Douglas Anton Vassiliev |
Try Not to Get Upset but it is OK to get Hit by the Door (prize)!
Our Upset prizes were sponsored by our book and equipment vendor, Orlando Chess and Games. The upset prizes are awarded for the first 4 rounds and were spread across 3 of the sections. The winners were:
Upset Prize Winners (Rounds 1-4)
Round 1: Sofiya Tal, Class E/Under 1200, 495 point upset
Round 2: Rachata Muneepeerakul, Class D, 440 points
Round 3: Eric Stolen, Class D, 447 points
Round 4: Nelson Frioni, Class B, 337 points
We also give out door prizes. Due to a mix-up, we overlooked the ‘real’ youngest player, and initially gave the youngest player prizes to two players who were one year older. Fortunately, Orlando Chess and Games had provided 10 books to give out, so we had enough prizes for all three youngsters. The official door prize winners were:
Door Prize Winners
Most Senior Player: Gregory “Owen” Grant, age 78
Youngest Player: Suraj Jani, Age 6
Longest trip: WFM Jessica Molina (Boliva)
Poster Trivia Contest: Neryk Davydov
Our book and equipment concession was run by Greg Zelner for Orlando Chess and Games, assisted by his loyal girlfriend, Lucy, who greeted every visitor with a huge smile. On Sunday we also had the ever-popular T-shirt shop run by Rob and Cindy from Wit-T-Shirts.
Grandmaster Lectures
We offered two lectures during the weekend, held before the morning rounds on Saturday and Sunday. The lectures were free for both players and spectators. First up was GM Jianchao Zhou on Saturday morning, who presented games in Sicilian Defense and some endgame lessons. Sunday morning featured an outstanding lecture by GM Nikola Mitkov on Risk Management in Chess. While it is unclear if giving a lecture helped or hurt their results in the tournament, it is safe to say that they are both included in the six co-winners.
The Spirit of Wojo - Brilliancy Prizes
GM Alex Wojtkiewicz (affectionately called “Wojo”) played many times in the SCO and was a regular part of our lecture series. After his untimely passing, we named our brilliancy prizes in his memory. This year we offered three cash prizes totaling $350. IM Javad Maharramzade served as the Brilliancy Prize judge, his 18th consecutive year in this role. Despite the first prize of $200, most players were not motivated to submit a game. While some games are submitted in PGN or harvested from our broadcast, each year I give Javad a thick stack of scoresheets and leave it up to him whether he looks at any of the games that were not specifically submitted. With so few submissions from players, Javad very diligently reviews all available scoresheets -- whether marked for brilliancy consideration or not -- so as not to miss any hidden gems. See our Games page (link below) for the winners of the brilliancy prizes. In addition to the games mentioned in this article, all the games
from our Lichess broadcast are included in our Games section hosted in the
ChessBase cloud.
Closing Remarks and Appreciation
Special thanks to the team that brings you the Space Coast Open. FIDE International Arbiter Jon Haskel served both as co-Organizer and Chief TD, and he was ably assisted by International Arbiter Charles Hatherill. We were very fortunate to have two highly qualified and experienced TDs who ensured the smooth running of the tournament. In addition to his other duties, Jon Haskel also provided the DGT boards for the broadcast. Complementing the broadcast of the raw moves on Lichess, we also had insightful live commentary on the top six boards by former US Women’s Champion and WGM Sabina Foisor, who is in her fourth year providing our live commentary. Many thanks also to the Zelner family and Orlando Chess & Games, our book and equipment vendor as well as sponsor of both the door prizes and upset prizes. With Zoe Zelner playing chess in Spain, her brother Greg Zelner and Greg’s girlfriend Lucy graciously took on the long hours of hosting the bookstore.
The President of the Space Coast Chess Foundation (SCCF) is Dr. Peter Koretsky. He serves as co-Organizer and the co-leader of sponsor relations along with fellow SCCF board member Ori Tal. These gentlemen coordinate the fundraising efforts that support our favorable entry-fee-to-prize ratio, the many side events, and our local scholastics activities. Many players would be surprised to learn the significant expenses in addition to the prize fund that it takes to put on the Space Coast Open (about $35,000 total), which is only possible thanks to the many sponsors listed on our website. Much appreciated behind-the-scenes assistance was also provided by Brenna Pezo and SCCF board members Sureshkumar Rajamani and Andrew Rea. This year we also had two roving photographers, Evan Dyson and Miki Alvarez, greatly increasing the photographic coverage of the event.
Thank you to all!
