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First Don Wiener Memorial Draws 40 Players in Boston

The first annual Don Wiener Memorial Tournament was held in Somerville Massachusetts on April 14, attracting 40 players. Gus Heck 1k (middle) won all four of his games to take first place and said he will enter his next tournament as 1 dan. Tied for second were Michael Sun (left) and Kan Yao (right), both 3-1. Runners-up, all also 3-1: Jie Liang, Jonah White, Jed Strohm, Graham Higgins, Tiantian Yuan, Karen Ogg, John Aspinall, James Peters, Wensdy Whitehead, Dmitriy Yamkovoy and Anna Wiggins. Old technologies met new at the tournament. "The Boylston Chess Club, in whose space we hold the tournament, has an unlocked cabinet with old wind-up chess clocks," report TD Eva Casey. The dozen or so clocks the Massachusetts Go Association owns are also wind-up. Young Manu Herskovit 17k asked Casey if the clock would tell him when his time was up. "You have to notice when the flag falls," she told him. "What flag?" Herskovit asked. Casey demonstrated by manually moving the clock's big hand forward until it started lifting the red flag. "It's entirely mechanical!" Herskovit said in surprise. With the large number of pre-registrants, Casey was not sure she was going to have enough of the wind-up chess clocks, but Adam Luter got out his smart phone and found a chess clock app. "I would have had to ask Manu how to work that app," Caseys admits. 
- photo (l-r): Michael Sun, Gus Heck, Kan Yao; photo by Eva Casey