Zoltan Repasi wins new FIDE Open Rapid!

Thursday 19 January, 2023

Tonight we held our first FIDE-rated open rapid tournament for many years. The format was five rounds of 10+5 (10 minutes with an increment of 5 seconds per move).

The event was well attended, and was won by Zoltan Repasi from Hungary, who conceded just one draw, to Stanley Badacsonyi in the final round, thus finishing on 4½/5. Congratulations to him! David Amior was the top Hendon player, in joint 5th place with 3½/5.

The last record I can find of any rapid tournament taking place at Hendon is back in 2014, so it is good to see this tradition revived! That tournament was just three rounds, so I expect it was a slightly slower time limit – meaning tonight’s format was possibly a first for Hendon!

We don’t intend these to be regular events – they will not replace the monthly blitz – but tonight’s seemed to be well-received, so we may well do another one sometime when we have a free evening.

Many thanks to Adam Raoof and Lance Leslie-Smith for organising!

Full standings:

• 1: Zoltan Repasi Jr. (4½/5)
• 2-4: Etan Ilfeld, Stanley Badacsonyi, Ilia Malinovskii (4/5)
• 5-6: David Amior, Heinrich Basson (3½/5)
• 7-11: Ben Keohane, Gopakumar Siddharth, Samuel Tombs, Jonathan Rubeck, Jean-Claude Sartenaer (3/5)
• 12-15: Duncan Kerr, Vikas Sajanani, Salvatore Pepe, Orest Stus (2½/5)
• 16-21: Andrew Medworth, Joshua Spybey, Domenico Napolitano, Ashwat Jain, Maximo Pollack, Jacob Quibell (2/5)
• 22-23: Mohammad Hossein Mozaffari, ACM Shobhin Manocha (1½/5)
• 24-25: Shuborno Das, Jacob Cameron-Potter (1/5)
• 26: Yong Qiu (0/5)

Full results available here.