Pacific Coast Open

The annual Pacific Coast Open is currently being held at the Renaissance Hotel in scenic Agoura Hills, CA, a bit north of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley-Ventura Country region of the state.  Most likely because of Carmageddon, attendance at this event is down about 15% from previous years.  I counted 193 entries, including re-entries and house players, whereas in previous years the attendance was in the 220-240 range.  The hotel is about 15 miles west of Ground Zero for the 405 freeway closure.

As usual, a number of Northern California players have made the 5 1/2 hour road trip down here.  From the Weibel team, Kevin Moy (1854) is the only one here.  And he's doing pretty well, as he has 3.5 out of 4.0 and playing on the top board for Round 5 in the U1900 section.  This is a 6 round event, so there are two more rounds to go on Sunday.  Many Weibel players opted to play in the Bagby tournament over at Mechanics on Saturday.

More updates to follow, if I can procure an internet connection.  Otherwise, I'll update this post with the final results tomorrow.  Perhaps I'll get some pictures as well.

07/17 15:26 Update:   Kevin drew with Steven Morford (1798) in a complicated defensive battle, so he's at 4.0 out of 5.0 going into the final round.  Steven is at the top of the leaderboard at 4.5, with 4 players at 4.0.  So still a decent chance for Kevin to get 1st place if things go correctly.

Update 2 19:30 - typing from an iPad so sorry for the lack of formatting - Kevin won his last game and wound up with 5.0 out of 6.0.

Update 3 07/18 12:00  - Looks like Kevin tied for 1st in U1900, good for $1200.  His rating went over 1900 as well, to 1908.

Tournament results here:    http://www.pacificcoastopen.com/

Interesting side note - juniors got first place in all the upper sections, something fairly rare at a big-money CCA tournament where the majority of the players are adults.  In addition to Kevin, Howard Jed Chen (17 years old) tied for first in the Open Section, and soon-to-be-high schooler Paul Richter tied for first place in the U2100 section.