Endurance Test

A total of 24 players showed up to take part in round 4 of Tuesday Night Action 32. In technical terms, endurance testing refers to when an application is put under stress levels equivalent to that which it would typically face during peak times and observing memory consumption, performance (how badly it slows down the program), and potential defects that either may cause. Tuesday night, that level of testing was put on 3 players from the top 3 boards, and only one could withstand the pressure. On board 1, Dominique Myers(2117) took on Daniel Cremisi(2304) in a French where Dominique played his beloved two knights variation. He sacrificed a piece, and put Daniel under massive pressure with his King stuck in the middle of the board. The stress proved to be a non-issue for Daniel as he defends the position and forces a trade down to a piece up endgame and puts Dominique away, giving him a perfect score after four rounds. Meanwhile, board 2 sees a Sicilian Dragondorf played between Patrick McCartney(2131) and Pradhy Kothapalli(1870). After getting the position traded down to two rooks and a minor piece each, Patrick proceeded to virtually paralyze the Black position, and the stress test proved to be too much for Pradhy. He eventually cracks, drops an exchange for a pawn, and proceeds to go down in the endgame.

The game can be viewed below.



Meanwhile, board 3 saw a From's Gambit between Ali Shirzad(1695) and Sulia Mason(1985). Sulia got White's Queen early, but at the cost of a lot of material, far more than a Queen's worth. That said, his pieces were better placed, and when the stress test was put on Ali, his position cracked. He dropped both his bishops to tactics and what was originally a material advantage became a material deficit and that cost him the game. On the lower boards, Vishnu Vannapalli(1975) took down Luke Harris(1707) while David Blackwelder(1695) defeated David Richards(1641).

In the lower section, Sampath Kumar(1448) took down Hassan Hashemloo(1307) while Julian Parker(1427) defeated Mohnish Behera(1251) and Aarush Chugh(1188) got the upset against Corey Frazier(1404). Other winners include James Scott(629), Phillip Miller(1555), and Bruce Parrish(UNR) while Aditya Vadakattu(1062) got his fourth draw in as many rounds, this time by declaring peace with Richard Trela(1092).

All result can be viewed here.