IM Marko Zivanic and Francisco Guadalupe II drew their third-round game, both ending with five wins and two draws and in a tie for the Texas State Championship. Marko was the top seed among the 31 players in the Championship while Francisco entered as the twelfth(!) seed. In sole possession of third place was NM Artur Safin who drew both games with the Co-Champions. Thirteen masters were in attendance in this event open to players with over 2000 FIDE or USCF rating.
In the Amateur Championship, Yuri Nunez won his first six games and entered the last round with a full-point lead over Andy Shao, Bovey Liu, Alexander Jiang and Claudia Munoz. In that last game, Shao beat Nunez while Bovey beat Jiang. That allowed Shao and Bovey to tie Nunez for the Championship. Claudia tried very hard to join the group but was held to a draw by the much higher rated William Molina. Claudia fell to a fourth place tie with Akshay Bangale, Austin Jiang, and Atulya Vaidya.
Look for many of the games to be published in an upcoming edition of the Texas Knights magazine.
