Vilenchuk sweeps the field in the1st Mulligan Action Tournament

The 1st Mulligan Quick tournament (15 minutes per game) was held Saturday October 18th and seemed
to be really enjoyed by all who attended. Two of the top Scholastic players in the state, Michael
Vilenchuk and John Hughes competed. Michael won all of his games finishing is clear first.
John won all of his games except for his lose to Michael, finishing in clear 2nd. Someone over
20 years old (yeah!) finished in clear third, Vik Raman. There was a tie for the top under 1000
money between 3rd grader Abhi Ramaswamy and Brianna Coleman. The winner was
determined by a 5 minute playoff game which was won by Abhi.

Casden wins World Open, Johnson finishes 2nd

The Mulligan World Open was held on 4 consecutive Saturday, across July and August, 2008. Going into the last round, Vik Raman and Alan Casden were the only players left with perfect 3 - 0 scores while Mark Johnson and John Michael Wright were the only players with 2.5 - .5 scores, both having dropped their half points with scheduled byes. So, it led to an exciting finish with all of the top 4 players having won all of their games that they had played. With the white pieces, Casden had a slight advantage over Raman in the opening. However, true to his chess style, Raman complicated the position until it was difficult to tell who was winning. However, an unfortunate mistake gave Casden the win and the championship. John Michael Wright, the Ohio 3rd grade level champion, was having a strong tournament and was winning his last round game against Mark Johnson. However, John Michael was in time pressure and Mark was able to turn the tables and win the contest, securing himself clear 2nd place. Johnson's strong performance gained him 111 rating points. As a consolation for John Michael, his score was still good enough to win the Under 1400 prize. Tie breaks were only needed for the Under 600 prize, where the 2nd level of tie breaks were necessary to award the prize to Carrie Casden over Eric Kramer. Carrie was playing in her first tournament.

Casden and Donahue take top honors in the first
Mulligan RATED Chess Tournament. Johnson and
Simha win the class prizes

The first Mulligan Rated tournament is now in the history books without any
major incidents. Donahue stepped up big time to show that no one was
going to keep him from his Mulligan paper weight. Frank, played all of the
other prize winners in route to his 2nd place finish, Finishing tied with Frank
but finishing lower on tie-breaks were John Hughes, Vik Raman, and Mark
Johnson. A couple of the strongest unrated players that I have come across in
quite a while, took home the class prizes. Mark won the Under-1400 prize
while Vimal took home the Under-1000 prize.The First Mulligan RATED Chess Tournamen
was held february – march, 2008

Youth Prevails in 2007 Mulligan Unrated

Winning the first Mulligan Tournament was 11 year old John Hughes. Quite a humbling experience to the old class A and expert players who came away empty handed. Finishing in 2nd place and winning the top B plaque was Vik Raman. Vik and John were actually tied for 1st place with 3.5 - .5 scores (drawing their individual match) but John won on tie breaks. His tie breaks scores were benefited by a win over a player rated over 500 points higher than himself! Winning the C group plaque with a 2.5 - 1.5 score was Brandon Mason. We will be holding a rated tournament in January 2008... stay tuned for details.

(l-r): Brandon Mason, John Hughes, Vik Raman