Saki Fujita 5D and Yizhi Wang 5D tied to top the 2015 NOVA Congress Tuneup tournament on Saturday, June 13 at George Mason Law School in Arlington VA. Twenty-six players participated. "In an unusual situation in the top band, three players finished 3-1, each losing once to one of the others," reports organizer Allan Abramson. SOS tie-break showed that two tied for first place, with the third alone in second. "In another unusual situation, there were no players at 2,3, or 4 kyu, resulting in a greater number of higher handicap games than normally is the case," Abramson noted.
Gurujeet Khalsa bade a fond farewell to Ning-Yuan Ernest Wang, saying "We first met him a year ago when he showed up at a NOVA tournament with a band of fellow go players from the revitalized go scene at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. His cheerful presence at go events this past year has been wonderful and we wish him a warm sendoff as he heads back to his native Taiwan." Full results:
First place: Saki Fujita 5D and Yizhi Wang 5D, tied; Quinn Baranoski 1K, 3-1; Mike Lash 6K, 4-0; Ning-Yuan Ernest Wang 11K, 4-0; and Sarah Crites 13K, 4-0
Second place: Josh Lee 6D; David Reed 5K, 3-0; Robert Cole 12K and Betsy Small 12K, tied, 3-1; and Antonina Perez-Lopez, 2-2 (6/16) This report has been updated with a correction to the spelling of Ning-Yuan Ernest Wang's name and the addition of Gurujeet Khalsa's farewell to Wang.