Bodek Wins Cadet Playoff to Nab Scholarship
By Michael Regan   
July 26, 2012
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Christopher Gu, Christopher Wu & Michael Bodek

At the end of seven rounds, the very evenly matched Cadet tournament ended with four players tied for 1st with 4.5 points. The Co-Champions are Michael Bodek, Christopher Gu, Christoher Wu, and Aleksandr Ostrovskiy. While all four are collectively the 2012 Cadet Co-Champions, the scholarship to the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) could not be shared, so a two-round knockout tournament determined the scholarship winner.

The base time control for the playoff games was G/15 +5". Similar to the Extreme Chess Championship, players submitted written bids for how low they would be willing to set their starting time to have white. Michael Bodek bid 9:55 and thus had white with a 5-minute time handicap against Christopher Wu.

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Christopher Gu bid 11:59 beating out Alex Ostrovskiy's 12:00 bid and also received white. In the end, the bids were worth it as white won both games. 

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In the final playoff game, Christopher Gu out-bid Michael to get white. 

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In this case, though, the first move was not enough of an advantage, and Michael won the game and the scholarship to UMBC. 

Find full details on the Cadet Championship, including pgn files on the Maryland Chess facebook page and on the official website