Vigorito, Bhat, Robson and Sevillano Move to Semis
By Jennifer Shahade   
April 13, 2008
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Vinay Bhat
In the 2008 U.S. State champion of champions tournament , held on World Chess Live on April 12 and 19-20 , IM David Vigorito of Massachusettes and IM Vinay Bhat of Northern California won the Eastern and Western divisions. IM-elect Ray Robson and IM Enrico Sevillano came in second in their respective divisions, so they also advance to the semifinals. Bhat will face Sevillano while Robson takes on Vigorito. The format for the qualifier was a blitz (five minutes+ one second incremement) double-round robin.


Standings
Western Conference, 14 games total
 12.5 CofC-NorthCalif  -- IM Vinay Bhat
10.5 CofC-SoCal  -- IM Enrico Sevillano
 9.0 CofC-Arizona  -- IM Levon Altounian
 8.5 CofC-SDakota  -- IM Sandor Kustar
 8.5 CofC-Hawaii  - NM Cornelius Rubsammen

Eastern Conference, 18 games
17.0 CofC-MA  -- IM David Vigorito
13.5 CofC-Florida  -- IM-elect Ray Robson
13.0 CofC-Georgia  -- FM Kazim Gulamali
11.0 CofC-PA  -- IM Bryan Smith
10.5 CofC-Virginia  -- NM Edward Lu
10.0 CofC-NCarolina  -- NM Chris Mabe

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IM David Vigorito with his books, including the new title Play the Semi-Slav. Photo Elizabeth Vicary.

To watch the semi-finals on April 19, Saturday and finals on April 20, Sunday, download the Dasher interface for World Chess Live.The semifinals will be played at a time control of G/60 with a three-second increment. Click here for complete rules. If you are a USCF member, you are eligible for six free months of WCL. To register, please go to http://www.worldchesslive.com/uscf/ and follow the instructions on the page. Correction: Only titled players can use their previous ICC account to log on to WCL. Then "observe" the World Chess Live handles of the final four, "Cofc-MA" Vigorito, "Cofc-NorthCalif" for Vinay Bhat, "Cofc-Florida" for Robson and "Cofc-Socal" for Sevillano. Be sure to download the software in advance so you can watch the thrilling showdown for one of two final U.S. Championship spots. Also, look for updates here on CLO.  IF you have questions about registering on WCL, contact Chris Fitzgerald at [email protected]

Check out game highlights below. In addition to the four finalists, Kazim Gulamali of Georgia's performance is also notable. He missed out by just half a point, and played some fantastic blitz along the way.

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You read more about World Chess Live's sponsorship of the 2008 Grand Prix and 2008 Junior Grand Prix here. Also check out the blog of "f-pawn" Michael Aigner , who helped with contribute material to this article, and also told CLO, "I'm thrilled with these four semifinalists.  In fact, everyone who I wish would get a wildcard and did not is in these semis."