2017 NC State Open Checker Tournament
The 127^th Annual North Carolina State Open with American Checker Federation
District IV Checker Tournament held on Friday, May 19^th & Saturday, May 20^th 2017

"IM John Webster Tournament Honoree" 
Econo Lodge Hotel, 2133 Hanford Rd, Burlington, NC 27215  (336) 227-1270  ( map )

Results:

Congratulations John!  2017 NC State & D4 Champion	Congratulations Michael! 2nd place Winner	Congratulations Tim! 3rd place Winner	Congratulations Ryan! 4th place Winner	Congratulations Lynn! 5th place Winner	Congratulations Teal! 6th place Winner

(Official Cross-table Results)
127^th Annual 2017 North Carolina Open Checker Tournament
May 19^th & 20^th, 2017 - Masters Division 3-Move / Seven 2 game rounds (Swiss) of 1^1/4 hour per game - playing 4 rounds Friday, 3 rounds Saturday

2017 NC State Open Masters By Round, 2Gm

(Swiss, w / 1 repair)

before

after

Finish

Name

City, State

ACF#

Rate

Rate

Op

Rd1

Rd2

Rd3

Rd4

Rd5

Rd6

Rd7

Pts

HPts

Cash

Comments

1

IM John Webster

Stoneville, NC

10147

2069

13

5T3/3

6T3/6

10T4/10

8T2/12

2T2/14

11T3/17

5T2/19

19

100

$375.00

John wins 2017 NC State Open (10th time) &  District 4

2

IM Michael Holmes

Louisville, KY

10144

2127

5

13T1/1

12T3/4

6T2/6

10T4/10

8T3/13

2T4/17

13T2/19

19

99

$375.00

2-way tie for 1st place on game points Split $450+$300=$750/2=$375

3

IM Tim Laverty

Graham, NC

10153

1993

6

4T3/3

13T1/4

5T2/6

11T2/8

7T4/12

8T2/14

8T2/16

16

98

$150.00

2-way tie for 2nd place on game points Split $200+$100=$300/2=$150

4

Ryan Pronk

Chesapeake, VA

10125

2087

8

9T4/4

2T1/5

4T4/9

13T2/11

5T1/12

6T2/14

6T2/16

16

97

$150.00

5

Lynn Steelman

Crandall, GA

10111

1817

11

1T2/2

3T3/5

2T2/7

6T2/9

12T3/12

13T1/13

10T2/15

15

92

$93.00

2-way tie for 3rd place on game points Split $95+$90=$185/2=$93

6

Teal Stanley

Greensboro, NC

10107

1978

10

ByeT3/3

1T3/6

13T0/6

5T0/6

14T4/10

4T3/13

11T2/15

15

89

$93.00

7

Matthew Clark

Fort Mill, SC

10492

1842

2

7T3/3

8T3/6

11T2/8

12T2/10

13T2/12

5T0/12

1T2/14

14

97

$80.00

3-way tie for 4th place on game points Split $85+$80+75=$240/3=$80

8

Jeff Webster

Stoneville, NC

10218

1849

12

3T2/2

5T1/3

9T4/7

2T2/9

11T1/10

1T2/12

4T2/14

14

85

$80.00

9

Mike Choate

Madisonville, TN

12521

1856

1

11T2/2

10T1/3

3T3/6

7T2/8

4T2/10

12T2/12

2T2/14

14

82

$80.00

10

Bobby Gerringer

Pittsboro, NC

12442

1953

4

6T1/1

7T3/4

8T0/4

3T4/8

1T2/10

10T1/11

12T2/13

13

$70.00

11

Arthur Mays

Campbellsville, KY

10191

1794

7

2T1/1

4T1/2

14T2/4

1T2/6

6T0/6

9T3/9

3T2/11

11

$65.00

12

Glenn Fuquay

Elon, NC

12582

1747

3

12T2/2

11T1/3

1T1/4

4T0/4

9T2/6

14T2/8

7T2/10

10

$60.00

13

Buck Smith

Millboro, VA

10091

1790

9

8T0/0

ByeT3/3

12T0/3

14T1/4

3T2/6

7T1/7

14T2/9

9

69

$53.00

2-way tie for 8th place on game points Split $55+$50=$105/2=$53

14

Mike Ross

Burlington, NC

10110

1789

14

Late Entry

Late Entry

7T2/2

9T3/5

10T0/5

3T2/7

9T2/9

9

54

$53.00

Late Entry - playing last 5 rounds

$1,777.00

Total Master Cash Prize - 77% of Total Prize Fund

Results:

Congratulations Grover! 1st place Class B Winner	Congratulations JR! 2nd place Winner	Congratulations George! 3rd place Winner	Congratulations Richard! 4th place Winner	Congratulations Rockie! 5th place Winner	Congratulations Willie! 6th place Winner

(Official Cross-table Results)
127^th Annual 2017 North Carolina Open Checker Tournament
May 19^th & 20^th, 2017 - Class B Division 3-Move / Seven 2 game rounds (Round Robin + Swiss) of 1^1/4 hour per game - playing 4 rounds Friday, 3 rounds Saturday

2017 NC State Open Class B By Round, 2Gm

(Round-Robin, w/repair)

before

after

Finish

Name

City, State

ACF#

Rate

Rate

Op

Rd1

Rd2

Rd3

Rd4

Rd5

Rd6

Rd7

Pts

HPts

Cash

Comments

1

Grover Minor

Greensboro, NC

12659

1703

3

6T4/4

1T2/6

5T4/10

2T3/13

4T4/17

4T3/20

6T4/24

24

$150.00

2017 NC Majors Champion

2

J.R. Smith

Greensboro, NC

10098

1513

4

5T2/2

2T3/5

1T3/8

6T2/10

3T0/10

3T1/11

5T3/14

14

94

$113.00

2-way tie for 2nd place on game points Split $125+$100=$225/2

3

George Cox

Ruffin, NC

12812

1517

1

2T3/3

3T2/5

4T1/6

5T4/10

6T0/10

6T2/12

2T2/14

14

88

$113.00

4

Richard Marlowe

Danville, VA

unrated

1600

2

1T1/1

4T1/2

6T2/4

3T1/5

5T2/7

5T4/11

1T2/13

13

$75.00

First ACF Sanctioned Checker Tournament

5

Rockie Troxler

Elon, NC

12814

1528

6

3T0/0

5T2/2

2T2/4

4T2/6

1T4/10

1T2/12

3T0/12

12

$50.00

6

Willie Tart

Mebane, NC

12865

1533

5

4T2/2

6T2/4

3T0/4

1T0/4

2T2/6

2T0/6

4T1/7

7

$25.00

$526.00

Total Class B Cash Prize - 23% of Total Prize Fund

• Congratulations! To IM John Webster from Stoneville, NC as the 1st Place Finisher of 2017 North Carolina State Open & District 4 Checker Tournament.  This is his 10th time: 2006 thru 2009, 2011 thru 2014, 2016, and 2017.   IM John Webster was also our 2017 ACF District 4 Checker Champion.
• Congratulations! To IM Michael Holmes as 2nd Place, Tim Laverty 3rd Place, Ryan Pronk 4th Place, Lynn Steelman 5th Place, Teal Stanley 6th Place, (separated by honor points) and all the other contestants for their respective finish positions.
• Congratulations! To Grover Minor as the 1st Place Finisher of the 2017 North Carolina State Open Class B Group and recognized as the 2017 NC State Majors Champion.
• Congratulations! To Richard Marlowe from Danville, VA who played respectably considering this was his first American Checker Federation (ACF) sanctioned checker tournament.
• Players were welcomed to Econo Lodge - Burlington by a nice front desk counter display sign announcing: Welcome!! 127th NC State Open Checker Tournament "IM John R. Webster Tournament Honoree"  Playing in Conference Room 247.
• Teal Stanley, NCCA President, opened our 127th Annual North Carolina State & ACF District 4 checker tournament by welcoming 20 players, from 6 States: 12 from NC; 3 from VA; 2 from KY; and 1 each from GA, TN, & SC.  Teal called on Lynn Steelman for our tournament invocation before opening our annual North Carolina Checker Association (NCCA) business meeting and turning announcements and tournament details over to JR Smith, NCCA Secretary. The Business Meeting was called to order at 8:30am Friday, May 19th in the Econo Lodge Hotel conference room 247.  Members in attendance:  6 NCCA Life-Time members were present: John Webster, Jeff Webster, Teal Stanley, Tim Laverty, JR Smith, and Bobby Gerringer; all from North Carolina.  We had 6 other NCCA members: Glenn Fuquay, Grover Minor, Mike Ross, Rockie Troxler, Willie Tart, and George Cox all from NC.  There were 8 other out of state players: Michael Holmes, Arthur Mays, Mike Choate, Lynn Steelman, Matthew Clark, Richard Marlowe, Ryan Pronk, and Buck Smith making a total of 20 players present.  We missed the 4 Ohio Amish players, and these players: Gene Anderson from Dobson, Banner Smith from Raleigh, Morris Auman from Sophia, and Patrick Dallas from Asheboro who were planning to attend.
• We especially appreciate and welcome Michael Holmes from Louisville, KY who drove to Burlington, NC a 550 mile trip or 8 hours on the road, our most distant players. Also making long travel to the tournament was Lynn Steelman, who drove up from Crandall, GA to Madisonville, TN to pick up Mike Choate and then drove into Burlington, a 370 mile or 7 hour trip.
• Teal, called for Secretary JR Smith to read last year's minutes which were preprinted and available to members.  Smith reviewed the 2016 minutes which were approved as presented and read. 
• Announcements: JR Smith spoke about this year's tournament being in honor of IM John Webster who is our "Tournament Honoree" who was on our display sign as "Honoring IM John R. Webster for his life-time of dedication and pursuit of Checker Excellence." Other announcements and reporting were available and displayed on the playroom wall: Tournament Schedule, Playing Rules, & Contributors, NC State Champions, List of Restaurants, Financial Report - yearly history of the fund accounts, and NCCA's total accumulated prize fund withdrawn for anyone who wanted a copy.
• Smith also reported our 2016 Federal Tax Return (990) was filed 1/12/2017, and our NCCA fund account as of 5/15/2017 statements: has a market value of $13,781.06 for our Edward Jones (EJ) account + RBC Wealth Management account has a market value of $14,571.45 for a total of $28,352.51 before this year's prize fund withdrawal.
• Election of officers:  We voted to keep the current officers another year. Teal-president, Jeff-vice-president, JR-secretary, and Mike-treasurer.
• We discussed under topic New Business to play a single division (A & B Class) instead of our planned three divisions and set the entry fee as $25 and any NCCA LifeTime member is exempt of a State Tournament entry fee.  Six players were pull from the 20 tournament players list to fill the Class B Group "not-so-serious senior citizen group" on ratings as: 1700 and below.  We cut the advertised time of the round from 3 to 2.5 hours or (1^1/4 hour per game) and the number of rounds from 8 to 7, therefore playing 4 rounds Friday and 3 rounds Saturday.  We also decided to play the A Class as Swiss with one re-pair and the B Class as Round Robin  with the last 2 rounds as king-of-the-hill.  We also voted to start Saturday's play at 9:00 AM instead of 8:00 AM.  We had 14 A Class and 6 B Class players.  This carried by majority vote because we didn't have enough players available for 3 divisions.
• The top North Carolina player in the A Class will be recognized as the 2017 NC State Open Checker Champion and the highest finishing NC player in the B Class will be recognized as our 2017 NC State Open Majors Champion. Only a NC residence may be a NC Championship title holder. The 2017 District 4 Champion will be the highest finishing player from District 4.  Rules  
• GM stands for Grand Master, IM for International Master, and CM for Candidate Master, are earned titles given by WCDF to distinguish players.
• ACF Rating - Ratings supplied by ICH Checkers www.icheckers.net, program written by Vadim Khavinson, and updated by Joe Moore, our ACF ratings processor icheckers ratings.
• "T" separates player's opponent from player's earned game points for that round as: Draw is 1, Win is 2 points, Bye is 3, and Forfeit is 4.  A forward slash "/ " separates earned game points from accumulated (total) game points.  (F) indicates a Forfeit and (wd) designates a Withdrawal.
• Time clocks, game recorder sheets, and extra pens were available on the back table for those players who wanted them.
• All players were emailed a tournament flyer and or mailed a postcard invitation two months prior to the tournament, and of course all known checker players with an email address got a group email about the tournament with a link to the NCCA's checker calendar.
• Smith also announced, Next year's 128^th Annual 2018 North Carolina Open Checker Tournament will honor Tim Laverty as our Tournament Honoree and be held on Friday and Saturday, May 18^th & 19^th 2018.  This is in keeping with the State Tournament dates as in the past, to be held the first weekend after Mother's Day which is the second Sunday in May.
• Other Announcements: Michael Holmes shared with us his progress with Louisville Checker Club and asked for help and support through: contributions, checker books, checker memorabilia, playing material, etc.  Michael also shared with us his work load no longer allow him time to continue anymore sessions for after school checker lessons for the youth at Catholic Middle School.  He has turned the program back over to Nativity Academy since he doesn't have the time to run the youth checkers program.
• Adjournment:  Our meeting adjourned at 8:57am and a copy of the Financial Report, Annual Report, and Minutes are available to members on-line.  We started our 2017 NC State Open Tournament at 9:00 am in the same conference room. 
• Mid-Morning Friday, Times-News Chief Photographer Steven Mantilla visited us and took pictures for a final newspaper article on our tournament.
• We appreciated the donations and contributions, which are added to the entry fees and with our fund account withdrawal, making a total $2,303.00 tournament prize fund. Again this year, Joe McDaniel graciously supported us with $300.00.
• NCCA Life-Time Members are exempt of any State Tournament entry fees, one of the huge benefits of being a life-time member. 
• We appreciate Tim Laverty serving as director, referee, and score keeper.
• We collected several renewal ACF Memberships at registration.
• Several players bought new Checkerboards and Crisloid Checker Sets.
• All players who wanted a list of the 2017 NC State Open and District 4 players' addresses & emails were available from the tournament director.
• NCCA Executive Committee made the decision for future State Tournaments we would pay a bonus to the NC Champions in addition to the prize fund pay-out schedule much like Tennessee has been doing.
• Our oldest player was Buck Smith, age 86 with a birthday on March 16th, and our youngest player was Ryan Pronk age 31 with a February 10th birthday.
• We appreciate Gayle Smith who made sure we had plenty of water, drinks, fruit salad, salsa/cheese dip, chips, dips, veggie trays, dessert salads, cheese & crackers, etc. available throughout the tournament.
• We also enjoyed the Marco's pizza dinner party Friday evening to which all players, family & friends were invited.  We appreciated Brian Durham, Econo Lodge General Manager for working out a deal with Marco's Pizza through their corporate relationship. They supplied the 11 extra large pizzas & deliveryman's tip ($260 value), and we definitely appreciated this perk!  The pizzas were delicious!  Gayle had fresh salad and dressings to supplement the pizza dinner.  We also appreciate Econo Lodge furnishing hot coffee in the playing room.  We rented 12 rooms during this tournament; Econo Lodge gave us two complimentary rooms for our continued business in addition to the playing room and Pizza.
• A good group of checker players met Thursday afternoon at Econo Lodge for a practice session before the tournament.
• A delightful tournament & wonderful fellowship was had by all who attended.