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The DALLAS OPEN |
| March 9–11, 2007 | |
| Organized by Chris Cree |
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Back to 2007 Dallas Open Live Coverage
2007 Dallas Open Commentary: After the Tournament
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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, After the Tournament.
Awards Ceremony
At the risk of it sounding untrue, the prize ceremony really began just a few moments after the last result slip was turned in. There were a couple of recounts and some slips that took longer than we would have liked, but everything happened quickly after those slips came in.
Chris Cree (Dallas, TX; 1870), in his DO organizing hat, conducted the awards ceremony. The first prize was $100 donated to the event by Barbara Van Alen and Larry Rand, Phoenix-area directors who couldn't attend, but wanted to support the DO. It was presented to the hightest-scoring TX word, which Chris went into excruciating detail explaining. "You see, TX is the postal code for the state of Texas..."
The prize went to a very happy Carol Ravichandran (Northville, MI; 1521) for her 167-point TELEXING. (other words submitted: TAXA, TAX, EXPECTS, EXTENTS, SEXTARII, EXHAUST, EXISTING, EXHORT, TAX, OUTFOXES, and SYNTAXES.)
Sam Kantimathi (El Dorado Hills, CA; 1800) paid his entry fee in SamBoards, which were used during the event at the top tables. Chris decided to give two of them away to the players who had the biggest upsets at this year's DO. The first board went to Phyllis Owen (Plano, TX; 896) for defeating Robin Pollock Daniel (Toronto ON; 1856), 476-433, in round 1. The two players had a 960-point rating differential. The second board went to James Bahra (Metairie, LA; 1081) for defeating Kent Nelson (Sandy, UT; 1832) in round 8, 344-335. Honoroable mention went to Deborah Gaudier (Houston, TX; 941) for her defeat of Rod MacNeil (Somerville, MA; 1873), but since she wasn't present, the board went to another "upset" victor.
John Chew was handed the microphone and asked to explain how the class prizes worked. Essentially, the group was broken into smaller groups of either 21 or 22 people. The person with the best record in each group won the prize for that group. Each person who won a cash prize mentioned below was present, which always makes for such a fun awards ceremony! And every winner came up to the front of the room to get a check and to pose with Chris. Most didn't leave without a big hug, man or woman.
Prizes
| # | Description | Value | Winner(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Division A Rank: 1 | $4000 | Wiegand, Dave (#2) 17-5 +1855 |
| 2 | Division A Rank: 2 | $2000 | Cappelletto, Brian (#1) 17-5 +1730 |
| 3 | Division A Rank: 3 | $1000 and UWG | Day, Darrell (#17) 17-5 +1405 |
| 4 | Division A Rank: 4 | $750 | Thevenot, Geoff (#9) 16-6 +497 |
| 5 | Division A Rank: 5 | $500 | Katz-Brown, Jason (#3) 15-7 +1225 |
| 6 | Division A Rank: 6 | $350 | Swift, Orry (#13) 15-7 +985 |
| 10 | Group A Rank: 1 | $300 | Pellinen, Steve (#29) 15-7 +975 (overall rank 7) |
| 11 | Group B Rank: 1 | $250 | Turney, Jill (#47) 13-9 +599 (overall rank 24) |
| 12 | Group C Rank: 1 | $200 | Burbridge, Kevin (#69) 13-9 +684 (overall rank 21) |
| 13 | Group D Rank: 1 | $150 | Southard, Samantha (#85) 12-10 +137 (overall rank 44) |
| 14 | Group E Rank: 1 | $100 | Bahra, James (#110) 12-10 -243 (overall rank 51) |
A real class act, Dave Wiegand had pulled Chris over before the Awards Ceremony to donate 1/4 of his prize to the Player's Championship to be held this July. True generosity: thanks Dave!
We all had so much fun and we were all overjoyed to hear that the Dallas Open III will be happening. Thanks to Chris and Carla Cree for the event, the gift bags, the CDs, the financial backing. Thanks to Bryan Pepper and Mary Rhoades for their director and assistant director duties. Thanks to Dee Segrest and Kate Watson for their annotating help. Thanks to John Chew for great webmastering, pairing, and taking on the annotated games programming (it added so much to the event). See you all next year!