bracket 1 winners - lall

This JLall was essentially a double elimination event and Lall never lost a match on their way to winning Bracket 1. The team was 5-handed, with Venkatrao Koneru and Jim Krekorian playing as a pair throughout and Hemant Lall playing half with Reese Milner and half with Michael Penick. Playing every board for five long days was a real test of stamina. In the final, Lall beat Levine (Passell, Berkowitz-Meckstroth, Rodwell-Wold, NPC Morris) 129-91; the second quarter was an amazing 74-2 for Lall.

Hemant Lall                           Reese Milner                       Michael Penick

Venkatrao Koneru                  Jim Krekorian

bracket 2 winners - sprung

The Sprung team (Sprung-Clayton, Baseggio-Freeman, Bramley-Hessel) lost a close Bracket 1 Semifinal match to Lall, finished second in the 3-way USA2 Semifinal to advance to the Final, and closely defeated Lo (Lo-Chechelashvili, Chorush-Alex Kolesnik, Milgrim-Rigal, with substitutes Jiang Gu and Rick Zucker when only 3 team members were able to play) 65-64 in a shortened USA2 Final in which the Lo team picked up 14 IMPs on the penultimate board to come within 1.