Saki Fujita 5D and Yizhi Wang 5D tied to top the 2015 NOVA Congress Tuneup tournament on Saturday, June 13 at George Mason Law School in Arlington VA. Twenty-six players participated. “In an unusual situation in the top band, three players finished 3-1, each losing once to one of the others,” reports organizer Allan Abramson. SOS tie-break showed that two tied for first place, with the third alone in second. “In another unusual situation, there were no players at 2,3, or 4 kyu, resulting in a greater number of higher handicap games than normally is the case,” Abramson noted.

First place: Saki Fujita, 5D and Yizhi Wang, 5D, tied; Quinn Baranoski, 1K, 3-1; Mike Lash, 6K, 4-0; Ernest Ning-Yuan Wang, 11K, 4-0; and Sarah Crites, 13K, 4-0

Second place: Josh Lee, 6D; David Reed, 5K, 3-0; Robert Cole, 12K and Betsy Small, 12K, tied, 3-1; and Antonina Perez-Lopez, 2-2