Johnston off to Chess Nationals for a third time

Ken Johnston
Editor

Could there be a grand master in our midst? Well Marty Johnston has not made it to that level yet, but the 14 year old Rainy River High School student qualified for the National Chess Championships for the third time in his life again over the weekend.
Johnston as well as Ethan Swentik, Mitch Seguin and Brandon Gough all travelled to Thunder Bay over the weekend to compete in the Northern Ontario Provincial Chess Championships. Swentik and Gough both earned 3 points at the tournament and Seguin earned 1.5 pts.
Johnston finished with 4 pts. which automatically qualified him for the Nationals. However after playing his five games he was in a five way tie for second place with four points. Of those three of them were rated higher at the beginning of the tournament than Johnston. He was rated at 1,271 before the tourney. Two of them were at 1,310 and one at 1,280. But because he played opponents throughout the tournament that were higher rated than the other three he ended up being ranked the highest of the five and won the silver medal in the 14-15 year age group.
Most of his games were over quickly. His first game, against Adam Brasheur lasted about 30 moves, but Johnston knew after 20 that he was on the right track. “I started getting position and winning material and that lead to check mate about 10 moves later.”
In game two he faced, “My old friend Julian Faust. It went quicker than I thought it would. He made a critical mistake on his 10th move and he resigned after 20 moves.”
Game three saw him play his first girl of the tournament and also the highest rated player he had met so far. “She was 1,100 at the start of it.”
“She was a tough opponent but played too quickly. She did not think far enough ahead and made her moves very quickly. I took my time and thought my moves out more carefully. For every move she made I had a good counter-move.” The game took 40 moves and Johnston came out on top.
At 3 & 0, Johnston was tied with three other players. He was supposed to face Dominique Nadow, but because they had both started with white the game before officials sorted the tie by colour. He ended up facing Daniel Carrie of Kenora; another long time rival of his.
Carrie was rated only two points lower than Johnston so he knew he would be in a tough battle with him. The game lasted 50 moves and at one point Carrie offered Johnston the opportunity to take a draw and split the points. However Carrie’s 30 minute game clock was running out and Johnston thought he could run him out of time and win that way. With less than 30 seconds left on Carrie’s clock, Johnston was checkmated. “If I lost to anyone I wanted it to be him. He is my best chess buddy at these competitions,” said Johnston Monday.
In his fifth and final game Johnston played a weaker Thomas Nodan and whipped him in 20 moves.
In the end the top three boys and top three girls (or anyone getting 4 points or more) in each age category qualify for the Nationals. Johnston plans to attend them next summer when they are held July 7-10, 2003 at Kapuskasing, Ontario. The previous two times he competed at them they were in Edmonton, Alberta and in Nova Scotia. His best showing was 11th in Edmonton when he was 11 years old.
While none of the other local competitors qualified for the Nationals, Ethan Swentik did win a $300 print as one of the many door prizes at the tournament.
Johnston credits his success in chess to the constant practising on the internet with other chess players. He has been playing since he was very young and when he was nine years old was ranked 7th in all of Ontario at the provincials.