August 20-21 showed a great tournament for the second year at Bay College in Escanaba, the host of our U.P. Open Championship. First, congratulations goes out to our newest U.P. Champion Randy Peterson who won his first title by winning his first 4 rounds of play. The only player that touched Randy was Wisconsin’s Jonathon Prenot who went undefeated with two draws to split the first place prize money. Of course, Jonathon was not a U.P. resident so he couldn’t make a bid on the trophy. Nikita Sokolov won the junior trophy with a nice score of two points. Fortunately for Nikita the junior trophy does not have the U.P. resident designation and he was able to take the hardware home with him. Although attendance was down, everyone had a good time. For those of us who came close but couldn’t quite score what we needed, I refer to the old cliché, there is always next year. Congratulations Randy Peterson – 2005 U.P. Chess Champion!