Australian Open - Day 5

Yesterday was the 'rest day' of the tournament, though in some senses, one of my busiest, with the ACF National Conference in the morning, followed by the Australian Open Blitz (this year I decided not to play, but managed to get a few videos of the action, which I hope to upload to YouTube over the coming days & weeks - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0zfek_UNX6M6G0DHOo3ttw/feed), followed by an ACF Council meeting to conclude ... a busy day with mostly laborious meetings & note taking ...
Today saw the 'home run' of the tournament begin, with all rounds from now until the end of the tournament being single-round days. I was black against South Australian Kim Anderson today & played a horrible game, losing without much of a fight at all. Prior to the game, I discovered that Kim played 1.e4 & 2. Nc3 against pretty much anything & I really didn't have any sort of plan in mind about how to deal with this. The problem is that I really didn't play the game with a consistent plan & seemed to come up with short term moves which didn't work together well. Of course after 5... Qh4+ (a rather committal move), I decided that I should try to keep the pawn & play it like some sort of King's Gambit variation. Once I realised I was in trouble after 11. Kg1 I decided to turn the game into a 'romantic' game & sacrificed my queen. Of course I had overlooked the counter-sacrifice 14. Bxf7+ when white's initiative & black's unsafe king are enough to the game.



Tomorrow I'm white against Matthew Yan, who I really know very little about, other than that he is from NSW. Hopefully I can return to 50% & try to finish the tournament on a positive note.

To finish off, photos from the tournament taken by my girlfriend Greer:

Top boards in the playing hall

Estonian WFM Margit Brokko, whose birthday was today

Contemplating my second move against Kim Anderson ... I eventually decided on 2... c6

Another view of the playing hall

Melbourne Cup Weekender - Day 4

Round 6 of the Melbourne Cup Weekender at the Melbourne Chess Club saw a change in the lead, when Luke Li beat James Morris on top board. This allowed Luke to become the leader by himself with 5.5/6, with James being joined by Max Illingworth & Dusan Stojic in second place on 5/6. A number of players were absent on day 4, with the Monday not being a public holiday, so the large number of players who took half point byes were mostly doing so due to work or school commitments!
Of course the round was not without upsets, which included Max Chew Lee beating Andrew Footner & Paul Cavezza beating Mehmedalija Dizdarvic, while Chris Kolak held Stephen Solomon to a draw, Gary Bekker drew with Colin Cloudsdale & Vishal Bhat drew with Geoffrey Hilliard in other results that did not go entirely according to rating.

The top board clash between James Morris & Luke Li


An exciting tactical slugfest between Karl Zelesco & Dusan Stojic


Another interesting tactical battle, this time between Mukesh Krishnamurthy & Tristan Krstevski


Round 7 saw Luke Li consolidate his lead with a draw against Igor Goldenberg, while Max Illingworth & James Morris played a fighting draw to remain half a point behind Luke, while Bill Jordan beat Dusan Stojic to join the two IMs half a point behind the leader.
There were plenty of upsets on other boards as players started to tire after their fourth day of chess! Paul Cavezza beat Andrew Footner, Geoffrey Hilliard beat Mehmedalija Dizdarevic, Dai Cheng beat Daniel Dobos, Bobby Yu beat John Beckman & Juan Carlos Ospina Alfonso beat Mukesh Krishnamurthy, while Max Chew Lee held Bill Kerr to a draw, Gary Bekker drew with Dimitry Partsi, Finey Dale drew with Michael Addamo, Ray Yang drew with Jason Chew, Heath Gooch drew with John Wildes & Vishal Bhat drew with Calvin Bennett.

An exciting draw between IMs Max Illingworth & James Morris


Another exciting game between young talents Ari Dale & Karl Zelesco


A great example of the attacking potential in the Sicilian Defence by young Jack Puccini against Sam Low


A tactical slugfest between Stephen Solomon & Anthony Hain

Melbourne Chess Club Championships - Round 7

Round 7 saw Guy West retain his half point lead over Ari Dale, after both players drew their games (against Chris Wallis & Domagoj Dragicevic respectively), however the chasing pack one point behind Guy now has three & could have as many as five players, with a number of postponed games to be played in the coming days. The top board clash between West & Wallis had some interesting moments, with Guy initially employing a 'checkers' pawn structure, with most of his pawns on white squares. After some exchanges, a number of these moved to black squares, before ultimately the players found themselves in a queen & minor piece ending. Early in this ending, it seemed like Guy had the initiative, but once Guy declined a queen trade, Chris' queen invaded Guy's position & in combination with his knight pair created some serious problems for Guy. Ultimately these problems allowed Chris to win a pawn, but his king was exposed & Guy found a perpetual check, so the game was drawn.
Domagoj Dragicevic played a Grunfeld against Ari Dale & Ari seemed to get the better of the opening initially, however Domagoj found a nice tactic to win a pawn, before Ari repeated positions to draw the game. Justin Tan beat Justin Penrose to stay in touch with the leaders, while Laurent Michaille also won his postponed game to join the group of players on 5/7 who are still in with an outside chance to place highly in the tournament.
Most of the other games this round went according to rating, which was a bit of a surprise!
Results for round 7 are on ChessChat.
Below is the game between West & Wallis.

Melbourne Chess Club Open Round 7

The sense of deja vu from last week became a little stronger this week, with both Dusan Stojic & Guy West winning their games, to now share the lead in the tournament on 6/7, a point clear of the pack. Carl Gorka beat David Beaumont to join Ari Dale on 5/7 in the chasing pack, which has a few surprises, with Jason Chew getting an unfortunate win on forfeit against an unwell Malcolm Pyke, while Richard McCart found a swindle against Phillip Drew to join Ari & Carl on 5/7. The upset results were not restricted to the top boards, with Jim Papadinis beating Justin Penrose & Abraham Widjaja beating Roger McCart.
As usual, results are available on ChessChat.
Although it was tempting to post the Beaumont-Gorka game, which saw 20+ minutes of post-game analysis between the players, followed by 20+ minutes of analysis with Beaumont & Cavezza, followed by more analysis with Beaumont, Cavezza, anyone else who wanted to join in & Cavezza's laptop as I was leaving, I have decided to post the Richard McCart swindle. Everything is going just fine for Phillip Drew early on in this game - he plays a solid opening, gets a fine middlegame position, builds pressure on the queenside before finally winning material ... all that is left is apparently a simple matter of technique! Just when the end seemed to be in sight, McCart pulled out the interesting (if not completely sound) 42.Rxf6, which obviously shocked Phillip. After walking the king forward to g6, Phillip was faced with the tricky 45.Ne3!? & failed to find either Rc8 or c2, which Fritz saw as the only defenses, and was ultimately checkmated with a somewhat unusual placement of pieces.

Malitis Memorial Round 7

The final round of the Malitis Memorial saw Sylvester Urban take out the event after being on the right side of an opening disaster against Richard Voon. The battle for the minor placings saw a three-way tie for second between Garry Lycett, David Lacey & Justin Penrose after Lacey beat Lycett on the white side of an Exchange Queen's Gambit, while Penrose beat Richard McCart on the black side on an Alekhine's Defense. McCart was far enough in front that his 4/7 was enough to take the rating group prize.
As usual, results and final crosstable are available on ChessChat.
The next event at MCC is the Melbourne Chess Club Open, which starts in a fortnight (September 10) & is a 9 round swiss event.
The game of the round is a short one between Sylvester Urban & Richard Voon. You'll see what I mean by an opening disaster!

City of Melbourne Open - Round 7

Round 7 looked to be a very exciting round on paper, and in many ways it delivered on its potential. Board 1 was where the excitement was, with Justin Penrose castling queenside in a Caro Kann & launching an attack on the uncastled king of co-leader Ari Dale. Just when it looked like Penrose might be making some progress, he played an inaccurate move that allowed Dale to consolidate his position & steer the game towards a winning ending. This allowed Ari to return to once again become the sole leader of the event. Other boards saw a variety of results. The highly anticipated Gorka-Pyke clash was a non-event, with neither player in the mood to play for a range of reasons, with the game ending peacefully on move 15 (with checkmate threatened!). The game between Lacey & Beaumont began peacefully, but became dramatic when Beaumont started to get on top in the position. Rather than defend passively, Lacey launched a counter-attack against Beaumont's king, sacrificing two pieces to try to get at Beaumont's king. Beaumont then put his king on the wrong square, going to e7 rather than g7 & Lacey was able to force a draw with perpetual check. Paul Kovacevic appeared to be cruising towards a win against Rad Chmiel, but went horribly astray in the rook & minor piece ending, ultimately losing a piece. However Chmiel's remaining pawns were difficult to defend & Kovacevic managed to liquidate the position until the final position saw Chmiel with a knight & pawn against Kovacevic's two pawns, with Chmiel unable to maintain his remaining pawn, so another draw was agreed. In other games, Anthony Hain continued another late charge in an MCC event with a win over Richard Voon, while James Martin beat John Dowling & John Beckman beat Gary Bekker.
As usual, results are available on ChessChat.
This week's game sees the top of the table clash between Penrose & Dale. Penrose's attack seemed to be working, until the blunder 22.Bd4, which allowed Dale to get on top & move a point ahead of the the field.

Victorian Championship Round 7

Just when things appeared to be settling down a little bit in the Victorian Championship, round 7 once again shook things up! This was the round of the uncharacteristic blunder, with a number of games decided by blunders that the players involved would normally not make. James Morris was held to a draw by Leonid Sandler, while David Hacche upset Igor Goldenberg to get off the mark in the event!

Current Leaderboard:
Morris 6.5/7
Sandler, Goldenberg 5/7
Dragicevic 4.5/7
Cheng 3.5/6
West, Zelesco 3/5
Levi 3/7
Stojic 1.5/6
Stevens 1/5
Garner, Hacche 1/7

Domagoj Dragicevic has worked his way back into some form over the last few rounds & continued this improvement with a win over his good friend Dusan Stojic. After a fairly even opening, Dusan appeared to be getting slightly the better of the position, although Domagoj was still very much in the game. Uncharacteristically, Dusan made a horrible blunder where he removed one of the defenders of his c3 knight & Domagoj snapped up the free piece, forcing Dusan to resign shortly afterwards.
Eddy Levi's game against David Garner appeared to be fairly level in the early middlegame, before David made a few poor moves that allowed Eddy to take a number of pawns & achieve a winning position, which was enough for David to call it a night.
The clash of the round was between two of the leaders, James Morris & Leonid Sandler. After another fairly quiet opening, James got the best of the middlegame & after a series of exchanges found himself a pawn ahead in a queen ending. James seemed to have the ending under control, picking up two more pawns to have four pawns against one in what looked like a commanding position. James held his pawns with tactical threats & then appeared to miss a tactic that would have allowed queens to be exchanged (52.Qg1+ Kd2 53.Qg5+, although the position may not be correct - scoresheets can be tough to read sometimes!). Ultimately in an effort to promote his a-pawn, James allowed Leonid's queen near his king, which allowed Leonid to begin a series of checks with his queen. In an attempt to avoid perpetual check, James returned some of his extra pawns, but ultimately found himself in a position with a single pawn & queen against Leonid's queen, which Leonid defended successfully, ultimately forcing the trade of queens in a position where James could not keep his extra pawn & the players agreed a draw.
Igor Goldenberg appeared to be cruising to victory against David Hacche, neutralising David's early central control before winning a pawn & slowly moving an imposing wall of central pawns forward. Just when it appeared as though Igor's central pawns were almost ready to secure the point, David threw his queen towards Igor's king & Igor panicked, playing a poor king move that allowed David to seize the initiative & develop threats against Igor's king. In another uncharacteristic display, Igor defended poorly & David played well enough to improve his position, forcing Igor to sacrifice material. This only delayed the inevitable, as David then went about exchanging pieces, ultimately forcing Igor to resign in a hopeless position.
I'd also like to wish Guy West a speedy recovery from his illness, which has forced him to postpone his last two games.
As usual, results are posted on ChessChat.
Full results & tournament crosstable are available on the Chess Victoria website.

Melbourne Chess Club Championships Round 7

Game on! 
After a slow start, Guy West has thrown the title hunt wide open, beating the previously undefeated Dusan Stojic with an unusual sideline (5...f6!?) in the Ruy Lopez to join Dusan in a share of the tournament lead! This has also had an impact on the chasing pack, with Domagoj Dragicevic now only half a point behind the leaders (though he has yet to play either Stojic or West), with 5 players tied for fourth on 5/7 & they are all in with a chance of taking out the event depending on how the results pan out in the last two rounds. Perhaps most impressive of the chasing pack is the unrated Frenchman Laurent Michaille, who joined the tournament in round two & has yet to lose a game, beating Urban & Zelesco along the way, as well as holding Voon & Ly to draws, and is clearly playing like someone rated over 2000! Both Mirko Rujevic & Carl Gorka have been consistent of those in the chasing pack on 5, with their results mirroring each other, with four wins to start before losing to one of the leaders, then splitting the point last week in their individual clash, before drawing again this week. Ari Dale has had solid, though not outstanding results to stay in the hunt on 5, while David Beaumont has had a few lucky breaks go his way in recent weeks to be something of a surprise in the group of players on 5 - not because he's not good enough to be there, but because he's managed to score 2/2 in recent weeks, when the optimistic view of his positions at times during these game would say he would have done well to achieve 1/2 from these game!
As usual, results are on ChessChat.
The game to be replayed this week is the top board clash between Stojic & West, where West played an unusual sideline in the Ruy Lopez to great effect, with Dusan going astray in the unfamiliar position. West had previously played the same line against Zhao in 2001 at the Australian Championships, but Zhao managed to drum up complications on the kingside quickly & went on to win the game. Perhaps this approach is the way to tackle the 'West system', rather than the more restrained (and more typical for the Lopez) approach that Stojic took in this game?

Australian Reserves Day 7

Its official ... as a chess player, I make a reasonable arbiter!
If you thought my chess could get no worse than yesterday's effort, then I now have Exhibit B for the prosecution ... my game against Vineetha Wijesuriya. although I got a reasonable, although slightly passive position out of the opening, I made a few inaccuracies (such as 9...cxd5 rather than exd5) & then played the shocking 11...h6, as I thought the line 11...Ne7 12.Bg5 0-0 was somehow horrible for me, when its simply OK for me (with the slight inconvenience of the Bd7 looking ugly, at least in the short term). Of course Vineetha found the tactic 12.Nxd5 & I'm practically busted, especially after I compounded my error by playing 12...Bc6 (yes, I do remember thinking at the time 'its pinned, I might be able to win it back', without ever considering Nf6+, which goes to show just how badly I'm thinking/playing at the moment), which managed to give up the bishop pair as well as the d-file, so that I had not only a material defecit, but also some horribly placed pieces, which meant that generating counterplay was almost impossible. I played on until almost move 60 out of sheer embarassment that I could play so bad ...
Perhaps 2012 is the year I should be focussing on being an arbiter & working towards the FA (and possibly IA) titles ...

If any of my future opponents are reading this blog, then hopefully they can expect Stead circa 2000 (when my hack-like opening repertoire was at its 'peak') to turn up at the board ... Elephant Gambit anyone??

Melbourne Chess Club Melbourne Cup Weekender Day 4

We have a clear leader, with George Xie now having a one point lead over the field after two wins on day 4 of the event.

As usual, the results and cross table are posted on Chesschat.

Round 6 saw George Xie take control of the tournament with a win over Max Illingworth. Although Max seemed to have the better of the opening, George slowly turned the tables before finally securing the full point. Juniors Zachary Loh & Max Chew Lee continued their excellent tournaments with draws against much higher rated opponents, while Shannon Aguimbag won the battle of the Filipinos by beating Jose Beredo.

Round 7 saw George turn back the challenge of Andrew Brown, while David Garner held Bobby Cheng to a draw. Tricky queen and pawn endings were won by Rujevic (over Solomon) & Morris (over Loh), while Justin Penrose & Max Chew Lee took the lead in their respective rating divisions.

Some games from today's play:

The decisive top board games from round 6





George Xie's win over Andrew Brown in round 7