Round 7 finished with a whimper for me rather than a bang ... I played a horrible game against Eugene Schon (ACF 2234; FIDE 2169), getting a passive position where I had no obvious plan & simply allowed Eugene to outplay me without much of a fight. My opening choice was bad - although there's some theory in the c3 Sicilian, the positions are fairly straightforward & do not need the amount of theoretical knowledge that a Dragon or Najdorf might require. Of course by avoiding the main lines with an early d4, I found myself in a passive position with pieces that were practically useless. It didn't help that I didn't consider a number of moves that Eugene made, meaning I wasn't really at my best. Anyway, Eugene played well in the game & deserved the win. The final cross table is something of a description of how players fared against me - those that beat me (Hacche & Schon) finished =1st, those that were higher rated than me & lost to me (Li & Zelesco) finished =3rd, while those lower rated than me that I beat (Lin, Ni & Foo) finished below me.
As far as my next tournament is concerned, I'm not sure what I'll be playing, although I will definitely be playing in the Billanook Classic, although that is an allegro series rather than 'classic' time limit games. Perhaps the Victorian Open or something like that, but I suppose I'll decide closer to the event.
Results are available on ChessChat.
Final Cross Table is also there.
Showing posts with label results. Show all posts
Showing posts with label results. Show all posts
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
Fantasy Chess Olympiad - Final summary
As now seems customary with many of my ventures into the realm of fantasy sports, the Fantasy Chess Olympiad, which had started so well for me, finished with a whimper rather than a bang.
Although the final results have yet to be published, I finished with 249 points, which should put me around 50th place, which is disappointing after starting in the top 10 in the early rounds.
My team's individual scores were as follows:
Nakamura, Hikaru 21
Bruzon Batista, Lazaro 29
Grischuk, Alexander 27
Volokytin, Andriy 22
Stellwagen, Daniel 15
Muzychuk, Anna 21
Zhao, Xue 30
Dembo, Yelena 28
Kosteniuk, Alexandra 26
Batsiashvili, Nino 22
Obviously there were some good selections (Bruzon, Grischuk, Zhao, Dembo & Kosteniuk), combined with some poor selections (Nakamura, Volokytin, Stellwagen, Muzychuk & Batsiashvili), which made for an overall reasonable team, but one that could have been much better. In particular, my board 5s were poor selections - although Stellwagen has lot of potential, he started slowly & with Giri missing the first few rounds he was bound to sit out a number of games in the later part of the Olympiad (and in fact didn't play the last 4 rounds!). I think the key to selecting a good board 5 (essentially 'the reserve'), is to find a team that has a decent squad, but with someone who is out-of-form in the team above them. In hindsight, Aussies Max Illingworth & Biljana Dekic would have been excellent board 5 selections, although it may have been difficult to know this at the start of the tournament.
I also came up short in the best name competition, with the winner being Isolated Puns, which I thought was a bit too cheesy to be the best ... but my name also suffered from a similar cheesiness factor.
Oh well ... maybe next time!
Although the final results have yet to be published, I finished with 249 points, which should put me around 50th place, which is disappointing after starting in the top 10 in the early rounds.
My team's individual scores were as follows:
Nakamura, Hikaru 21
Bruzon Batista, Lazaro 29
Grischuk, Alexander 27
Volokytin, Andriy 22
Stellwagen, Daniel 15
Muzychuk, Anna 21
Zhao, Xue 30
Dembo, Yelena 28
Kosteniuk, Alexandra 26
Batsiashvili, Nino 22
Obviously there were some good selections (Bruzon, Grischuk, Zhao, Dembo & Kosteniuk), combined with some poor selections (Nakamura, Volokytin, Stellwagen, Muzychuk & Batsiashvili), which made for an overall reasonable team, but one that could have been much better. In particular, my board 5s were poor selections - although Stellwagen has lot of potential, he started slowly & with Giri missing the first few rounds he was bound to sit out a number of games in the later part of the Olympiad (and in fact didn't play the last 4 rounds!). I think the key to selecting a good board 5 (essentially 'the reserve'), is to find a team that has a decent squad, but with someone who is out-of-form in the team above them. In hindsight, Aussies Max Illingworth & Biljana Dekic would have been excellent board 5 selections, although it may have been difficult to know this at the start of the tournament.
I also came up short in the best name competition, with the winner being Isolated Puns, which I thought was a bit too cheesy to be the best ... but my name also suffered from a similar cheesiness factor.
Oh well ... maybe next time!
Saturday, 1 September 2012
Olympiad Update ... Reality & Fantasy ...
So the chess Olympiad has finally started in Turkey.
Australia have had a reasonable start to the event, with the Open team performing slightly above their seeding, while the Women's team are slightly below their seeding.
The brief summary of their results so far is as follows:
Open
Round 1: 3-1 win against Namibia
Round 2: 2-2 draw with Norway
Round 3: 1.5-2.5 loss against Mongolia
Round 4: 2.5-1.5 win against Pakistan
Round 5: 2.5-1.5 win against Zambia
Although the matches have been close, the main score is the match score (ie: overall win or loss), with the game points only being used for countback purposes, so Australia are well positioned with a 3-1-1 record.
Individually, results are as follows:
David Smerdon 2.5/4
Moulthun Ly 2.5/4
Aleks Wohl 0.5/3
Stephen Solomon 2.5/4
Max Illingworth 3.5/5
Women
Round 1: 4-0 win against Malta
Round 2: 0.5-3.5 loss against India
Round 3: 1.5-2.5 loss against Macedonia (AKA: FYROM)
Round 4: 3.5-0.5 win against Nicaragua
Round 5: 0-4 loss against Romania
The matches have for the most part been far more one-sided, as Australia seems to be doing the Swiss yo-yo, although the loss to Macedonia would be a little disappointing.
Individually, results are as follows:
Arianne Caoili 2/4
Emma Guo 1.5/4
Sally Yu 1/4
Giang Nguyen 2/4
Biljana Dekic 3/4
After today's round there is a rest day, so hopefully the team can recuperate from the illnesses they are suffering, at least according to David Smerdon's blog, and finish off strongly!
The Fantasy Chess Olympiad, on the other hand, has started off fantastically for me! After round 4, I am sitting in =10th place (out of 235 entries) with 106 points (see my previous post for the explanation of the scoring).
Some things have turned out (somewhat fortuitously in a way) in my favour so far:
Alexander Grischuk is not only scoring well, but he's actually playing on board 2 of the Russian team (so I actually have two board 2 players, rather than a board 2 & 3);
Andrei Volokitin is also crushing his opponents (starting with 4/4) and is in fact playing board 3 for the Ukraine team, not the board 4 that I have him selected as;
Anish Giri (not in my team) has had some passport/visa related issues, so has only just arrived in Turkey for the Olympiad, playing his first game in round 5, which has meant that Daniel Stellwagen has played all four rounds (and even played round 5), in spite of some early poor form;
Yelena Dembo is another in my team who is not playing on the initially allocated board, playing board 1 for Greece, rather than the board 3 as selected;
Overall (up to the end of round 4), there have only been 3 DNPs in my team, as well as only 2 individual losses, which is fantastic for accumulating points (which is what the competition is about).
The competition organisers have also started a 'Week 2' competition, where you can select another fantasy team in the same way as the main competition, but you can select the team with some form on the board, and hopefully come up with a better team overall.
Australia have had a reasonable start to the event, with the Open team performing slightly above their seeding, while the Women's team are slightly below their seeding.
The brief summary of their results so far is as follows:
Open
Round 1: 3-1 win against Namibia
Round 2: 2-2 draw with Norway
Round 3: 1.5-2.5 loss against Mongolia
Round 4: 2.5-1.5 win against Pakistan
Round 5: 2.5-1.5 win against Zambia
Although the matches have been close, the main score is the match score (ie: overall win or loss), with the game points only being used for countback purposes, so Australia are well positioned with a 3-1-1 record.
Individually, results are as follows:
David Smerdon 2.5/4
Moulthun Ly 2.5/4
Aleks Wohl 0.5/3
Stephen Solomon 2.5/4
Max Illingworth 3.5/5
Women
Round 1: 4-0 win against Malta
Round 2: 0.5-3.5 loss against India
Round 3: 1.5-2.5 loss against Macedonia (AKA: FYROM)
Round 4: 3.5-0.5 win against Nicaragua
Round 5: 0-4 loss against Romania
The matches have for the most part been far more one-sided, as Australia seems to be doing the Swiss yo-yo, although the loss to Macedonia would be a little disappointing.
Individually, results are as follows:
Arianne Caoili 2/4
Emma Guo 1.5/4
Sally Yu 1/4
Giang Nguyen 2/4
Biljana Dekic 3/4
After today's round there is a rest day, so hopefully the team can recuperate from the illnesses they are suffering, at least according to David Smerdon's blog, and finish off strongly!
The Fantasy Chess Olympiad, on the other hand, has started off fantastically for me! After round 4, I am sitting in =10th place (out of 235 entries) with 106 points (see my previous post for the explanation of the scoring).
Some things have turned out (somewhat fortuitously in a way) in my favour so far:
Alexander Grischuk is not only scoring well, but he's actually playing on board 2 of the Russian team (so I actually have two board 2 players, rather than a board 2 & 3);
Andrei Volokitin is also crushing his opponents (starting with 4/4) and is in fact playing board 3 for the Ukraine team, not the board 4 that I have him selected as;
Anish Giri (not in my team) has had some passport/visa related issues, so has only just arrived in Turkey for the Olympiad, playing his first game in round 5, which has meant that Daniel Stellwagen has played all four rounds (and even played round 5), in spite of some early poor form;
Yelena Dembo is another in my team who is not playing on the initially allocated board, playing board 1 for Greece, rather than the board 3 as selected;
Overall (up to the end of round 4), there have only been 3 DNPs in my team, as well as only 2 individual losses, which is fantastic for accumulating points (which is what the competition is about).
The competition organisers have also started a 'Week 2' competition, where you can select another fantasy team in the same way as the main competition, but you can select the team with some form on the board, and hopefully come up with a better team overall.
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
MCC ANZAC Day Weekender - Day 4
The final day of the ANZAC Day weekender provided plenty of drama, with a fight to the very end for the minor places (somewhat reminiscent of the Collingwood victory over Essendon, but with less cheering).
Round 6 saw Justin Tan & James Morris continue to distance themselves from the field with wins. Enoch Fan beat Tony Davis to move into third place, while Jack Puccini beat John Dowling. Kris Chan beat Will Bakanursky, while his brother Luis Chan held Jack Hughes to a draw in a tricky opposite coloured bishop ending.
This left Tan & Morris in first & second place, with Enoch Fan just ahead of a huge chasing pack fighting for the minor placings & rating prizes. Both the leaders managed to win their games, which meant that Justin Tan took out the tournament with 6.5/7, with James Morris second on 6/7. Ari Dale & David Beaumont drew their game to both finish on 4.5/7 (as well as sharing the lead in the MCC Grand Prix), but it was Gary Bekker, who beat Max Chew Lee in the final round, who took home third place with 5/7, finishing off the tournament with four wins after a horrible start, proving that the Swiss Gambit is still a viable tournament strategy! Jack Puccini was unable to beat Tony Davis in his quest for a share of third place, and when they agreed a draw, it was Gary who was outright third, with Jack joining a big pack of players on 4.5/7 who finished in equal fourth, just outside the open prizes. 4.5/7 was enough for Jack Puccini & Enoch Fan to share the under 1800 FIDE prize, while 3.5/7 was enough for a share of the second rating division (FIDE unrated), which saw Linden Lyons, Will Bakanursky & Kris Chan collect book prizes. The final game to finish was a tough battle between Tanya Kolak & Alanna Chew Lee, which finished up with Queen & king against Knight & king after Tanya managed to promote a pawn in a tricky knight ending. Although this position is theoretically winning for the queen & king, it is not as easy as it might seem & with her time running low, Tanya missed a knight fork, allowing Alanna to draw the game. A quick check online showed that players in the 2300s have also made the same mistake, so it can be another example of the tricky ending that is good to know, but you will rarely, if ever, get in a tournament game.
The final results, crosstable & list of prizewinners is available on ChessChat.
Next on the arbiting agenda for me is the City of Melbourne Open on Monday nights at MCC, as well as the Victorian Championships (held at Box Hill, MCC & Noble Park on Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturdays) & Reserves (Thursday nights at MCC), which run over May & June.
The game of the day is the round 6 win by James Morris over Ari Dale, with Morris using a tricky move order (5.Qc2!?) to find himself in a favourable Grunfeld.
Round 6 saw Justin Tan & James Morris continue to distance themselves from the field with wins. Enoch Fan beat Tony Davis to move into third place, while Jack Puccini beat John Dowling. Kris Chan beat Will Bakanursky, while his brother Luis Chan held Jack Hughes to a draw in a tricky opposite coloured bishop ending.
This left Tan & Morris in first & second place, with Enoch Fan just ahead of a huge chasing pack fighting for the minor placings & rating prizes. Both the leaders managed to win their games, which meant that Justin Tan took out the tournament with 6.5/7, with James Morris second on 6/7. Ari Dale & David Beaumont drew their game to both finish on 4.5/7 (as well as sharing the lead in the MCC Grand Prix), but it was Gary Bekker, who beat Max Chew Lee in the final round, who took home third place with 5/7, finishing off the tournament with four wins after a horrible start, proving that the Swiss Gambit is still a viable tournament strategy! Jack Puccini was unable to beat Tony Davis in his quest for a share of third place, and when they agreed a draw, it was Gary who was outright third, with Jack joining a big pack of players on 4.5/7 who finished in equal fourth, just outside the open prizes. 4.5/7 was enough for Jack Puccini & Enoch Fan to share the under 1800 FIDE prize, while 3.5/7 was enough for a share of the second rating division (FIDE unrated), which saw Linden Lyons, Will Bakanursky & Kris Chan collect book prizes. The final game to finish was a tough battle between Tanya Kolak & Alanna Chew Lee, which finished up with Queen & king against Knight & king after Tanya managed to promote a pawn in a tricky knight ending. Although this position is theoretically winning for the queen & king, it is not as easy as it might seem & with her time running low, Tanya missed a knight fork, allowing Alanna to draw the game. A quick check online showed that players in the 2300s have also made the same mistake, so it can be another example of the tricky ending that is good to know, but you will rarely, if ever, get in a tournament game.
The final results, crosstable & list of prizewinners is available on ChessChat.
Next on the arbiting agenda for me is the City of Melbourne Open on Monday nights at MCC, as well as the Victorian Championships (held at Box Hill, MCC & Noble Park on Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturdays) & Reserves (Thursday nights at MCC), which run over May & June.
The game of the day is the round 6 win by James Morris over Ari Dale, with Morris using a tricky move order (5.Qc2!?) to find himself in a favourable Grunfeld.
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
Melbourne Chess Club Championships Round 9
The final round saw no surprises on the top two boards, with both FM Dusan Stojic & IM Guy West winning their games to remain on top of the leader board & share the majority of the prizemoney on offer. Tradition at MCC dictates that there must be a playoff for the title, so at some stage we will see another Stojic-West clash (and possibly a repeat of the 'Bandersnatch' 5...f6!? in the Spanish by West) at some stage in the future.
The real interest on the night was the fight for the minor placings & rating prizes. Third place was eventually shared by FM Chris Wallis & Frenchman Laurent Michaille, who both scored 6.5. Wallis took advantage of a blunder by Richard Voon & finished off the game shortly afterwards, while Michaille had a tougher time of it against FM Domagoj Dragicevic in a Maroczy Bind, where a strange position was reached after 18 moves, as all the major pieces remained on the board, but 10 pawns had been captured! The momentum in the game continued to change, with threats & captures sending the various chess engines into a spin, with evaluations ranging from +4.5 to -0.7, with a long period of 0.00, before the white king finally escaped the checks & the black king marched towards its doom, when the engines went into overdrive exclaiming the position to be +17 & Domagoj resigned!
In the rating groups, Karl Zelesco took out the under 2000 division with a last round win over Pano Skiotis to finish on 6 points, which left Richard Voon, Bosko Mijatovic & Sarah Anton tied for second on 5.5. The under 1800 division saw a three way tie for first, with Marcus Ogden, Kevin Brown & Alex Kaplan all finishing on 4.5 points.
Overall it was another high-quality club championship, with plenty of fighting chess & a good turnout of just under 50 players. Dusan & Guy were the two standout players of the tournament & it will be interesting to see what the coming playoff for the title will bring. Chris Wallis had an excellent tournament & showed that he is not far off the very top of the club, while newcomer Laurent Michaille went underfeated throughout the event, playing fighting chess & recording a 2100 performance! Both Carl Gorka & Karl Zelesco should gain a few FIDE rating points from their solid performances, while Richard Voon again showed why he can never be underestimated in an event like this taking some rating points from his higher-rated opponents. Marcus Ogden had another solid result, while Anthony Harris took another step towards a FIDE rating, with a performance in the high 1800s, including a second round draw with tournament winner Guy West.
Final round results & crosstables are available on ChessChat, as well as a list of prizewinners.
The next tournaments at MCC (that I will also be arbiter for) are the ANZAC Day weekender (next weekend), the City of Melbourne Open (starting on Monday April 30), as well as the Victorian Championships (also played at Box Hill & Noble Park) & Reserves (which both start in the first week of May), so expect to see plenty more chess content here in the coming weeks!
The real interest on the night was the fight for the minor placings & rating prizes. Third place was eventually shared by FM Chris Wallis & Frenchman Laurent Michaille, who both scored 6.5. Wallis took advantage of a blunder by Richard Voon & finished off the game shortly afterwards, while Michaille had a tougher time of it against FM Domagoj Dragicevic in a Maroczy Bind, where a strange position was reached after 18 moves, as all the major pieces remained on the board, but 10 pawns had been captured! The momentum in the game continued to change, with threats & captures sending the various chess engines into a spin, with evaluations ranging from +4.5 to -0.7, with a long period of 0.00, before the white king finally escaped the checks & the black king marched towards its doom, when the engines went into overdrive exclaiming the position to be +17 & Domagoj resigned!
In the rating groups, Karl Zelesco took out the under 2000 division with a last round win over Pano Skiotis to finish on 6 points, which left Richard Voon, Bosko Mijatovic & Sarah Anton tied for second on 5.5. The under 1800 division saw a three way tie for first, with Marcus Ogden, Kevin Brown & Alex Kaplan all finishing on 4.5 points.
Overall it was another high-quality club championship, with plenty of fighting chess & a good turnout of just under 50 players. Dusan & Guy were the two standout players of the tournament & it will be interesting to see what the coming playoff for the title will bring. Chris Wallis had an excellent tournament & showed that he is not far off the very top of the club, while newcomer Laurent Michaille went underfeated throughout the event, playing fighting chess & recording a 2100 performance! Both Carl Gorka & Karl Zelesco should gain a few FIDE rating points from their solid performances, while Richard Voon again showed why he can never be underestimated in an event like this taking some rating points from his higher-rated opponents. Marcus Ogden had another solid result, while Anthony Harris took another step towards a FIDE rating, with a performance in the high 1800s, including a second round draw with tournament winner Guy West.
Final round results & crosstables are available on ChessChat, as well as a list of prizewinners.
The next tournaments at MCC (that I will also be arbiter for) are the ANZAC Day weekender (next weekend), the City of Melbourne Open (starting on Monday April 30), as well as the Victorian Championships (also played at Box Hill & Noble Park) & Reserves (which both start in the first week of May), so expect to see plenty more chess content here in the coming weeks!
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Australian Reserves Day 11
Finally an almost reasonable game, although my opponent was definitely playing worse than he ordinarily would, as he lacked motivation after losing his round 10 game from a winning position. Tony played 1...e6, so that kind of took away the posibility of playing the Semi-Slav that I had mentioned in my previous blog post, however I had decided I was going to go head-long into the BDG (or more likely Alapin French, as Tony often plays 1...e6 against 1.e4). Rather surprisingly, Tony played a fairly passive setup, with pawns on e6 & c6, with Nd7 & Be7, which seemed somewhat at odds with his usual tactical style & allowed me to basically put my pieces exactly where I wanted them. With some pressure mounting (though hardly a forced win at this stage)< tony played the awful 13...f6, which pretty much loses on the spot after 14.Nxc6. I managed to play some second-rate moves & didn't finish off the position as quickly as I should have (Fritz likes the idea of playing 17.Be2, followed by 18.Qa3+ & 19.Nxb6, which wins fairly convincingly), although the ending was much better for me in any case. Tony helped the cause by also playing some ordinary moves & I managed to finish the tournament off with a win in under 30 moves.
My final results for the tournament are hardly inspiring, particularly when you consider the number of games where I managed to score at least half a point more than I deserved:
1 Setiabudi Megan 1552 AUS b ½
2 Langer John 1281 AUS w 1
3 Chew Lee Max 1703 AUS b ½
4 Bishop Joshua 1758 AUS w 1
5 Anderson Alistair 1840 AUS b ½
6 Spuler David 1936 AUS w 0
7 WCM Wijesuriya G V 1716 AUS b 0
8 Vuglar Shanon 1537 AUS w 1
9 McKenzie Colin 1674 AUS b 1
10 Bennett Matthew 1746 AUS w ½
11 Davis Tony J 1807 AUS w 1
Overall the tournament was won by Justin Penrose, who scored 9/11, ahead of Ari Dale on 8.5. Both started slowly & only found their way to the top boards late in the event, with the early leaders faltering towards the end of the tournament. Both Justin & Ari are regulars at Melbourne Chess Club (where I also play & run events), so it was good to see some people I know do well in the event, even if my own performance was less than inspiring.
My final results for the tournament are hardly inspiring, particularly when you consider the number of games where I managed to score at least half a point more than I deserved:
1 Setiabudi Megan 1552 AUS b ½
2 Langer John 1281 AUS w 1
3 Chew Lee Max 1703 AUS b ½
4 Bishop Joshua 1758 AUS w 1
5 Anderson Alistair 1840 AUS b ½
6 Spuler David 1936 AUS w 0
7 WCM Wijesuriya G V 1716 AUS b 0
8 Vuglar Shanon 1537 AUS w 1
9 McKenzie Colin 1674 AUS b 1
10 Bennett Matthew 1746 AUS w ½
11 Davis Tony J 1807 AUS w 1
Overall the tournament was won by Justin Penrose, who scored 9/11, ahead of Ari Dale on 8.5. Both started slowly & only found their way to the top boards late in the event, with the early leaders faltering towards the end of the tournament. Both Justin & Ari are regulars at Melbourne Chess Club (where I also play & run events), so it was good to see some people I know do well in the event, even if my own performance was less than inspiring.
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