Apologies for the delay with this week’s post. Congratulations to our B Grade Interclub team for their win by 3.5 to 2.5 over Howick.
School Holidays will be starting in a couple of weeks. Please let Simon know if you will miss some rounds. We’ll also get the signup sheet for the Spring Cup up early.
This week we have PGNs from the top 20 boards.
Winter Cup 2017 – R2 PGN by Ewan Green with assistence from Tim Ha and Paul MacDonald.
A Grade
The first 3 games were quick wins due to tactical error by a player, the last had more moves than other 3 put together.
Steadman vs Fan – White went from slightly better to a win after Black miscalculated and allowed a checkmating sequence. 1-0
Ang vs Morrell – Black found a nice sequence and picked up three of whites pawns. However he dropped a piece and resigned. 1-0
Watson vs Hague – Black pushed White’s Queen offside and then overloaded a defender. White resigned a rook and pawn down. -01
Kuashko vs Gong – An unusual opening with trapped queens a piece swaps on around move 15. White got a piece up by the position was complicated. White eventually got an endgame of a Rook and Night vs a Rook (plus 2 pawns to 1) but it took him 30 moves to work around blacks dogged defence. 1-0
After 2 rounds Mike Steadman is the only undefeated player.
B Grade
Yan vs Brimble – White played here usual d4, c4, cxd5 line. Black resigned after getting his Queen almost trapped and losing a piece. 1-0
Ward vs Goodhue – Black kept to his offbeat lines playing “1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 e5” . Black picked up an early pawn and had a nice central pawn group. White tried direct attacks on the Kingside against Black’s king but was unable to penetrate and then trapped his Queen and had to give up an exchange to extract it. Black swapped down to a won King & pawn endgame. 0-1
Eade vs Nagorski – A standard opening got very sharp. White made a mistake and ended up an exchange down with more to follow. 0-1
Seabrook vs Macdonald – See the PGN for full annotations from Paul. An unusual start “1. d4 d6 2. e3 e5” and players swapped Queens. Black was slightly better but white kept in touch and equalised. By move 25 Black was also down to 10 minutes. White picked up a piece but Black had two passed pawns as compensation (RN3P vs R2P). Both players made errors but Black managed to force White to give up two pieces to stop a passed pawn. A few moves later “Roy had finally seen enough. Disgusted he knocked over his king, signed his scoresheet and
walked off into the darkness to contemplate what the hell just happened” 0-1
Goodhue, Macdonald and Nagorski are all on 2 points after 2 rounds.
C Grade
Most games were pretty unmatched but there were some upsets and near-upsets nevertheless.
Everett vs Leo Li – A passive start by white gave Black easy equality. White swapped down to a Two Bishops vs 2 Nights endgame and then was able to favorable swap into a winning king and pawn endgame. 1-0
James Liu vs Stephen Peak – Black lost a pawn and then was down a full piece after we tried to complicate things to get it back. White almost allowed a draw at the end however black failed to find the best line. Later Black had perpetual check chances but eventually made a mistake. 1-0
Rodney Li vs Felix Xei – White had a good start but blundered an exchange and then resigned when Black picked up another piece. 0-1
Mathew Steadman vs Aaron Wang – White copied his dad’s b4 opening. The players took an early draw in an even position. Draw
Ying Wang vs Xinyang Liu – White lost a piece for two pawns around move 20 and an exchange 10 moves later. Black went a little astray at once point and gave back the exchange and white had a possibility of a draw in a pawn vs Knight endgame but missed it. 0-1
Paul Yu vs Wayne McDougall – Both players got a little lost in the opening an agreed on an early draw.
Kelvin Xiao vs Oscar Win – Black gave up two pawns out of the opening. He then gave up and exchange and white just had to keep pushing and swapping from then onwards. 1-0
Louie Wei vs Samuel Sajch – “1. d4 d5 2. f4!?” left white looking worse. But a mistake by Black put White a piece up for 2 pawns. I believe Black resigned but the PGN shows the opposite. 1-0
Simon Lyall vs Toby Zhang – White got Black in trouble out of the opening but missed the best moves and the game was even. Black had an attack against White’s vulnerable Queen but White (mostly) found the right moves and eventually swapped off Black’s attackers. White then pushed a pawn & black realised he had to give up a piece to stop it and resigned. 1-0
Virginia Milne vs Winston Weng – White got lost in the opening and gave up a pawn. Later she lost a piece. She resigned when another was about to be lost. 0-1
Tim Ha vs Tom Foo – The game was fairly even but White swapped to a better position and a won endgame. 1-0
Upsets:
Winston Eng beat Virgina Milne
Kelvin Xiao beat Oscar Qin
Felix Xie beat Rodney Li
Jacob Chai beat David Ansell
There are seven players on 2 points and another 10 on 1.5.