Final Auckland tournament for this year is the Papatoetoe Rapid. There is Rapid on Saturday the 1st of December and another Junior Rapid on the Sunday. Entries online here.
2018 Spring Cup R5 PGN by Ewen Green and Alex Nagorski.
A Grade
Alphaeus Ang vs Paul Garbett – White pushed all four of his centre pawns early while black hung back. The position mostly favour Black but was a dead draw once the players swapped to a rook and pawn endgame. Draw
Mike Steadman vs Daniel Gong – White played 1. e4 for a change and got an equal opening and picked up a pawn in the middle game. But he was unable to find the correct move to open up Black’s position and settled for a draw.
Alex Huang vs Alexei Kulaskho – White picked up a great outpost Knight and pushed a rook though to the 7th. But Black swapped out the attackers to equalise. The position finished with neither player able to break though a wall of pawns though the middle of the board. Draw.
Ben Hague vs Tim Ha – Black lost a piece in the openign and resigned. 1-0
Lewis Jordan vs Bruce Watson – White castled the wrong way into an attack and lost a piece to a tactic a few moves later. 0-1
Paul Macdonald vs John Duneas – Black gave up a pawn for little compensation on move 3. He mounted an attack but didn’t make a lot of progress and lost another pawn. However somehow black got back both the pawns going into the endgame. The players drew with equal endgame.
Don Eade vs Nathan Goodhue – White’s position and material went steadily worse. Although Black missed the best move a couple of times. 0-1
Allen Fan vs Alex Nagorski – Fairly even until Black got his Queen trapped. He got a Rook, Night and Pawn for it but the resulting position forced him into a desperate defence. White advanced some pawns to punch in some more holes and it collapsed. 1-0
Simon Lyall vs Clinton Wells – A fairly even game, neither player managed to get significantly ahead. A draw agreed in an even endgame.
Upsets in Round 5
Alex Huang drew with Alexei Kulashko.
Draws on the top three boards left the placings the same. Ang, Garbett and Gong on 4 with Steadman on 3.5. 5 players are on 3 points.
B Grade
Stephen Peters vs Isabelle Ning – White played the Morra Gambit which Black safely navigated. Both players blundered around until White won. 1-0
Stephen Peak vs Sarah Yan – Black gave up an early pawn almost the same way as the Macdonald/Duneas game. White was going well until they put a piece en prise. Black swapped down to a winning endgame. 0-1
Ravi Lakshmi vs Arkadi Polyakevich – White picked up two pawns. However black piled up 4 pieces against White’s king and white made a mistake that allowed mate. 0-1
Upsets in Round 5
Rosa Ryu beat Toby Zhang
Charlotte Wen beat Kelvin Xiao
Rodney Li beat John McClory
With his win Stephen Peters is in Sole lead on 4.5 points. In 2nd eual on 4.0 points are Arkadi Polyakevich, Sarah Yan, Jeffrey Yu and Virginia Milne.