The Sprig Cup is a Swiss tournament played across 7 rounds in October, November and December. There are two Swiss Grades of around 40 players each, the split is roughly at the 1500 NZCF July 2019 rating.
Spring Cup Round 1 PGN by Ewen Green
A Grade
Ben Hague vs Karl Holdo – White offers a Morra Gambit but Black declines. White keeps up a steady pressure and thwarts Black from breaking out, eventually White picks up Black’ s Queen. 1-0
Jeffrey Yu vs Bruce Watson – Black gets the better of the opening a middle game but miscalculates while pushing though some passed pawns and white is able to threaten to Queen his own. A draw is agree since black is able to force perpetual check. Draw
Mike Steadman vs Ajit Pendharkar – An even opening an middle game. But Black tried for a nice mate and overlooked White’s check in reply white left Black a piece down. 1-0
Anya Thurner vs Alphaeus Ang – Fairly even most of the game Black picked up a pawn in the endgame but black was able to hold the position and draw.
John Duneas vs Arkadi Polyakevich – Black miscalculated, lost a piece and got further into trouble trying tactics to get it back. 1-0
Kenny Zhang vs Alex Nagorski – White made a mistake in the opening allowing Black to open up a hole in front of White’s castled king. Black was able to relentlessly attack it until he had the win. 0-1
Daniel Runcan vs Stephen Peak – White got himself in a little bit of trouble and offered a draw which the lower-rated Black accepted. Draw
Rauen Le Grange vs Felix Xie – Black picked up a pawn with an opening trick. White managed to restrict Black’s movement though and a draw was eventually agreed. Draw
Tim Ha vs Scott Treanor – A slow opening from White allowed Black to keep up some pressure. White eventually slipped up and allowed Black’s Queen and Rook to invade and scoop up material while threatening mate. 0-1
Grant Burrows vs Don Eade – White found a good tactic but missed the correct followups and ended up 2 pieces down. 0-1
Philli Park-Tamati vs Hugh Gao – White put pressure on Black’s castled King. A couple of errors by Black allowed a quick win. 1-0
Virginia Milne vs Boyuan Zhang – White got lost in her opening and allowed Black to win a piece. Black was able to swap down without too much trouble. 0-1
Hao Tang vs Andrew Michael – A fairly even game but White got a passed pawn and Black’s position fell apart. 1-0
Isabelle Ning vs Abraham Deng – White got pressure with a passed pawn but Black managed to stop and win it. Black then had a better endgame but gave up two pawns thinking he go Queen one of his and ended up with a lost position. 1-0
Winston Weng vs Lakshmi Ravi – Black gave up a piece for an attack but White was able to hold on and swap off pieces until he was just a piece up. 1-0
Jack Chen vs Aaron Wang – White got an attack against Black’s exposed uncastled King. He missed the winning line and ended up swapping to a rook and pawn endgame with White a pawn up. But White lost is extra pawn and a draw was agreed. Draw.
Daqi Mao vs Yolanda Chang – Black made some opening mistakes which gave White a much better position and a potential attack against Blacks King. But White squandered some moves and Black developed her pieces, swapped off White’s good pieces and picked up 3 pawns to get a winning endgame. 0-1
Upsets in A Grade – Round 1
Jeffrey Yu drew with Bruce Watson
Anya Thurner drew with Alphaeus Ang
Scott Treanor beat Tim Ha
Isabelle Ning beat Anraham Deng
B Grade
Upsets in B Grade round 1
Bevis Jiang beat Neil Sonnekus
Adam Ali beat Steve Vezich