The field is starting the spread out in both grades.
Spring Cup 2018 R4 PGN entered by Ewen Green
A Grade
Daniel Gong vs Paul Garbett – The two leaders. White got an attack and a pawn after the opening but failed to find the best moves and black equalised. The players agreed on a draw with Black better but with White able to defend. Draw
Bruce Watson vs Alphaeus Ang – Black played some interesting tactics and ended with an unbalanced position when he took a rook and two pawns (plus 2 passed pawns) for two pieces. Further Swaps left Black with 2 rooks and white with a Knight and two bishops, plus 6 pawns each. Black put pressure on White until he eventually lost a piece. 0-1
Mike Steadman vs Nathan Goodhue – Black handled Whites “1. b4” well enough but White was better afterwards, getting a protected fawn-pawn on h6 with background mate threats. Eventually black slipped up and allowed the threat of Qg7 to happen which forced him to give up material to prevent it. 1-0
Alex Huang vs Allen Fan – A fairly even game until Black slipped up and lost a couple of pawns. 1-0
Tim Ha vs Paul Macdonald – Black played the dubious ‘Rat Defence’ ( 1.d4 d6 2. c4 e5 ) and came out of the opening equal to better. Pieces were changed to get down to an equal Bishop v Knight endgame (with 6 pawns each). The players repeated positions. Draw
Alex Nagorski vs Lewis Jordon – Black forgot his lines to give White a better opening and White was ahead and attacking. But White miscalculated and lost an exchange. He was able able to defend his position and Black settled for a draw.
John Duneas vs Simon Lyall – A fairly even start, Black got a little better at one point but didn’t know how to handle the position and white came out ahead after a series of threats and swaps. 1-0
Don Eade vs Akshay Sharma – Black missed a tactic and lost an exchange. He made a mate-threat that Black failed to accurately defend. 1-0
Clinton Wells vs Winston Weng – White picked up a couple of pawns and that was enough. 1-0
Upsets in round 4:
Alex Hung beat Allen Fan
Paul Garbett, Daniel Gong and Alphaeus Ang lead the grade on 3.5 points. Mike Steadman is just behind on 3.
B Grade
Arkadi Polyakevich vs Stephen Peters – The players swapped to an even position and took a draw.
Stephen Peak vs Ravi Lakshmi – The players swapped to an even position and took a draw.
Upsets in Round 4:
Jacob Chai beat John McCory (700 point rating difference)
Silei Wang beat Parthi Partheepan
Jeffrey Yu beat Andrew Michael
Ying Wang beat Rodney Li
Stephan Peters and Isabelle Ning are 1st on 3.5. 7 players are in third-equal on 3.0