Both A and B Grade and still pretty close with many players within half a point of the lead.
PGN for Round 4 by Alex Nagorski
A Grade
Ben Hague vs Alexei Kulashko – After an advantage out of the opening Ben sacrificed a bishop for 3 pawns but the computer was not impressed. Some sharp tactics swapped everything down to RNppp for Ben and RBB for Alexei. A miss-step by Alexei left him no option but to give up his bishops for Ben’s 3 pawns and the game was draw.
Bruce Watson and Gordon Morrell took a fairly quick draw
John Duneas vs Alphaeus Ang – Pretty even until Alphaeus sacrificed a piece for two pawns in the endgame. Alphaeus ended up with 4 pawns vs John’s 2 pawns and a bishop, but Alphaeus pawns were badly placed. John rounded them up and got a Queen himself
Jasmine Zhang vs Alex Huang – After getting a big advantage Alex missed a couple of winning moves to leave Jasmine a little ahead after some swaps. But Alex had enough to draw.
Daniel Gong vs Tomas Madr – Tomas was looking good for a while but after a couple of of mistakes his position fell apart.
Allen fan vs Tim Ha – Tim seems to have resigned fairly early in this game, possibly he over estimated Allen’s attack or the scoresheet is incomplete.
Keith Ward vs Virginia Milne – Virginia continued her good run after spotting a tactic and picking up an exchange and some pawns.
Nathan Goodhue vs Oliver Picken – Oliver turned a single pawn advantage into a two pawn advantage and a won endgame.
Simon Lyall vs Alex Nagorski – Alex had a winning attack but missed the best continuation which left Simon with a material advantage. Simon eventually converted that to a win
Leo Zhang vs Richard Taylor – After going into the endgame a little ahead Leo picked up a 3 pawns.
Paul MacDonald vs Sergiy Kozakevych – Any interesting game which eventually was drawn after good play from both sides.
Major upsets this round were Oliver Picken beatign Nathan Goodhue, Lewis Jordan beating Scott Treanor and Virginia Milne’s win against Keith Ward.
Standings are Alexei and John Duneas in 1st place on 3.5 points with 8 players just behind on 3.0.
B Grade
A few upsets at the top had Ying Wang beating Gaurav Pahuja and Wayne MacDougall blundering into a early loss to Leo Li.
Isaac Yuan also upset Neil Sonnekus and Samuel Sajch beat Tody Zhang
Standings are Louie Wei, Euan MacDougall and Ying Wang in first place on 3.5 while 6 others are just behind on 3.0
Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:
Draft draws for round 5 is below. Subject to late byes as usual.
