The School Holiday tournaments are all finished. Congratulations to Alphaues Ang for finishing 1st or 1st= in all 6 of them. I’ll pushes fuller results later.
There are just 3 more rounds left in the Club Champs, I’ll put up signup sheets for the next two tournaments (the Spring Rapid and the Autumn Cup) soon.
A draft list of rules has been published for the Monday Night. Feedback is welcome.
Club Champs Rd 6 PGN entered by Tim Ha
A Grade
Duneas vs Watson – All the pieces moved to the Queen side in a melee. White initially looked good but black checked him and then tied his pieces a little defending each other. A inaccurate move later and white was two pieces down. 0-1
Fan vs Ang – An even start but Black game up a pawn on move 18. A couple of moves later things got a lot more complicated as Black forced white to give up a Knight for some pawns and then got a dangerous attack. By the time the dust had settled. Black was a rook and Knight vs a rook with near-even pawns and won the endgame. 0-1
Gong vs Steadman – Black got off to a good start using his h-pawn to punch a hole in White’s kingside. The next 30 moves saw Black’s advantage reduced as White gained space and threats. The position swapped to a rook and pawn endgame with white better. Black missed a chance to draw and white won. 1-0
Hague vs Goodhue – Black made a series of tactical mistakes as White put pressure on him. 1-0
Zhang vs Morrell – White pushed his a-pawn to a7 and picked up two of Black’s pawns in the confusion. Black tried sacrificing a piece but white just gave it back to stay ahead. 1-0
Ben Hague stills leads with 6/6 ahead of Bruce Watson and Leo Zhang on 4.5 . There are a couple of games till to be played however.
B Grade
Ha vs C Yan – An interesting opening. White ended up pushing forward his Queen-side pawns but made a mistake and gave up a pawn as the players circled and traded to a rook and pawn endgame. Black pushed for 40 moves but eventually had to settle for a draw.
Peak vs Lyall – White made a mistake in the opening a lost a Knight for two pawns. But Black game up a pawn and then swapped all material down to a position where he had a bishop and 4 pawns vs white with 7 pawns. Niether player was able to make progress and the game was a draw.
Qin vs Eade – A fairly even game at the start but black had most of the initiative. After some swaps things evened out but black allowed white to threaten a passed pawn. He then made an error in his defense and lost a piece stopping it. 1-0
Ward vs Wu – A fairly quiet opening and early middle game as the players swapped off pieces. Black looked slightly better and picked up a pawn and pressure around move 30. However white defended correctly and then pushed forward a passed pawn. However Black managed to push Queen his own passed pawn just in time and threaten perpetual check. Draw
The Grade is still very close with 3 players on 3.5 and 2 on 3.0 with a couple of games unplayed.
C Grade
S Yan v A Wang – A fairly even game. Neither player seemed to get any real advantage and their repeated positions after 27 moves. Draw
O Qn vs Seabrook – White failed to press his better opening position and allowed black to equalize. He then played waiting moves while Black built up an attack and after a slip Black was a piece ahead. 0-1
I Ning v Burrows – Fairly even until Black had an error and White picked up a pawn, a back-rank pin and a passed pawn in quick succession. 1-0
E McDougall v X Liu – White got a good attack but missed the best lines and after the dust cleared was “only” 2 pawns up. This proved enough however when he swapped to a won endgame. 1-0
Upsets in Round 6:
- Isabelle Ning beat Grant Burrows
- Tom Fu beat Zyre Milina
- Toby Zhang beat Mathew Steadman
- Abraham Deng beat Jianbo Yu
Roy Seabrook, Isabelle Ning and Sarah Yan are now first equal on 5.0 points with 4 players just behind on 4.5