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Round 5 of the Spring Cup had a large number of decisive results. There was just one draw in A grade (on board 14) and the top 8 boards of B Grade had Wins.

Both grades now have one player in the lead on 4.5 points and 4 players on 4 points. In A Grade Alexi Kulashko is winning while in B Grade Euan McDougall is ahead.

Next week (the 12th) is the last round of the Spring Cup. On the  19th we will be having Pizza, Prize-giving and a Chess 960 Rapid/Blitz tournament.

Round 5 PGN by Alex Nagorski.

A Grade

Alexei Kulashko v John Duneas – The opening was a line with very high winning percentage for white. John managed to come back a bit in the middle game but a swap left each player with a same colour bishop and some pawns and Alexei’s pawns were much better.

Alex Huang v Ben Hague – Ben was a little ahead throughout the game and Alex was on the defensive. In the endgame Ben was a pawn up and 3 pawns vs 1 when enabled him to put on the pressure until he eventually queened.

Allen Fan v Bruce Watson – Allen made a mistake and lost a rook and was unable to recover.

Virginia Milne v Daniel Gong – Daniel was well ahead from early in the game although he missed the best continuations a couple of times so it last 58 moves before Virginia resigned.

Gorden Morrell vs Jasmine Zhang – Another long game. Gordon was a little ahead in the endgame but short on time. He managed to find good moves however and keep the pressure on until Jasmine’s position crumbled.

Alphaeus Ang v Simon Lyall – Simon got a piece trapped early in the game and did not recover.

Oliver Picken v Leo Zhang –  Oliver played 1. e4 c5 2. a3!? and proceeded to kick the unprepared Leo around.

Apart from Oliver beating Leo the other main upset was Tony Wang beating Don Eade.

Going into the last round Alexei Kulashko is on 4.5 while half a point back in second equal are Ben Hague, Gordon Morrell, Bruce Watson and Daniel Gong.

B Grade

The shortest game:

Very few upsets in the round apart from Renae Ghadiali beating Ryan Dukeson.

The Grade is now led by Euan McDougall on 4.5 points with Jame Liu, Xinyang Liu, Leo Li and Jason Huang just behind on 4.0

Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:

• A Grade
• B Grade

Draft draws for round 6 is below. Subject to late byes as usual.

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:

• A Grade
• B Grade

Draft draws for round 5 is below. Subject to late byes as usual.

A few upsets and draws in round 3 of the Spring Cup have left both grades with just a single leader on 3 points.

Round 3 PGN of the Spring Cup by Alex Nagorski.

A Grade

Gorden Morrell and Ben Hague agreed on a fairly early draw.

Alexei Kulashko had a good win over Allen Fan. He was ahead out of the opening and kept putting on pressure until Allen made mistakes.

Alex Huang and Bruce Watson probed at each other a little before swapping to an opposite colour bishop endgame and agreeing to the draw.

Leo Zhang pushed a pawn a little to far against Alphaeus Ang and his attempts to keep it rapidly made things worse.

John Duneas beat Simon Lyall after Simon played some passive moves and John was able to use the time to mount an overwhelming attack.

Don Eade and Jasmine Zhang had a sharp middle game with Jasmine ahead most of the time. After everything was swapped Jasmine had a a winning King and Pawn endgame.

A very long game between Tim Ha and Paul MacDonald was eventually won by Tim.

Virgina Milne managed an upset against Richard Taylor

Sergiy Kozakevych made a fatal slip against Tomas Madr

Major upsets this round were Tim Ha beating Paul Macdonald, Virginia Milne beating Richard Taylor and the draws by Alex Huang and Gordon Morrell.

Alexei Kulashko is now in first place by himself on 3 points while 7 players are just behind him on 2.5

B Grade

The main upsets this round were Winstone Weng beating Toby Zhang and James Liu beating Wayne MacDonald.

A couple of other draws at the top of the grade has left Jame Liu in first place on 3 points with 4 players close behind on 2.5

Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:

• A Grade
• B Grade

Draft draws for round 4 is below. Subject to late byes as usual.

The Auckland Chess Centre Winter Cup was played during September and October across 7 rounds. A & B grade were 8 player round-Robin competitions while C Grade was a Swiss with around 50 players.

A Grade

The winner was of the A Grade was Bruce Watson with 5 points (4 wins, 2 draws, 1 lose).

Second place was Allen Fan with 4.5 ( 4 wins, 1 draw, 2 unplayed games)

Third equal were John Duneas and Mike Steadman on 4.0 points.

Vega Page for A Grade

B Grade

Winner of the Winter Cup B Grade was Don Eade with 5.5 points  (3 wins, 1 default win, 3 draws, 1 lose)

Second place was Alex Nagorski on 5.0 points. Alex won his first 5 games but lost the last two to just be overtaken by Don.

Third equal on 4.5 points was Richard Taylor and Paul MacDonald.

Vega Website for the Winter Cup B Grade

C Grade

First equal in the C Grade was Clinton Wells and Everett Bishop on 6 points. Both players drew against each other and had one other draw.

Third place was Oliver Picken on 5.5. Oliver lives out of town so he had 3 half-point byes but won his other 4 games.

Vega Website for the Winter Cup C Grade

 

Much like there first round of the Spring Cup there were very few upsets in the round 2. However games started being more hard-fought as ratings got closer.

PGN for Round 2 of the Spring Cup by Alex Nagorski.

A Grade

In Ben Hague vs Nathan Goodhue, Ben got a good position out of the opening and slowly improved it.

Paul Macdonald vs Alxei Kulashko was a long game. While Alexei had a small advantage throughout Paul fought on for 68 moves before resigning in a lost endgame position.

Don Eade made some early mistakes against Bruce Watson and resigned quickly

Gordon Morrell pushed Richard Taylor into a cramped position and trapped one of Richard’s pieces. Richard resigned soon after.

Allen Fan and Pouya Seifi had a logn game. Allen was ahead for most of it but Pouya was equal ahead many times and even missed a mate in 3!

Allen won a few moves later however with a temporary rook sacrifice to gain a passed pawn

Jasmine Zhang vs Alphaeus Ang. A fairly even game swapped down to an unbalanced endgame with Alphaeus a pawn up but Jasmine having more mobile pieces. Eventually everything was swapped to a draw.

Upsets were Jasmine’s draw above and Andrew Michael drawing against Alex Nagorski. Simon Lyall also got a point due to a default by Mike Steadman.

After 2 round 6 players are now on 2 points and another 5 on 1.5

B Grade

There we’re several upsets. Tom Fu beat Temu Maroroa and James Liu beat Neil Sonnekus. The unrated players Kenny Zhang and Felix Xei also had wins.

After two rounds 5 players are on 2 points and another 5 on 1.5

Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:

• A Grade
• B Grade
  

Draft Draws for round 3 are below. Subject to late byes as usual.

The first round of the Spring Cup was on the 30th of November. There were very few upsets.

Photos from round one are on Simon Lyall’s flickr page

A Grade

No pgns this week but photos of scoresheets are online here.  The only upset was Bruce Wheeler losing to Pouya Seifi is a mixed game with errors by both sides.

Daniel Gong, Mike Steadman and Leo Shang all took byes however so they will need to catchup.

B Grade

Again quite a few byes and few few upsets. Winston Weng beat Hugh Gao and Brian Zhao managed to draw with Ryan Dukeson.

Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:

• A Grade
• B Grade
  

Draft Draws for round 2 are below. Subject to late byes as usual.

This week was the 7th and last round of the Winter Cup. There were several upsets, see below.

• There are some unplayed games in A and B grade, please let me know if the listed results for the are incorrect.
• The Spring Cup will be starting next week. Entries so far are on Vega for A Grade and B Grade. Please let me know before Monday if you are not listed and wish to still enter or with to withdraw or change grade.
• I’m hoping to do posts with the Winter Cup results, and a report on the Merv Morrison in the near future.

Winter Cup round 7 PGN by Alex Nagorski

A Grade

Nathan Goodhue had a nice position against Alphaeus Ang but a couple of small errors allowed Alphaeus to counter-attack with his queen and catch Nathan in a mate

Daniel Gong vs John Duneas had some interesting play but swapped down to an opposite color bishop draw.

Mike Steadman had a pawn and an attack against Alex Huang but missed the best lines and enabled Alex to make a very strong counter-attack. Alex took perpetual check, however the computer finds a forced mate for Alex (in 14 for the longest line) in the final position. (Note: names corrected from earlier version).

Bruce Watson was having a nice game against Allen Fan before he miscalculated a sequence and ended up a piece down.

B Grade

Just two games played tonight.

Alex Nagorski was going well against Richard Taylor before he miscalculated and lost a piece.

Hilton Jacobs blundered into a mate-in-one early in has game against Paul MacDonald.

C Grade

Clinton Wells quickly beat Mathew Steadman to get a share of first place.

Temu Maroroa and Andrew Michael had an exciting game with Temu almost in checkmate at one end of the board he checkmated Andrew at the other.

The Vega Websites for the Winter Cup Are:

• A Grade
• B Grade
• C Grade

The Spring Cup will start on November 7th and be a six round unrated swiss tournament with two grades. I’ve created Vega pages for A Grade and B Grade with entries so far.

I have put the dividing line between A and B grade at at rating of 1500. Please talk to me if you are interested in changing grade.

The follow players from the Winter Cup have not entered the Spring Cup, if they wish to play they need to enter before the first round.

• Bruce Watson
• John Duneas
• Alex Huang
• Nathan Goodhue
• Paul Macdonald
• Don Eade
• Richard Taylor
• Tomas Madr
• Hilton Jacobs
• Tim Ha
• Clinton Wells
• Eric Wu
• Oliver Picken
• Bishop Everett
• Tony Wang
• Stephen Peak
• Rodney Li
• David Ansell
• Jordan Lewis
• Gaurav Pahuji
• Temu Maroroa
• Jason Huang
• Ryan Dukeson
• John Liu
• Eric Liang
• Tom Fu
• Samuel Sajch
• Uday Jain
• Charlotte Wen
• Abraham Deng
• Shawn Hui

Entries are of course also open to other club members not listed above.

The second last round of the Winter Cup was today, all three grades have clear leaders that will be hard to catch.

• A reminder that the Merv Morrison tournament is on Labour weekend ( Friday 21st to Monday 24th). You can still enter if you want of follow it via vega.
• There will be no Chess on monday night the 24th of October
• The Spring Cup is starting in November, please enter on the signup sheet at the Centre or via email or txt.

Winter Cup round 6 PGN by Alex Nagorski

A Grade

Nathan Goodhue had a good game against Allen Fan but blundered a piece and resigned.

Alex Huang’s position got steadily worse againts Bruce Watson and he resigned when he was about to lose a piece. The computer does show a way to keep it although his position was still bad (so I’m not sure if he saw the tactic or not).

John Duneas played an inferior opening line agains Mike Steadman and went rapidly downhill from that.

Daniel Gong and Alphaeus Ang swapped to a draw.

B Grade

Tim Ha describes his game against Hilton Jacobs: ” We agreed last week that I will play English opening 1.c4 and he’ll play 1… e5. He continued with his plan around putting a piece on b3, by which he won Daniel Gong recently in a rapid game. I managed to resolve my positional weakness and won a pawn. But just as soon as I was going to win more pawns, I blundered a piece under a pin 🙁 However, Hilton took it with an illegal move (bishop jumping from f6 to c4), so he suggested a draw, which I gladly took. 🙂 The position IMHO was won for White, if I hadn’t made the last mistake. But the end was a happy and funny one.”

Alex Nagorski (playing Black) wrote these comments on his game against Done Eade: “Black fully equated the game. The Bishop sacrifice was a surprise. Intuition told me that the attack looked suspicious as all Black pieces are centralised. However, the surprise took its effect, and I failed to find the correct defence line which was 16…Kxh7 17.Ng5+ Kg8 18.
Qh5 Rfd8 and the king escapes. White gets 2 pawns for the piece, but Black is solid if not better. Analysing the game with Don, we agreed that the final mistake was 17… Bg4 whereas 17… Qxd4 had only a pawn down and allowed Black to fight much longer. ”

Richard Taylor commented on his game against Keith Ward “I beat Keith who played the Pirc which I feel is difficult to play as Black but is still good if handled well. But I knew that he always plays too quickly“. My review of the game was it had a lot of tactics and Keith missed some hard-to-see lines.

C Grade

Leader Bishop Everett beat Andrew Michael to keep his sole lead. Clinton Wells also won to be half a point behind on second by himself. Wins for Mathew Steadman, Xinyang Liu and Euan MacDougall leave them on third-equal  another half point back.

The Vega Websites for the Winter Cup Are:

• A Grade
• B Grade
• C Grade

Links to the Schedule for A and B grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

If you are unable to play please contact Simon Lyall either via text (021 575 233) or email to contact @ aucklandchess.nz . Normally you will get a half point bye. Please let us know as early as possible.

The draft draw for C grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

 

Bruce Watson is now ahead is A Grade although John Duneas has a game in hand. In B grade Alex Nagorski is 5 out of 5 while is C Grade Bishop Everett is just half a point ahead of 4 players.

• Upcoming tournament at the Club is the Merv Morrison over Labour weekend ( October 21st to 24th). The entry form has more details
• There is a signup sheet at the club for the Spring Cup with is the final tournament of the year.
• Also a reminder than the NZ Chess Congress will be in Wellington in early January 2017. Go here for the entry form and entries so far.

PGN for Round 5 by Alex Nagorski

A Grade

Last week Danial Gong and Bruce Watson played a catchup game from round 3. Bruce picked up two pawns and then neutralized Daniel’s compensation. Towards the end Daniel picked up a piece and had a chance of a draw by perpetual check but missed one of the long series of moves and allowed the King to escape. Win for Bruce

Nathan Goodhue and Daniel Gong where fairly even for much of their game with Nathan ahead at the end and pressing hard. Unfortunately he made a blunder and resigned.

John Duneas got a very good position against Bruce Watson but Bruce managed to edge back and they settled for a draw.

Alex Huang and Allen Fan had a complex unbalanced position that eventually resolved itself to a draw.

B Grade

Tim states in his game (as Black) vs Richard Taylor: “Black equalised in the opening, then White gave a free pawn, so Black got a better position, but could not quickly implement a winning plan (25… Re6 and later Rf6 could work).  Eventually, Black misplayed a tactical sequence, blundered a piece and went into endgame with 4P+R against 2P+B+R.  Game drawn by agreement.”

Don Eade missed a few Winning chances (and came close to losing) against Keith Ward before the position swapped to a drawn endgame.

Paul MacDonald ended up with a bad bishop in a N+Ps vs B+Ps endgame against Alex Nagorski. Alex executed a well timed swap to pick up a passed pawn and win.

Tomas Midr beat Hilton Jacobs. He missed a mate in 2 at one point but we don’t have a completed scoresheet.

C Grade

A draw by Bishop Everett was enough to keep his lead in C grade. However there are 4 players just behind him.

The Vega Websites for the Winter Cup Are:

• A Grade
• B Grade
• C Grade

Links to the Schedule for A and B grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

If you are unable to play please contact Simon Lyall either via text (021 575 233) or email to contact @ aucklandchess.nz . Normally you will get a half point bye. Please let us know as early as possible.

The draft draw for C grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes