Results
1 Wastney, Scott 2369 6.5 13:W 4:W 6:W 3:W 8:D 7:W 11:W 2:L 2 Dive, Russell 2440 6.5 11:W 6:L 27:W 0:D 12:W 4:W 3:W 1:W 3 Ker, Anthony 2492 6 14:W 7:W 5:W 1:L 6:W 8:W 2:L 10:W 4 Jackson, Ross 1969 5.5 28:W 1:L 23:W 19:D 9:W 2:L 15:W 6:W 5 Nijman, Brian 2205 5.5 23:W 18:W 3:L 7:L 14:W 10:D 8:W 9:W 6 Nyberg, Michael 2061 5 20:W 2:W 1:L 13:W 3:L 18:W 7:W 4:L 7 Sellen, Ian 2054 4.5 24:W 3:L 11:W 5:W 15:W 1:L 6:L 8:D 8 Forster, William 1982 4.5 25:W 0:D 12:W 9:W 1:D 3:L 5:L 7:D 9 Stoeveken, Peter 1858 4.5 0:D 16:W 10:W 8:L 4:L 14:W 12:W 5:L 10 Aldridge, Alan 1944 4.5 0:D 21:W 9:L 0:D 13:W 5:D 17:W 3:L 11 Stracy, Don 1766 4.5 2:L 20:W 7:L 25:W 17:W 19:W 1:L 13:D 12 Kay, Bruce 1833 4.5 26:W 15:D 8:L 21:W 2:L 16:W 9:L 18:W 13 Roberts, Mike 1746 4.5 1:L 28:W 16:W 6:L 10:L 22:W 21:W 11:D 14 Brockway, Andrew 1811 4.5 3:L 24:W 22:W 15:D 5:L 9:L 20:W 21:W 15 Pomeroy, Arthur 2114 4.5 22:W 12:D 18:D 14:D 7:L 27:W 4:L 24:W 16 Havukkala, Ilkka 1851 4 0:D 9:L 13:L 20:W 0:D 12:L 26:W 25:W 17 Shierlaw, Hamish 4 0:D 19:L 20:D 22:W 11:L 23:W 10:L 29:W 18 Wilkins, Mark 1918 3.5 29:W 5:L 15:D 0:D 0:D 6:L 27:W 12:L 19 Van der Hoorn, Mark 2182 3.5 21:L 17:W 26:W 4:D 0:D 11:L 0:D 0:L 20 Veldhuizen, Matt 1544 3.5 6:L 11:L 17:D 16:L 26:W 28:W 14:L 0:W 21 Capper, David 1728 3 19:W 10:L 0:D 12:L 24:W 0:D 13:L 14:L 22 Marney, John 1642 3 15:L 29:W 14:L 17:L 25:W 13:L 0:D 23:D 23 Whittle, Jonathon 1732 3 5:L 25:W 4:L 26:W 27:L 17:L 0:D 22:D 24 Salem, Edmund 1528 3 7:L 14:L 29:W 27:D 21:L 0:D 28:W 15:L 25 Theodosiou, Andreas 1227 3 8:L 23:L 28:W 11:L 22:L 0:+ 29:W 16:L 26 Frater, Dylan 3 12:L 0:W 19:L 23:L 20:L 29:W 16:L 28:W 27 Rabina, Romeo 1781 2.5 0:D 0:D 2:L 24:D 23:W 15:L 18:L 0:L 28 Palmer, Luke 1169 1.5 4:L 13:L 25:L 29:W 0:D 20:L 24:L 26:L 29 Sknar, Andriy 1084 1 18:L 22:L 24:L 28:L 0:W 26:L 25:L 17:L
Reports
Round 8
After his brilliancy against Ker last week, Russell Dive took down Wastney this week to complete a storming finish and completely recover from his early setback. Scott and Russell finish as joint winners. Unfortunately we don't seem to have the score [reminder; ask Ian to join his mailing list if you aren't getting a progressive .pgn file each week]. Sitting next door, I got the impression of a typical Dive win, he can really make it look like an easy game when he is playing well. Both players fully developed their pieces quietly, Russell according to his style fianchettoed his king bishop and kept his centre pawns back, Scott according to his style developed classically behind pawns on d5 and c5. I didn't quite see how he did it, but then Russell engineered a break in the centre that inevitably seemed to lead to an octopus (knight on d6). Next time I looked Scott was a pawn down and it was a big passed pawn also sitting on the advanced d6 square. The rest of the game had an air of inevitability.
Anthony Ker was a half point back, Alan Aldridge didn't seem to know his lines against the Scotch and Anthony was soon in his element with an ideal attacking position.
A further half point back were Ross Jackson and Brian Nijman. On the night Ross emerged victorious after a roller coaster ride against Michael Nyberg. Borg did well to get back into the game after an experimental opening left Ross very nicely placed. Spurning a likely perpetual Mike made a strange decision to allow 40.Rxb6 which exposed his king and led to a position that was much easier to play as white. There was some post match excitement, I suspect that Borg disagreed strongly with some perhaps unwelcome positional assessments provided from the ivory towers of academia by Professor Arthur Pomeroy. Brian completed a good 2011 with yet another smooth game, this time the victim was Peter Stoeveken. Brian has kindly provided notes that appear in the .pgn.
Despite his setback on the night Michael Nyberg was alone in 6th above a gaggle of gays and unionists no less than 9 mid-tablers on 4.5 out of 8. Amongst this group of miscreants was Ian Sellen and your humble correspondent. In the same way that Russell makes the game look easy, Ian and I make it look very hard. Ian assures me that the computer hates almost every decision made in this game by either player. Despite that it was an exciting game, I risked exposing my king by advancing pawns in front of it trying to combat a build up of force in that sector by creating a space advantage. Ian bravely sacrificed a piece to breach my wall and create footholds for his remaining pieces. Wrongly concluding that I would cruise to victory with my extra piece I began playing light-heartedly and made what should have been a fatal error, cutting off my queen's retreat and leaving it vulnerable to perpetual attack from lesser valued opponents. Seeing that he had a kind of "perpetual check" on my queen available, Ian kindly offered a draw. A more ruthless and cold blooded opponent would have played on a while, as the draw was clearly in hand and the possibility of stronger options was clearly in the air. Indeed the computer quickly finds a not-too-difficult way of trapping the queen rather than just harrassing it.
Other games; Bruce Kay won a very nice game from Mark Wilkins in a Saemisch Nimzo. Bruce normally chooses quieter options against the Nimzo, but his more attacking choice was vindicated with a nice mating attack. This win put Bruce in the gaggle and relegated Mark to the bottom half of the table. Another gaggle-bound player was Ilkka Havukkala who was too strong for Andreas Theodosiou and wrapped up with some nice tactics. Don Stracy and Mike Roberts both ended in the gaggle after a quiet draw. Dave Capper walked into a simple rook losing tactic against Andew Brockway to disappointingly lose a pawn up rook and pawn ending. An example of the equalizing injustice of chess perhaps as Andrew has recently been on the wrong end of a similar turn-around against Peter Stoeveken. Andrew ended up in the gaggle, David further down. The last player in the gaggle was Prof Pomeroy. His game against Ed Salem isn't in the file, but my eyewitness account is that basically Art won a pawn early as white in an unusual (4...bxc6) exchange Lopez. Ed failed to provide resistance and allowed exchanges all the way down to an easily won king and pawn ending.
Hamish Shierlaw's return to Wellington Chess Club concluded with a reasonable 50% score after a win over Andriy Sknar. Andriy continues to show ability but doesn't seem to understand he has plenty of time and should use some of it. I've written about that enough and will stop now.
Jonathon Whittle and John Marney continued the nice-guy rivalry we've seen all year and battled all the way to the end in a hard fought draw. Dylan Frater picked up his second win at the club, Luke Palmer had chances in spite of a 2 pawn deficit but walked into a mate.
Round 7
(Note about last week's report - it turns out that Ross wasn't Ivanchuk'ing his game against Russell at all. In the final position Rd1 is white's only reasonable move. Ross decided to combine this move with Kc1, i.e. he picked up his king intending to castle long. Whoops, castling long is illegal so Ross has to move his king which is definitely fatal.)
More good chess this week. A classic Dive-Ker struggle on board 2 was a Kings Indian with a familiar white attacks on the queenside, black attacks on the kingside theme. This time the queenside attack was quicker and Russell wrapped up with the absolutely gorgeous tactic 43.Nf6!!. Sure there were other ways to win but this study like move is fully endorsed by Houdini (+6 points) as the best move. The obvious 43.b6xc7?? instead is in fact a losing blunder (-6 points from Houdini) but the desperado sac of the knight first prepares the way by obstructing all the pathways black has to defend against the advanced pawns, assuring white a new queen or two. This is my nomination for Wellington move of the year.
Against Don Stracy Scott Wastney offered a standard pawn sac in the Sicilian, which gave him an initiative that quite quickly returned the investment plus an extra pawn as a dividend. Scott smoothly converted the resulting endgame to complete a nice evening's work. Nyberg-Sellen was a Semi-Slav in which a quick queenside attack from Michael worked out really well for him. Wilkins-Rabina was an interesting Trompovsky where black allows the exchange but avoids a weakened structure at the cost of ceding a large space advantage. The players traded blunders, Wilkins losing an exchange then Rabina allowing a simple (but nice) two move mating combination.
Nijman-Forster was a well contested game where I succeeded in getting my nose just slightly ahead but then misplayed the promising middlegame setup I had. One of the annoying things about chess is that playing well and getting a good position often just means you are then obligated to play even better (inevitably accuracy is required to make something out of a slight initiative). This is yet another reason chess is a crappy hobby. If I carry out my longstanding threat and give it up you'll have to find someone else to work on the website. Veldhuizen-Brockway saw Matt making a puzzling decision to exchange his good bishop and keep his bad light squared bishop (Matt you don't owe your favourite Dutch and French openings anything - they won't be angry if you occasionally play a game without a bad light squared bishop!). The chess gods were apparently annoyed by this and encouraged him to follow up immediately with a decisive, exchange losing blunder. (Matt points out that swapping the good bishop does win an important pawn and is computer approved - which is completely true. As always email me when I get things wrong and I'll edit or add notes).
Aldridge-Shierlaw saw Hamish unwisely exchanging his Tartakower bishop in a Tartakower QGD and then suffering on the queenside white squares as a result. This led to Alan winning an exchange (in fact exchange losses were a theme on the night) and converting routinely.
Pomeroy-Jackson was a full-bodied, exciting, sacrificial Open Sicilian, with Arthur seemingly returned to his normal red-blooded persona (maybe marking is finished). I am not going to try to assess this game, even Houdini seems confused as the evaluation seems to jump back and forth. I believe white actually lost on time.
Capper-Roberts was a really nice game. Sitting next door gave me a good view and the computer confirms my impression at the time that this was a really smooth exploitation of a positional advantage. Play this one through, David struggles hard but the final stages are really like something out of a textbook.
Stoeveken-Kay was yet another well contested game. Bruce played what started out as a level ending a little passively and Peter did well to make something of this. Double rook endings demand that you play actively even more than single rook endings.
Sknar-Theodosiou featured an attractive little mating combination from Andreas. Something similar I believe happened to Luke Palmer against Ed Salem although we don't seem to have the score.
Round 6
Scott Wastney definitely deserves the brilliancy prize this week for a rather inspired rook sac versus Ian Sellen. Sitting "next door" it mystified me. Both queens were poised to wreak havoc on the opposition queenside, but surely Ian gets to take Ra8 and Nb8 and threaten Bc8 (with check) before Scott gets to take anything more than a pawn on b2 ? It turns out that there are other factors in play that fully compensate for this apparently vast material discrepancy. Black is ready to castle so QxBc8+ is never going to happen and in fact the queen won't be safe on b8. Meanwhile white is many moves away from castling. Plus, black has a powerful bishop and two strong advanced pawns helping the queenside attack whilst white's queen is working alone. One white piece falls off more or less immediately reducing the deficit to a rook, and a further piece loss turns out to be inevitable as well. So in the end Scott got nominal material equality (exchange down for a pawn or two), but much more active pieces, dangerous advanced pawns, plus ongoing difficulties with king safety and congestion for Ian. In the end Scott wrapped up handily by invading with his king and promoting one of the pawns. A very nice win. Postscript: Scott admits to some luck in that the rook sac is a line in ECO which just happened to be about the only thing he looked at before the game. In the standard databases this line has only been played once in an obscure contest.
Some other games; Russell Dive outplayed Ross Jackson with the Nimzo and was ideally placed for typically Dive - esque queenless middlegame domination. But Ross decided to Ivanchuk it (or our very own Mike Roberts) and resign. Puzzling. According to Houdini in the final position Ross has one (obvious) defensive move which limits the damage to 0.5 pawns. Of course Houdini loves nothing better than to grovel almost forever before eventually escaping (that's why it's called Houdini incidentally), but I've always thought of Ross as a resourceful groveller too [edit: see round 7 report for an explanation]. My loss to Anthony was even more pitiful (17 moves versus 19). I decided to try something else against the c3 Sicilian and studied a new line for a couple of hours. Not enough! Imagine being a professional chess player and having to study chess openings for hours a day. I think I'd rather be a chicken sexer or a network administrator (two of the worst jobs in America according to a recent study). Michael Nyberg outplayed Mark Wilkins, in the end Mark blundered conclusively but his position was close to hopeless anyway. Mike Roberts played a rather nice Kasparov style QGD exchange (king knight on e2 envisaging central and kingside pawn advances) against John Marney. Andrew Brockway won a pawn against Peter Stoeveken but blew the ending by fatally blundering the exchange (could it have been a misguided sac?). Matt Veldhuizen played a smooth positional Caro against Luke Palmer. There's something pleasingly aesthetic about a chess game that's decided by an ever advancing wall of pawns slowly crushing the hapless victim to death. What's that I hear you say? No I'm not. Sadism is something else entirely, I hope.
Shierlaw v Whittle looked on track to be a repeat of a previous Marney v Whittle encounter I've written about here. Jonathon must love it when his opponents meet his hippo by mechanically developing all their pieces to apparently ideal squares. It turns out you need a better plan than that to hurt the apparently bizarre setup Jonathon uses. On this occasion 16...Nf4 was a sweet little tactic that seemed to signal the hippo surfacing to effect another thematic Whittle kingside takeover, but Jonathon blew the game by not following up properly and lost a piece. His attack was then insufficient and Hamish slowly took over and converted tidily. Well done Hamish, bad luck Jonathon. Similarly Aldridge v Nijman looked to be following the pattern established by Brockway-Nijman last week, whereby Brian remorselessly grinds out an endgame win. But no! Alan gave up a piece to avert being swamped, then defended resourcefully and managed to swap all the pawns off. Draw. Bruce Kay punished some speculative, weakening pawn play by Ilkka Havukkala in classical style. All in all a pretty good week's chess.
Round 5
(Note about last week's report - it turns out that this was the 4th time Scott has played 7.Qd4 against Anthony in the last 12 months, rendering part of my story a fantasy. Basically the two of them are carrying out a long term debate on the merits of this opening wrinkle. Sorry about that.)
A talking point this week was the appearance of a former junior world champion, Icelandic GM Helgi Gretarsson, at our humble club. Anthony Ker showed admirable sangfroid to recover from something of a beating in a series of blitz games with Helgi to wear down a late arriving Michael Nyberg. Against Bruce Kay Russell Dive used a nice little tactic to exchange queens and transform a game that seemed destined to be an opposite castling attacking race into a positional crush. Against Scott Wastney I felt more or less forced to sacrifice a piece for two pawns to avoid another opening catastrophe disturbingly similar to my club champs embarrassment against Mark van der Hoorn. (Note to self; learn something about this opening before trying to play it again. Please). In fact luckily for me this sacrifice turned out to be better than it looked and offered good practical chances, I even came close to winning the game. Ross Jackson won a nice game from Peter Stoeveken, demonstrating the value of a mass of central pawns. I have noticed before this is one of the killer driller's favourite positional themes. Arthur Pomeroy employing a Kings Indian setup against Ian Sellen's English had his nose in front for much of the game and seemed on the verge of a winning endgame advantage when he dropped a whole rook. Brian Nijman played a nice positional game, overcoming determined resistance from Andrew Brockway in a long ending. Every now and then Alan Aldridge produces a lovely smooth Benko Gambit (a game against Matthew McNabb at Queenstown comes to mind) and his game against Mike Roberts was another example.
John Marney and David Capper converted material advantages against Andreas Theodosiou and Edmund Salem respectively. (Andreas am I imagining it or do you often drop material because in the face of a simple threat you have a preference for a cute counterattack instead of a straightforward retreat or reinforcement ?). Don Stracy v Hamish Shierlaw was a lively encounter, Don got to play one of the standard open Sicilian sacrifices (Bc4xe6) and eventually prevailed in a tactical battle. Jonathon Whittle had another promising looking King's Indian attack, but missed a tactical detail and was overwhelmed by Romeo Rabina's counterattack.
Round 4
Sorry, I got caught up in some work and neglected my duties here. Remember, all games are available via Ian's emailed bulletin. Let him know if you are missing out. Here is a quick summary of some key games; Wastney-Ker on board one was always going to be one of the big clashes of this tournament. The players blitzed out the starting moves of a venerable Pirc mainline. Then Wastney played 7.Qd4, varying from the almost obligatory 7.Bd3 that was played in, for example, Spassky-Fischer Reykjavik World Championship 1972, as well as thousands of other games. Scott always seems well prepared and it was no surprise that he got in a surprise. So as to speak. [edit: see Round 5 for a correction of this] Anthony certainly looked surprised and took plenty of time to reply although it turns out he has faced this move, something of "the new hotness" in the Pirc, before, against Garbett in the 2008 congress. Eventually Anthony chose to sac a pawn for development and open lines. Scott had to batten down the hatches, but he eventually emerged with his extra pawn intact and convert the endgame expertly. A rare 2011 loss for Anthony.
Jackson - Van der Hoorn; For a long time it seemed the student was giving the teacher a lesson as Ross had a beautiful open game and Mark had to grovel. But nothing decisive turned up and then fate took a hand as the chess clock didn't register one of Ross' presses. Neither player noticed for many minutes exacerbating Ross' time disadvantage. When the problem was noticed Mark sportingly offered a draw, which was probably a fair result.
Nijman-Sellen; Ian offered an enterprising piece sac which yielded first two, then three, then four extra pawns. Brian was probably doing okay in the ending for a while, but it was easier to be playing with the marching ants than against them, and when the extra piece fell off, Ian had both extra pawns and mate threats. The computer reveals one defensive resource, but Brian missed it.
Pomeroy-Brockway; I assured Andrew before the game that he would get an Open Sicilian from the normally red-blooded professor. Instead, Art chose something of a namby-pamby system and the game burned out to nothing. Art is becoming a drawing master in this tournament, something to do with an obscure activity called "marking" apparently. My advice is to delegate this apparently tedious task to minions.
Forster-Stoeveken; I got lucky as Peter missed (and I almost missed) a simple one move tactic picking up the rook on a8 in the opening.
Havukkala-Veldhuizen; This game features one of the most amusingly terrible bad bishops in the history of chess. Just look at the final position, Matt is a piece up, but unfortunately the piece is the bishop and it needs to go Ba8-b7-c8-d7-e8-h5-g4-f5 before it can have an influence on the game. From there it could sacrifice itself for the passed h pawn when it gets to h7, if it weren't about 7 tempi too late. Unfortunately this apparently comical situation is an illusion, we need a white pawn on e5 to prevent a freeing pawn sac. Matt actually only loses by 2 or 3 tempi. A nice game from Illka fully illustrating the perils of a good knight v bad light bishop ending in the Dutch (or French).
Round 3
I might update this once I have access to the games, but here are some impressions based on observations on the night; Ker's Panov Botvinnik attack against Nijman's Caro-Kann led to huge early complications as Brian tried to demonstrate downsides to Anthony's simple Q-b3xb7 plan. Brian used almost all his time on just the first 10 moves, but when the dust cleared Anthony was still a (big) pawn up. Nyberg couldn't reproduce his heroics from last week against Wastney, losing a pawn to a standard trap in the Philidor and going downhill from there. I won a smooth game from Bruce Kay with what I call the Ker defence (1.d4 d6 2.c4 e5 3. de de 4.Qxd8+ Kxd8). Aldridge v Stoeveken was complicated and interesting looking, I didn't see how Peter prevailed (Stracy v Sellen and Havukkala v Roberts were both in the same category, black won both of those too). Trompovsky addict Wilkins showed two of the benefits of the system, he bypassed 99.99% of Professor Pomeroy's extensive opening knowledge and got a nice kingside attack to boot. Art defended effectively and Mark decided to accept a draw once black was approaching a safe harbours. Romeo was unfortunate enough to draw Russell in bounceback mode, then a passive response to Russell's (attempted) Benoni saw black dominating right from the start. Remember the old man whose whispered dying words to his son were "Don't take the pawn on b2 with your queen!" ? Dylan Frater didn't either, and found out the hard way that this is not a recipe for happiness, particularly when you are already behind in development and white is attacking wizard Mark van der Hoorn. Jackson missed a winning tactic early, then Whittle got a nice slow-burning King's Indian attack. The post-mortem revealed the winning line, but it was a pretty narrow path and Jonathon missed it. I didn't see Marney v Brockway or Veldhuizen v Shierlaw, and Salem v Sknar finished too quickly for me to register any impression. I did see the closing stages of Palmer v Theodosiou where it looked to me as if the younger generation's representative forgot the en-passant rule. He was already two pieces down though so it was probably moot.
Round 2
Just a quick round report this week. I wasn't there to see it but obviously the big news was Michael Nyberg's win with black over Russell Dive. Borg got out of the gates well with obviously aggressive attentions. The English basically invites a caveman attack with a quick kingside pawn storm, but Russell has seen a million variations of this before and a betting man would not have been optimistic about Michael's chances. (As an aside, I do recall at least one instance of Gavin Marner dispatching Russell with this approach in a Wellington club game). But full credit to Michael, he got some open lines and a virulent attack and Russell was scrambling to stay alive. Just when it looked as if the ship was steadied, Borg came again with some more fireworks, in particular 39...Nxc4 was a nice shot. Again Russell defended calmly and again veteran observers might have expected Borg to crack first. But no, although the position was objectively about level, white had to tread a narrow path and the very natural 46.h6? turns out to be a fatal mistake that presented a Black to play and win opportunity that Michael took with 46...Qd7! and the finish was pretty smooth from there. Congratulations Michael.
I just took another look at the results of this round and I am very pleased to see Hamish Shierlaw is back! Welcome Hamish. (Ian informs me that Hamish was actually winning at one point against Mark Van der Hoorn - but unfortunately he didn't get a scoresheet).
Round 1
A good field assembled for the first round of this tournament on Oct 18th. All the top players from the club champs return, plus FM Scott Wastney and aspirant-to-the-elite Art Pomeroy. Ed Salem returns after a prolonged absence. Welcome back gentlemen. Keen new member Dylan (sp?) Frater finally got to play his first official club game, which, given that he is unrated yet rapidly improving made for a tough first round examination for Bruce Kay. Jonathon Whittle pushed Brian Nijman to the limit also. However in the end there was only one upset, as Mark Van der Hoorn's deliberately eccentric opening play was suitably dealt with by David Capper. As the famous quote from the first World Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz goes after a similarly punishing performance in the latter part of his career; "I may be an old man - but if you stick your finger in my mouth I'll bite it off!"