Results
A Grade
No Name Loc Total #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 1 Dive, Russell 2429 5 . W W W W W 2 Ker, Anthony 2451 3.5 L . D W W W 3 Wastney, Scott 2388 2.5 L D . L W W 4 Nijman, Brian 2155 2 L L W . L W 5 Pomeroy, Arthur 2111 1 L L L W . L 6 Nyberg, Michael 2076 1 L L L L W .
B Grade
No Name Loc Total #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 1 Stone, Andrew 1963 4.5 . W D W W W 2 Meyer, Marany 2065 3 L . W W D D 3 Aldridge, Alan 1934 2.5 D L . L W W 4 Forster, Bill 2041 2.5 L L W . D W 5 Jackson, Ross 2060 1.5 L D L D . D 6 Sellen, Ian 2069 1 L D L L D .
C Grade
No Name Loc Total #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 1 Nicholls, Alistair 1760 4 . L W W W W 2 Stoeveken, Peter 1888 4 W . D W W D 3 Hewson, Michael 1799 3 L D . D W W 4 Brockway, Andrew 1813 1.5 L L D . D D 5 Farrington, Lawrenc 1767 1.5 L L L D . W 6 Roberts, Mike 1868 1 L D L D L .
D Grade
No Name Loc Total #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 1 Shierlaw, Hamish 1591 4 . W D W W D 2 Whittle, Jonathon 1605 4 L . W W W W 3 Timergazi, Layla 1648 3.5 D L . W W W 4 Marney, John 1627 2 L L L . W W 5 Cook, John 1648 1 L L L L . W 6 Anderson, Gordon 1652 .5 D L L L L .
E Grade
No Name Loc Total #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 1 Heaton, Ken 4 . W D D W W 2 Veldhuizen, Matt 1537 4 L . W W W W 3 Frater, Dylan 1586 3.5 D L . W W W 4 Timergazi, Irek 2.5 D L L . W W 5 Theodosiou, Andreas 1231 1 L L L L . W 6 Palmer, Luke 1140 0 L L L L L .
Reports
Catch-up round
Suddenly the tournament is over. Congratulations to Russell Dive and Andrew Stone for dominant performances in the top two grades. The other grades were more closely fought, although in the C grade Alistair Nicholls is on fire with 4 out of 4 with one unplayed game. That is the only unplayed game in the tournament, and actually if Peter Stoeveken wins it he can still draw level with Alistair [update 23/6/2012 - Peter did in fact win their much delayed game on Tuesday 19/6/2012 - both players are joint winners of the C grade]. In the D grade Jonathon Whittle and the unbeaten Hamish Shierlaw were joint winners with Layla Timergazi just a half a point back. Well done Hamish, your first tournament win I think. Similarly in the E grade Matt Veldhuizen and the unbeaten Ken Heaton were joint winners on 4 out of 5, with Dylan Frater just half a point back.
Just four games were needed in the catch-up round, and they were all interesting.
Michael Nyberg played an interesting Anti-Sicilian against Arthur Pomeroy, the Bd3 system, sometimes called the Kopec system, I think. The bishop is temporarily ugly on d3 blocking the d pawn, but white tidies up his position with c3 and Bc2 for a Lopez like setup. Arthur responded well, adopting a Lopez (sideline) setup himself with e5, Ne7, g6 and Bg7. The fianchetto defuses the number one Lopez idea of Nb1-d2-f1-g3- f5. In fact redeploying the dark bishop to g7 is often a Lopez manoevre for this reason. Arthur's approach avoided the tempo losses involved in that, and he also didn't need to move the Nc6 twice to get a knight on c6 behind a c pawn on c5 as also often happens in the Lopez. The result of all these saved tempi was a significant opening advantage for black. Unfortunately for Arthur converting his dream position into a win required safe navigation through some tactical trickery from the ever cunning Nyberg, who was enjoying his traditional massive time advantage. Sadly for those sympathetic to classical ideas in chess and education, Arthur stumbled a couple of times and came a cropper.
Nijman-Wastney was an exciting and well played game. It was humbling to a B grader to play over the game and see long sequences of computer approved moves in highly tactical situations. In a Torre attack Brian went for a massive kingside buildup, and Scott countered with a queenside breakthrough. Scott avoided "castling into it" and evacuated his king to d7 when Brian's kingside breakthrough eventually arrived. For the great majority of the game, Scott had a small material advantage and theoretical plus. But Brian always retained the decent practical chances that come from owning one side of the board. Retaining his advantage required Scott to tread a very narrow path, he almost made it, but not quite, ending up in a K+P v K+P ending that was won for Brian, by a single tempo.
As I discovered painfully during the Wellington Open, Andrew Stone is proficient with a kind of Grunfeld anti-English system, and this worked out well against Ian Sellen. Ian played d4 fairly early, so in fact it was probably a transposition to a real Grunfeld. Facing the traditional Grunfeld problem of a collapsing centre, Ian went for an interesting piece sacrifice idea that fell a little short.
Finally the aggressive and tactically astute Alistair Nicholls kept up his dream return to tournament play by dispatching Mike Roberts quite quickly with the Albin Counter Gambit, something of a theme tournament at the Wellington Chess Club this year.
Round 5
Sorry, too busy, no report.
Round 4
Sorry, just a mini-report this week;
I have been writing exclusively about individual games and ignoring the tournament standings. With the final round coming up next week, how are the individual tournaments shaping up ? The simple answer is that the A grade is clear cut (Russell Dive has already secured first place by himself), in the B grade Andrew Stone is a big favourite to win (he's on 100%, his nearest competitor is on 62.5%), but the lowest three grades are still wide open.
Russell was always going to be hard to stop after beating the other two titled players in the first two weeks. Since then, he has rather imperiously swept aside the challenges of Nyberg and Pomeroy. And since Scott and Anthony drew this week, no-one else can even match the 4 points Russell already has. Dive-Pomeroy this week was amusing with Arthur losing on time in a hopeless position (his pieces are insecure and the queen is too exposed - something is going to drop off) after only 20 moves with no pieces yet exchanged. Wastney-Ker was yet another 7.Qd4 Austrian Pirc. Just like last time (Wellington Open, last round) Anthony managed to grovel a draw from a worse ending.
Some other nice games this week; Nyberg-Njiman was a nice positional domination game from Brian. Aldridge-Meyer saw Al being mercilessly torn apart. Yikes, gruesome viewing. Stoeveken-Brockway was a stonking game, super complex battles raging on all sides of the board, good stuff. Nicholls-Hewson was instructive, in Open games (1.e4 e5) black needs to be prepared for a white knight arriving on f5. Farrington-Roberts also illustrated important open game themes (the power of a development advantage in a wide open position).
The games in the lowest grades were all interesting too. I think this was probably the most exciting single round of chess I've seen since I started doing these reports - it's well worth having a look.
Round 3
Nyberg-Dive; A Queens Indian sideline, white steadily loses material as Russell comfortably revenges his surprise loss to Borg in the summer cup.
Ker-Pomeroy; Predictably a c3 Sicilian. Anthony gets a space advantage, then installs an annoying knight on d6. White converts his positional advantage to a single extra pawn in the transition to an ending. This game was the last to finish, Arthur made Anthony work right to the end but in the end there was no denying the 12 time NZ champ. The key to the R+2 v R+1 ending was that white's pawns were remote connected passers. Anthony's technique was impressive, after the game he effortlessly dismissed all the alternative defensive systems suggested by the crowd of hapless kibitzers. In chess the wisdom of crowds doesn't apply, often in fact you get the feeble mindedness of crowds. Especially from an average Elo=2000 peanut gallery late on a Tuesday night. According to Anthony the fate of the game was settled when Arthur unwisely swapped the last minor piece, the rook ending was always hopeless.
Sellen-Aldridge; An exciting English opening. Ian pressed forward in the centre and on the kingside and for a while his play appeared positively Dive-esque. But suddenly a knight fork appeared for Alan and Ian's setup was made to look a little loose and over-extended. Actually the computer instantly suggests a counter pin to defuse the fork, but carbon based players often miss such things.
Stone-Forster; Andrew's Smith-Morra claims another hapless victim. I fell into a stock opening trap and was left with material equality but no development in a wide open position. Not to mention a displaced king and a large collection of ugly weaknesses. Andrew made my attempts to organise a defence from there look appropriately pathetic.
Jackson-Meyer; An exciting King's Indian four pawns attack. Ross built up a powerfully centralised position. The comp suggests various vigorous methods for pressing home the advantage, but without that spark of inspiration, Marany's tenacious defence was sufficient to neutralise the advantage and reach a drawn queen ending.
Farrington-Stoeveken; Lawrence knows a thing or two about the French defence after many years of being addicted to the black side of it. I was impressed with his treatment as white, basically keeping black penned in and emphasising his space and superior minor pieces. Just as this sophisticated strategy was reaching a climax though, Lawrence lost the thread of the game, cashing in prematurely and letting Peter's pieces spring into life.
Brockway-Hewson; After smooth and impressive handling of the opening and middlegame, Andrew generously issued Mike a get of jail free card by comprehensively butchering the endgame.
Anderson-Cook; John demonstrates a simple and effective strategy - push a passed pawn to the eighth rank to win the game.
Marney-Shierlaw; Simple and effective chess from Hamish refutes some artificial and awkward play from John.
Whittle-Timergazi; A rare setback for Layla who has been making every post a winner so early in her chess career. Jonathon in accordance with his style adopts a modest setup which Layla in accordance with her style counteracts by aggressive classical development. Layla sacrifices (or perhaps just loses) her b7 pawn but has development and space to compensate. However losing a second pawn was careless and, perhaps slightly shaken, Layla sets up a killer blow for Jonathon.
Veldhuizen-Theodosiou; Matt outplays Andreas who first unnecessarily allows his good bishop to be traded off for a knight, then loses his 'a' pawn, then allows a simple exchange winning skewer. Possibly the game was already over, but a desperate attempt to complicate turned the exchange loss into a whole rook instead, at which point the game definitely was over.
Heaton-Frater; Ken looked on track to continue his impressive debut season with another win. But after winning a pawn, a tactical accident popped up costing him a whole piece. For a while Dylan looked like he would convert, using the extra piece to take full control of the board. The extra knight settled imperiously onto a magnificent square on d5. Unfortunately it turned out Dylan hasn't yet mastered the technique of turning an extra piece to account with the clock ticking dangerously low, and he settled for a tame repitition. Never mind, a little more study and competitive experience will soon correct this problem.
Timergazi-Palmer; Irek builds a massive queenside attack that sweeps aside everything in its path like a tsunami. He wins a little material, then a lot of material, then queens a pawn and unusually gets to play with two queens for the rest of the game. Although in truth the game didn't last very long from there.
Round 2
Dive-Ker. The big one. Again. In this latest incarnation, we had, predictably, another fascinating full blooded struggle. Russell got in the first surprise, playing the bizarre looking 4.e4. Was this the product of some midnight oil or a spur of the moment rush of blood to the head ? My database tells me that Russell is only the third strong player to ever play this move. The previous games Damljanovic(2595)- Gonzales(2418) Calvia 2006 and Mihic(2369)-Vujadinovic(2374) Serbia 2001 are incidentally both exciting and interesting, the latter in particular. This is one of the things I most love about chess - there are thousands of really strong players alive and dead who you've never heard of, and with just a little effort you can rediscover them and then recreate and enjoy their best work in a way that is more or less unique to chess amongst competitive activities.
Anyway, where was I, oh yeah Dive-Ker Wellington 2012. Anthony sets a trap with 6...Nd7, 7.Qxb7 would leave the queen hopelessly exposed. Soon the white queen is back on d1 and it seems black is making the running. After castling queenside it seems he is first to fire some shots and of course time is of the essence in an opposite sides castling duel. But somehow it doesn't work out like that, Russell skillfully combines attack and defence, capitalises on some intrinsic weaknesses in Anthony's position, collects some pawns without ceding any real compensation, then makes his attack count as Anthony must avoid simplifying exchanges. Good game.
This was far from the only lively game this round. Pomeroy-Nijman was topsy turvy. Brian won the exchange and a pawn and looked well on course for victory. But Art had some activity, and this had to be dampened down first. The move 27...e2?? is a strange mistake, a simplifying combination that gives too much material back without getting rid of all of white's trumps (eg the big pawn on c6). I don't know if the clock played a role in this or not.
Wastney-Nyberg is called a Dragondorf, I think, a combination Najdorf- Dragon. Borg missed the straightforward Zwichenzug (or intermezzo - no English word for this) Nc6xe7+ in the middle of a queen exchange. He was counting on playing b7xc6 after the queen exchange. This left him a piece down almost immediately out of the opening. Oh well, sometimes it's nice to get an early night.
Aldridge-Jackson was a nice attacking game from Al. Ross tries to run to the queenside, but the comp (and the remorselessly computer like Alan Aldridge [note: you get rewards like this if you send me email complimenting these reports]) reveals quickly it is too late, he's a dead man walking.
Meyer-Stone featured a successful pawn grab from Marany, but Andrew did get activity. Just as in Pomeroy-Nijman, the activity prevailed over the material. Marany got close to an unloseable and theoretically winning pawn up endgame but needed to see the nice simplifying mini-combination 34.Qxd5 Rxd5 and then 35.Ng4! another intermezzo that makes all the difference.
Forster-Sellen was a positional struggle. Ian played quite a few provocative moves (...a4,...a5,...Ra6,...Na8) and against my conventionally deployed forces this left him grovelling somewhat as I tried to do what the good players do - be patient, keep improving your position, don't lash out unnecessarily. Lately I've tried to put Tal away and bring out Smyslov instead. You need talent to play like Tal. Or Smyslov actually but let's ignore that detail for now. Ian's grovelling almost paid dividends, with three minutes each left and almost all the material still on the board the clock was about to step up, take over and turn the game into a 50-50 lottery. However my 26.Nd6 is a tough move to meet. The comp declares the game effectively over, but black's best move 26...Qe7 would have probably been perfectly fine as a "kick it into the mixer and see what happens" type move in practical terms. Ian's intuition found that move, but he changed his mind and played 26...Nc5?? instead, giving me a fairly obvious one-move knockout tactic. Phew.
Stoeveken-Hewson was an exciting contest as both players seemed to be be intent on maximising the mutually en-prise piece count. Eventually Dr Mike emerged with an extra piece, but his endgame technique let him down. Although white had two extra connected and remote passed pawns, black's unopposed bishop had them under control (bishops are so much better than knights in these situations) - the right idea is to activate the king and keep the black pawns back - they must be nurtured like precious children - black can't win without them and the last thing you want to do is advance them into combat to be exchanged or picked off.
Brockway-Roberts is tough game for the commentators. In fact I have no idea what was happening in this one. It's possible black's 7...Bf8 is a profound Nimzowitchian-Petrosianesque mysterious undeveloping genius move. It's possible. Actually I'm being unkind, it is the comp's third choice as it does defend g7. But Andrew quickly wins the weak c7 pawn instead. After that white probably should have been able to consolidate the extra pawn, but instead the game became a kind of crazed mutual pawn grabbing contest. A draw was probably a fair result.
Nicholls-Farrington saw Lawrence mistakenly playing 1...e5??? instead of his customary 1...e6!!!. My first thought was that the pawn overshot involuntarily, but if that was the case I would have expected loud and disruptive squealing from Lawrence. So I can only conclude Lawrence's love affair with the French is over. Et tu Lawrence ? A Falkbeer Counter gambit soon appeared on the board, and Al got a little pressure and a kingside attack. The appearance of an attacking white queen and rook battery on the h file seemed to panic Lawrence - his attempted defence was grieviously inadequate.
Jonathon Whittle was back in form, developing his knights to their correct d7 and e7 squares this week after the c6 and f6 experiment went badly wrong last week. The unexpected (to those who don't read these pages anyway) hippo kingside attack from nowhere emerged thematically and powerfully and was crowned with a simple but nice mating combination.
Layla Timergazi's more classical approach also did the business as John Marney lost the battle for central control, and a pawn to boot. White's purposeful centralised setup left John's queen short of squares and a piece soon dropped off to join the lost pawn.
Hamish Shierlaw never got anything tangible from an optically superior position, and an even endgame petered out to a draw.
Ken Heaton and Irek Timergazi both retained their unbeaten-at- Wellington-chess-club status by outplaying their opponents (Luke Palmer and Andreas Theodosiou respectively) tactically.
Against Dylan Frater Matt Veldhuizen voluntarily interred his light squared bishop behind a wall of fixed pawns in a Dutch. (I've told you off about this before Matt!, no need for this when white is kind enough to play the unfortunate innovation 3.c5?!) With only one minor piece each, and white's piece being a beautiful knight comfortably ensconced for eternity on d4 we might have expected black to suffer, but Dylan made a bad combination, exchanging knight for bishop in a bid to win a pawn (the knight was more than a pawn better than the bishop!). Even worse, the combination was flawed and in fact gave up the knight for diddly! And as a side-effect the bad bishop was liberated! After which unsurprisingly white collapsed.
Round 1
Please excuse this late report. I'm working for the man, 9 to 5, 5 days a week at the moment and it is strangely draining and deleterious to my chess programming and writing!
Two games in the A grade; Russell Dive's Alekhines gained sweet, sweet revenge over Scott Wastney after some recent reversals. 19...a5! looks like the star move, presaging a queenside takeover that subsequently grew to decisive proportions. Nijman v Ker featured a good news versus bad news story for Brian. The good news was the cunning move order device 1.e3 !!? which succeeded to the extent of getting Anthony well out of his normal repertoire. Brian got to play an orthodox Stonewall attack, not something Anthony would normally face. The bad news was that this amounted to an invitation to "play in Anthony's childhood garden" as he apparently was an afficionado of this opening as white much earlier in his career. I don't quite see why Brian jetisoned a pawn on move 9, although Houdini already thinks he is worse, and it was pretty much one way traffic from there.
There weren't any postponements in the B grade. Sitting next to Sellen- Meyer I was a little surprised at the early handshake. Marany seemed to have a comfortable edge with a better bishop and a permanent white weakness on c3. Possibly the pernicious virus that seemed to be discomfiting Ian helped persuade his opponent it was better to be somewhere else! I missed several annoying Aldridge resources and was probably lucky to reach a dead even endgame. From there I was lucky again as Alan blundered a pawn. I suspect that, even if they were still alive, Smyslov and Levenfish wouldn't feel any need to rewrite portions of their classic book on rook endgames based on insights from the ending that followed. But hey, a win's a win. Andrew Stone started his Wellington Chess Club classical time control career in the best possible way by taking down our beloved leader for life, Ross Jackson, in a lively encounter. Material was rarely level in this game. Andrew played a Smith-Morra Gambit and so was down a pawn from the start. But he soon reversed that deficit when he spotted a nice tactic to win two pawns. Ross was basically chasing the game from there. He managed to get the pawn back but White retained superior activity, and was rewarded with another tactic, this time a whole piece which was, as you'd expect, decisive.
Brockway-Farrington was a dreary affair. Roberts-Hewson saw Roberts' Benko hoodoo continue. If I meet Mike Roberts as black I am going to ignore the fact that it isn't in my repertoire and play the Benko. Totally. Shierlaw-Cook was entertaining. For a long time John seemed to be making steady progress, but Hamish made more use of his opportunities. Anderson-Timergazi saw Layla missing one tactical opportunity but grabbing a second one soon after.
For real excitement, as always, Marney-Whittle is the place to go. Jonathon strangely abandoned his Nd7 and Ne7 hippo setup and put the knights on c6 and f6 instead. Sacriledge! The chess gods duly punished him and John Marney built up an absolutely, positively, totally, winning attack. With a choice of mates available he chose one that wasn't mate, presumably overlooking that the queen was en-prise on h7. Complete turn- around in one move.
Luke Palmer and Andreas Theodosiou both lost material steadily, Matt Veldhuizen and Dylan Frater respectively were the beneficiaries. Ken Heaton and Irek Timergazi followed up their heroics in the team rapid with a well fought draw and so both remain unbeaten at the Wellington Chess Club.