Highlights from Final Rounds

My apologies for abandoning round reports near the end of the tournament. In the end the club championship came down to the big traditional Ker-Dive clash. The burden of needing to win with black was too much for Russell, and in the end the game was something of an anti-climax. Brian Nijman was a more than worthy third, especially considering that he should really of beaten Ker, should probably have beaten Dive, and suffered a few other inexplicable accidents along the way.

Alan Aldridge and John Cook were worthy winners of the B and C grades respectively. Special mention to Rama Rao Miriyala who missed out on a share of the B grade title through a scheduling glitch caused by the move to the Bridge Club.

Here are some interactive highlights of the later rounds.

The final phase of this battle between two of our youngest members caught my eye. Josh Wight converts a pawn up ending like a veteran.

Wight, Joshua - Sknar, Andrew

Club Championships 2012

Next up let's look at a powerfully conducted attack from Arthur Pomeroy.

Pomeroy, Arthur - Nyberg, Michael

Club Championships 2012

Asked about this next game immediately after its conclusion I remarked that I was acutely aware of being slowly and skilfully outplayed. For me it was almost a pleasure to witness it.

Forster, Bill - Ker, Anthony

Club Championships 2012

For most of this next game Jonathon Whittle lights up the board with his imaginative play whilst Lawrence Farrington does very little. If Jonathon could reign in the fantasy a little and work on his tactics he could be a formidable player.

Farrington, Lawrence - Whittle, Jonathon

Club Championships 2012

The highlights of Ian Sellen's tournament were powerful wins right at the start and right at the end. During this game I felt I was playing Vladimir Sellen.

Sellen, Ian - Forster, Bill

Club Championships 2012

Finally some endgame play from Russell Dive. In the first example, we see how good players make their own luck.

Nijman, Brian - Dive, Russell

Club Championships 2012

And in conclusion, a charming little illustration of endgame skill.

Dive, Russell - Stone, Andrew

Club Championships 2012

Round 8

Two sensational A grade games this week. Michael Nyberg upset Russell Dive with a speculative piece for two pawns sacrifice. Russell needed to be very precise to beat off the attack, and when he made a mistake Borg was relentless. A great win for Borg. Anthony Ker was on course for a routine crush over Ross Jackson. But the game was rescued from obscurity by a very nice concluding queen sacrifice. It required very precise calculation including willingness to play at least one quiet moves a queen down in the follow up.

Round 7

Just a quick report today as I want to reserve some time for working on the site technology (don't expect to necessarily see the benefits of that right away).

Once again just two draws in the A grade, although they were of dramatically different character. Ker v Pomeroy featured some nice opening prep from Arthur. Wandering past the game after 11...Nc5 I was surprised to see that black had already completely equalised. How is this possible against Anthony's number one strike weapon with White ? Even working with the benefit of a database I can't quite see where Anthony can improve. Certainly 9.a3 is not the number one choice in the position, but it is hard to believe that preventing ...Nb4 is wrong. Maybe Anthony will be forced into some rare away-from-Congress work on his opening repertoire ? Sellen-Jackson was more exciting, with Ross inviting Ian's queen into his queenside. A quick glance on the night had me disbelieving Ross' 16...Nxd5, it appeared he was presenting Ian with a choice of ways to win material. It turns out though that Ross' move is a rather brilliant computer approved tactic. Kudos to both players for their accuracy in this tactical minefield. Sadly the stress of this phase must have sapped both players' will to win and they concluded the game somewhat prematurely soon after.

In the B grade Lawrence Farrington sadly unleashed some of his characteristic childish chuckles of delight in response to Andrew Brockway blundering a piece out of the opening. I am very happy to report that a determined and unamused Andrew knuckled down to the task and succeeded in demonstrating that two pawns goes a long way towards balancing one minor piece, at least below master level. Mike Roberts got a nice attack from the black side of an Open Lopez. He missed 18...Nxh3+! which would have capped it off nicely, but did win pawns and convert handily in the endgame.

There's plenty more interesting chess this week, make sure you check it all out.

Stracy, Don - Roberts, Michael

Club Championships 2012

Round 6

Two stonking games in the A grade this week. Both games ended in draws after gritty defensive efforts from Sellen and Jackson v Pomeroy and Nyberg respectively. Arthur found the decisive shot 25.Nxd5! but Ian didn't panic and grimly hung on hoping for a chance to get back in the game, 33.Rh6!! would have settled matters [Edit: Arthur writes to point out that a couple of moves later he almost played the similarly decisive 35.Rc8+ to divert the bishop from d7 but somehow hallucinated that the bishop was still on d7 when he was analysing the consequences of the combination!]. Similarly Borg missed a chance to get 7.17(approx) Houdini points ahead with 54...Bc1! which would have crowned a prolonged initiative appropriately. Instead, as often happens in such circumstances, his initiative withered.

In the B grade I enjoyed the immediately decisive puzzle shot 31.Qe7!! that Mike Roberts found to abruptly conclude a nice positional game against Rama Rao Miriyala. Alan Aldridge also scored, grabbing the opportunity to penetrate behind enemy lines against Alok Pandey. Nothing happened in the Farrington-Stracy showdown, draw.

In the C grade John Cook gave young Josh Wight a lesson on the benefits of quick development and open lines. Matt Veldhuizen put his bishop en-prise in disappointing fashion against John Marney. Andriy Sknar did not rise to the challenge of playing his dad. Conversely Andrew's merciless mating attack indicates clearly he is one of those dads who don't believe in letting their kids win! Finally, another exciting draw in Theodosiou-Johnson. Alex Johnson, half a box full of material down, grabbed an elegant perpetual as Andreas made an understandable error (29.Kg2?? looks more natural but allows the perpetual. 29.Kg1!! is the winner because white can allow 29...Ne2+ in this position, but allowing the rook to get to h2 with check means that white's king is deprived of the escape square g1 in the game continuation).

Round 5

In the A grade, Sellen-Ker saw Anthony punishing some rather insipid opening play from Ian, in the final position resignation may look a little premature, but black really does have a crushing positional plus based on his dominant knight versus white's sad bishop in addition to his extra pawn. Against Michael Nyberg, Brian Nijman showed off his very wide repertoire, breaking out the venerable Stonewall attack. Borg tried castling queenside, but Brian broke through quickly and powerfully on that side for a nice win. In the B grade Paul-Pandey was an interesting roller-coaster ride. David Paul faced his own favourite Scandinavian, and responded as a true Scandinavian believer should

by quickly ceding Black the initiative! But he then got lucky as Alok blundered an exchange, the end featured a miracle saving perpetual from Alok as David's major pieces penetrated and seemed sure to deliver mate against a bare black king. Stracy-Timergazi was an entertaining Autumn v Spring battle, Spring had the better of most of the game. Autumn seemed to be successfully randomising from an inferior position, but Spring (i.e. Layla) suddenly decided matters by forking Knight and Rook with King (unusual). I wonder whether Alan Aldridge lost on time versus Ramarao Miriyala. An entertaining slugfest was apparently reaching the critical point, and yes Black held a decisive advantage, but with nominal material equality on the board, and presumably both players short of time after 48 moves, resignation would be surprising. Someday advanced civilisations will make sense of Brockway-Whittle, but I suspect this is centuries away. In the C grade John Cook is having a good tournament, this time out he attacked the poorly developed Ken Heaton vigourously and reaped rich rewards.

Round 4

By way of apology this is an express report produced by a man who hasn't seen this week's .pgn yet and who isn't available to spend much time on the website for the next week or so. It is based on a few impressions and glances only and some snatches of overhead conversation so don't take it to the bank: Anthony Ker caught Peter Stoeveken's king in the centre and sliced and diced his way to an impressive attacking win, especially with the black pieces. Brian Nijman once again got a big advantage; actually this time it was materially only a pawn, but positionally much more as Ross' c1 bishop was a rather embarrassing piece. This time Brian converted. Andrew Stone miscalculated, he should have exchanged queens. As it was he expected to get his pawn back but didn't. Borg put him away after that. In the B grade Alan Aldridge beat Mike Roberts quickly. Lawrence Farrington had a good position against Layla Timergazi but blew it and lost. I advised a forlorn Lawrence to do what I did after losing to Layla (on TV3 breakfast, 24th Aug) - that is go home and have a lie down. But my advice was scorned. Jonathon Whittle had the honour of winning the last ever Wellington Chess Club game at Turnbull house; he slowly ground down Don Stracy in a N+B+5 v R+3 ending. That's a big material advantage, Don is not a man to resign early. John Cook accounted for Dylan Frater; Dylan had a kingside attack but John could break the attack by giving up his queen, getting more than enough material in return. Matt Veldhuizen mishandled a Leningrad Dutch against Ken Heaton and lost. That's it! I didn't see any more.

Chasing Kasparov Of course there was one more game, and it's one I am qualified to write a little more about, seeing as I played it. In the 1976 World under 16 champs 16 year old Murray Chandler defeated 13 year old future legend Garry Kasparov. What can this possibly have to do with Forster-Pomeroy 2012 ? Well legend has it that some years before the Kasparov game, our ageless professor defeated the infant Chandler in a Wellington event. This gives Arthur a "Kasparov Number" of 2. You know how this game works. It started with brilliant and prolific Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos. People who co-authored a paper with Erdos have Erdos number

People who co-authored a paper with an Erdos number 1 person have an Erdos number of 2. And so on. In Hollywood it's the "Bacon Number". People who've worked with respected and prolific character actor Kevin Bacon get a Bacon number of 1. People who've worked with those people get Bacon number of 2. Etc. Some chess geeks came up with the idea of extending this to chess. A few dozen select people in the world have beaten Kasparov. They get Kasparov number 1. Outside of the elite, a Kasparov number of 2 is a rare thing. To me this puts a target on Arthur's back. I see him as my path to a highly respectable Kasparov number of 3. At the moment I am 4 (Forster beats Ker beats Lukey beats Chandler beats Kasparov), about average for a reasonably keen amateur I believe. Incidentally, allegedly even the most humble mathematician has a a Erdos number of 7 or better. Even the most humble thespian a Bacon number of 7 or better. Even the most miserable patzer anywhere a Kasparov number of 7 or better. It's all about "degrees of separation" apparently. So what happened ? Well I failed to do any prep and ended up somehow in a Yugoslav attack against the Sicilian Dragon. Arthur does not do the Dragon either normally so we were both on unfamiliar ground. I knew you are supposed to play h4-h5-h5xg6 then "check, check, mate" in the famous summary of Yugoslav strategy provided by Bobby Fischer. Unfortunately I think the chances of making this work against a decent player unless you know at least a few model games fairly intimately are just about zilch. Arthur knew the territory better than me and quickly got an advantage. I was lucky to make it into a rather dreary drawish ending. So I am still chasing Kasparov.

Frater, Dylan - Cook, John

Club Championships 2012

Roberts, Michael - Aldridge, Alan

Club Championships 2012

Round 3

For once Michael Nyberg was the man in time trouble in the clash Ker-Nyberg. With the clock running down, Anthony probed Borg's position and tested his tactical ability. Anthony had set up a tactic, but Mike had a counter-tactic. But accuracy was required and Borg failed the test, putting his queen on a square that allowed Anthony a counter-counter tactic! Phew! Net result, Anthony wins a piece, 1-0.

Sitting next to Sellen-Stoeveken I was stunned to see Peter uncork 1...b5 ???! in response to Ian's 1.c4. I played this on the spur of the moment against the same opponent in the teams rapid earlier in the year. At the time I decided to christen my new invention "the Accelerated Benko Gambit", but against me Ian demonstrated that it is in fact a very stupid move, white simply gets both the pawn and the compensation. So I feared for Peter's chances, and indeed he suffered for a long time. Ian's position peaked at about +2.5 Houdini points, but Peter's position was surprisingly resilient and definitely had some "dynamic potential" which sprung into life decisively when Ian made an inaccuracy or two. An unusual, exciting and interesting game from start to finish.

In Forster-Jackson Ross' rather eccentric handling of the opening granted me a massive development advantage, but it never led to much as I dithered slightly and Ross started playing sensible moves just in time. With the trend of the game sliding away from me I decided "let's pulse the blender and see what happens" with the speculative 17.c4. This rather unscientific approach yielded richly undeserved rewards; Ross decided to unbalance the position but grievously misjudged the resulting dynamics. Sure if we ever get to an ending the passed and well supported 'a' pawn his manoevre created will likely win the game. But in the meantime white has almost complete control of the centre, and his kingside has weak squares and a paucity of defenders. Reserve forces can't get across because of the iron central grip. I found myself mounting an irresistable mating attack with simple and obvious moves alone, in a situation I had little to do with setting up. Chess can be a funny game!

Forster, Bill - Jackson, Ross

Club Championships 2012

In Pomeroy-Dive, Arthur sportingly chose not to take the free point on offer as the perennially late Dive was for once too late. Instead an interesting Petroff (Russell's backup when the Alekhine's is in the repair shop or if he just wants a change) developed. In an amusing echo of Forster-Jackson, Russell created a passed 'a' pawn in exactly the same way (grab white's 'a' pawn and force white to play b2xc3 in a minor piece exchange). But here the dynamic factors were quite different, and this time the black 'a' pawn did duly win the game.

Stone-Nijman was a long (very long - well into the next day!) game of fluctuating fortunes. Andrew got on top, looked to have a healthy extra pawn and a stable advantage, but Brian classically demonstrated the synergistic co-ordination benefits of queen and knight to get right back into the mix. An unbalanced ending resulted where Brian had an extra knight, but Andrew had three connected passed queenside pawns. I couldn't decide which side I preferred when watching, or even now with the help of Houdini. Ultimately Brian skillfully won this phase of the game and emerged with a winning R+3 v R+1 ending, but struggled to avoid the dreaded ; R+2(bishop and rook pawn) v R theoretical draw and put the game away. Ultimately he even lost all three pawns, finally forcing a draw in the resulting R+0 v R+1 situation.

In the B grade Layla Timergazi resumed her Grunfeld debate with Mike Roberts. Last time out Layla turned White's thematic space advantage into a nice middlegame crush, but this time only a slight pull lasted until the ending. Layla then voluntarily swapped both pieces into a lost king and pawn ending - Mike's outside majority was always going to be more important than a good looking, advanced and passed but ultimately isolated, unpenetrative and weak central pawn. Don Stracy (welcome back) returned from a long stint abroad to stop the winning run of Alok Pandey. The game ended entertainingly. Don was several pawns up in an ending when Alok unleashed a nice tactical trick, apparently sacrificing a bishop but in reality winning a couple of pawns and getting back into the game. Don threw in an apparently meaningless check, to which Alok responded quickly (and as we will see, carelessly). Don then captured the sacrificed bishop; when Alok tried to play the planned follow-up tactic Don (loudly) stopped him - Alok's careless middle move meant Alok was now in check ! The tricker tricked!, well done Don, I was watching and I fell for it too. Due to Don's unfortunate recently aquired deafness, confusion then erupted over the ramifications of the illegal move. In the end Alok graciously resigned his now quite lost position, restoring order.

Brockway-Rama Rao was a bit of tragedy for Andrew as he won material then but missed numerous chances to put the game to bed. Finally, with both kings exposed and both players' major pieces poised to unleash, Andrew wasted the precious privilege of being first to move. He grabbed a miserable pawn instead of penetrating his opponent's position with check and mate to follow. Carnage followed as his no doubt relieved opponent took the reciprocal opportunity he could barely have hoped for.

John Marney won a good defender's game from Alex Johnson. In a game that wouldn't have looked out of place in the 19th Century, Alex threw the book (a Kings Gambit book) at John. John accepted any and all sacrifices, surrounded his otherwise threadbare king with extra pieces and prevailed in the end.

Cook-Veldhuizen was a little less frenetic but similar in theme. Matt Veldhuizen was channelling the classic masters of defence, Steinitz and Lasker, as he defused John Cook's kingside attack, grabbed a pawn or two along the way, and forcibly swapped everything off to an easily winning King and Pawn ending. Who says chess is a difficult game ?

Wight-Heaton was yet another example of this theme, the calm pawn grabber hangs onto his booty, swaps down to a pawn ending and wins. Young Josh looks a decent prospect though.

Shyamkumar is another player who seems to attack at all costs, for now his approach is not yielding rewards, this week's game against Andrew Sknar being another example. Maybe in the future he will learn a more measured and practical approach.

It was good to see Andreas Theodosiou, a man who has had a tactical accident or two in his Wellington Chess Club career, controlling the tactical exchanges and mopping up handily against Saurabh Gupta.

Round 2

Brian Nijman really should have beaten Anthony Ker after some very positive and tactically sharp attacking play against Anthony's inevitable Pirc yielded him a large material advantage. A lot of players would have resigned, but typically Anthony hunkered down and insisted that Brian should demonstrate the required technique to convert. Tragically for Brian, this approach yielded results as it so often does for determined believers in "infinite resistance". A simple tactic fell into Anthony's lap and all the lost material was recovered. Brian rallied and at least had the satisfaction of having a nominal advantage during the final technical phase of a drawn ending. Michael Nyberg and Ian Sellen also drew after another exciting rollercoaster, Ian has annotated the game for his games blog. Russell Dive came up with a very clever transpo trick against my classical Dutch. I don't think his early Qc2 has any real downsides, the best black can do is transpose back into normal lines. But one of my options, the early Ne4 line I favour is definitely taken off the table. For some reason I played the Ne4 line anyway, granting Russell a big opening advantage he quickly converted into a win after further feeble resistance from me. Anyone for Mah Jong ? Incidentally, in my 4 million game database 6.Qc2 doesn't appear at all, seriously if the man was any more cunning you could stick a tail on him and call him a rat. The only other A grade game was a win by Ross Jackson over Peter Stoeveken, but we don't have the score sheet for that.

In the B grade David Paul used the Budapest Gambit to nice effect to beat Mike Roberts. Alan Aldridge won material and the game with some nice tactics against Andrew Brockway. Layla Timergazi (fresh from her efforts smashing an A grader [who I think prefers to remain anonymous:-] for TV3's cameras) won a tense game from Jonathon Whittle. Jonathon got a promising position with a nice space advantage, but lost pawns and ended up in a bad ending. He fought back but Layla ultimately prevailed in yet another topsy turvy game. Unrated newcomer Alok Pandey proved himself to be a decent player, winning a piece from veteran competitor Lawrence Farrington with a cute little tactic and smoothly converting. Lawrence tried hard to implement Anthony's infinite resistance strategy, but with less success.

In the C grade some other newcomers did well. Quinn Weekes has never played competitive chess, but despite just coming to terms with chess notation he applies himself like a veteran and pushed Matt Veldhuizen all the way. Young Josh Wight was good enough to convert after being gifted a piece. John Cook and Dylan Frater won nice games from John Marney and Andriy Sknar respectively.

Nyberg, Michael - Sellen, Ian

Club Championships 2012

Marney, John - Cook, John

Club Championships 2012

Round 1

Let's face it, I will never catch up with this one. (But here is one annotated game, notes by Ian Sellen)

Sellen, Ian - Nijman, Brian

Club Championships 2012