Results

1  Ker, Anthony            2451 7     25:W 11:W 13:W  6:D  7:W 10:W  3:D  5:W
2  Wastney, Scott          2372 6.5   20:W  0:D  6:L  9:W 26:W 18:W 10:W  3:W
3  Dive, Russell           2440 5.5    5:W  8:W  4:L 22:W 15:W  6:W  1:D  2:L
4  Pomeroy, Arthur         2081 5.5   21:W 15:W  3:W 10:L  0:D  0:D  7:W  8:D
5  Hewson, Michael         1718 5.5    3:L 27:W 23:W 11:W 12:W  0:D 13:W  1:L
6  Forster, Bill           2004 5     19:W 30:W  2:W  1:D 10:L  3:L  8:D 14:W
7  Nyberg, Michael         2087 5     17:W 26:D 14:W  8:W  1:L 13:D  4:L 10:W
8  Aldridge, Alan          1924 5     27:W  3:L 21:W  7:L 16:W 22:W  6:D  4:D
9  Sellen, Ian             2069 5      0:D 13:L 20:W  2:L 25:W 14:D 16:W 15:W
10 Nijman, Brian           2199 4.5   18:W 14:D 26:W  4:W  6:W  1:L  2:L  7:L
11 Jackson, Ross           2020 4.5   12:W  1:L 18:W  5:L 13:L 21:W 20:D 22:W
12 Timergazi, Layla        1302 4.5   11:L 20:W 30:W  0:D  5:L 15:D 17:D 13:W
13 Roberts, Mike           1789 4     23:W  9:W  1:L  0:D 11:W  7:D  5:L 12:L
14 Brockway, Andrew        1805 4     29:W 10:D  7:L  0:D 17:D  9:D 18:W  6:L
15 Stoeveken, Peter        1901 4     28:W  4:L 17:W  0:D  3:L 12:D 22:W  9:L
16 Marney, John            1620 4      0:D 25:L  0:D 19:W  8:L 27:W  9:L 20:W
17 Shierlaw, Hamish        1567 4      7:L 24:W 15:L 25:W 14:D 20:L 12:D 23:W
18 Gillespie, John         1551 4     10:L 29:W 11:L 23:W 27:W  2:L 14:L 28:W
19 Sknar, Andrew           1353 4      6:L 22:L 28:W 16:L 23:L 29:W 25:W 24:W
20 Cook, John              1656 3.5    2:L 12:L  9:L 29:W 24:W 17:W 11:D 16:L
21 Veldhuizen, Matt        1545 3.5    4:L 28:W  8:L 24:W 22:L 11:L  0:D 29:W
22 Frater, Dylan           1457 3     30:L 19:W 25:W  3:L 21:W  8:L 15:L 11:L
23 Strauss, Werner              3     13:L  0:W  5:L 18:L 19:W 24:L 27:W 17:L
24 Strauss, Keegan              3     26:L 17:L  0:W 21:L 20:L 23:W 28:W 19:L
25 Whittle, Jonathon       1700 2.5    1:L 16:W 22:L 17:L  9:L 28:D 19:L 27:W
26 Stracy, Don             1805 2.5   24:W  7:D 10:L 30:W  2:L  0:   0:   0:
27 Theodosiou, Andreas     1238 2      8:L  5:L 29:W 28:W 18:L 16:L 23:L 25:L
28 Palmer, Luke            1151 1.5   15:L 21:L 19:L 27:L 29:W 25:D 24:L 18:L
29 Sknar, Andriy           1044 1     14:L 18:L 27:L 20:L 28:L 19:L  0:W 21:L
30 Dallow, Chris           1808 1     22:W  6:L 12:L 26:L  0:   0:   0:   0:
31 Van der Hoorn, Mark     2153 1      0:D  0:D  0:   0:   0:   0:   0:   0:
32 Rabina, Romeo           1772 1      0:D  0:D  0:   0:   0:   0:   0:   0:

Reports

Round 8 Express report

(Initial impressions first, some updates after seeing all the games appended below) Ian hasn't published the games yet, but here is a quick summary of the exciting last round (based on little more than rumour and innuendo - somebody pay me if you really want quality reporting). Dr Michael Hewson has been providing a convincing impersonation of a man who is neglecting his family and service to the community as a medical professional in order to concentrate on late blooming mastery of chess. Don't sue me I said "impersonation". After a fabulous tournament, he looked completely at home on board 1 testing IM Ker's understanding of the same razor sharp Pirc line where Anthony had some difficulties and conceded a draw earlier in the tournament. I will look forward to seeing where the game deviated from the earlier example. As often happens with this kind of ratings mismatch, Anthony did manage to reach a reasonable endgame and outplayed his opponent from there. Congratulations to Anthony for another tournament win.

Russell's devotion to the Alekhine does invite severe retribution against strong opposition, and so it proved on this occasion as Scott successfully dismantled his insecure king position to secure 2nd place.

Alan and Arthur had a quiet draw. Pomeroy shares 3rd= with Dive and Hewson. Nyjs berg and man continued their rivalry, I look forward to seeing how Borg came out on top this time. I successfully move-ordered Andrew Brockway away from his favourite Grand Prix and managed to grind out a win after obtaining a slight positional advantage from a strange hybrid kind of Sicilian. Layla Timergazi impressed again, I think the Grunfeld position she reached with Mike Roberts was dynamically equal in theory, but Layla made better use of her trumps. In fact it's hard to imagine making better use of a big space advantage than promoting the d pawn in the middle game.

Ross Jackson beat Dylan Frater quickly, Ian Sellen outplayed Peter Stoeveken, John Cook missed a tactic against John Marney. Jonathon Whittle finished the tournament with Philidor's mate (queen sacrifice on g8 followed by Nf7 with smothered mate). Sorry I didn't see anything at all of the other games.

Incidentally, now that the games are viewable online, our global grandmaster audience has been emailing in feedback and corrections. For example, on-fire English GM Gawain Jones, fresh from several days as the hottest GM on the planet last week, writes to point out that in fact I did have winning chances in the ending against Aldridge last week, but blew them with the lemon Be4??. I expect Kasparov's opinion on Marney-Cook to arrive any day now.

(Now the updates) It turns out that in the top board clash Hewson-Ker, Michael was the first to diverge from the Round 4 Forster-Ker game, rejecting my 17.Bd2 and replacing it with 17.Ne4. Did Michael not wish to sac the exchange ? I remember spending a lot of time looking at these positions and unfortunately you have to give black something (even if you feel he doesn't deserve it:-). As it happened Anthony got much more than my "reasonable endgame" impression above. Instead he got to bring all black's trumps to the fore in a queenless middle game

• the central pawn duo went from a mess (arguably) on d6/e7 to a mighty mass on d4/e4 with rooks supporting them on d8/e8, whilst the king used the thematic escape route to a8, and the annoying white pawn on f7 dropped off. Black's central takeover is a very nice example of hypermodernism in action.

Nyberg-Nijman was arguably the game of the round. This was a great game, Brian struck first with a cultured positional pawn sacrifice to establish a nice queenside bind. Borg wasn't willing to defend a passive looking position and lashed out with a brave speculative piece sac to get kingside play. The comp isn't impressed, but it starts taking notice when a second temporary piece sac from Borg really confuses matters. A chaotic position in which "anything could happen" saw Borg making more of his opportunities and crashing through.

Of the remaining games, Marney-Cook makes a strong impression as a complex strategic dual. I like close positions with slow build-ups on each side and like how John (Cook) managed to get on top on both sides of the board. But John (Marney) digs in, adopts the foetal position, and challenges his opponent to find a way to make further progress. Games like this don't win themselves. Cook thought he saw a winning tactic, but alas it is a tragedy as he misses Marney's Zwichenzug. As Mike Steadman says, make sure you look at every capture and every check. The Houdini evaluation goes from -0.13 to +18 in one unfortunate move as once again the old adage that tactics trumps strategy prevails.

Round 7

Check out live playthroughs of the games here (thanks Ian). These days it's unusual for Dive-Ker to be delayed as late as round 7. As so often happens, it was a game worth waiting for. One day we might see a quiet Dive v Ker grandmaster draw, but I hope it won't be any time soon. In one of Anthony's pet lines, Russell took a provocative approach, playing 8 pawn moves and 3 queen moves in his first 12 moves. Meanwhile Anthony developed all his pieces. In a close position, Russell almost justified his approach by catching up in development whilst maintaining a space advantage, but Anthony grabbed a pawn and that was the basis for a small but promising advantage. A very unusual middlegame developed featuring queenside castling from both players. In fact with Anthony's king on a8 and Russell's on b1, as a spectator I realised later I had unconsciously reversed colours, because the position made a lot more conventional sense to me that way. Otherwise it was a bit like watching snooker where all the reds had been displaced to the wrong end of the table. The game was last to finish and a large appreciative crowd watched the final frantic phase. Although still nominally only a pawn down, Russell's position was clearly on the brink of catastrophe. He was clinging on to the edge of the cliff, whilst his good friend uncharitably stamped vigorously and painfully on his fingers. Adding to Russell's troubles was the fact that he ran out of time first, although as always he seemed unaffected by this and managed to put up maximum resistance using just his 30 second increment each move. Throughout this period the computer clinically assesses black's advantage as decisive, sometimes as low as -3 pawns, sometimes as high as -6. The decisive move came when Anthony bashed out 39...d2 ???!!! I am declaring this the strongest bad move in the history of chess. Apparently the pawn must promote with check, and at the same time it attacks White's pinned queen. What's not to like about that ? Nothing except that it throws away Black's advantage. Only one move was better; The much less obvious 39...Nc3+ would have either deflected one of Russell's counterattacking rooks allowing ...d2 to work as intended, or continued and strengthened the attack with check. Credit to Russell for setting up the perpetual check trick the non-checking 39...d2 allowed.

Nijman-Wastney was also a good high level game, Scott again showing his technical ability, this time as he converted Brian's isolated and weak d pawn into a whole point.

Mike Roberts' nice run of form was brought to a shuddering halt by a rampant Michael Hewson, who is having a career defining tournament. It was slaughter really, such grisly viewing that I hope any children who stumble over the game will avert their eyes. I think Mike needs a system to combat the Benko, we've seen him struggle against it on these pages before.

Another player vying for the Mad Butcher's butcher of the day award was Arthur Pomeroy, who comprehensively put Michael Nyberg's Alekhine to the sword. It was an instructive attacking game from Arthur, a quiet build up that developed overwhelming power once the forced exchange of Borg's f5 bishop created some nasty kingside weaknesses.

Alan Aldridge continued an annoying and disturbing trend of reserving his best chess for games against me. On this occasion I seemed to be making some progress in a closely fought Leningrad Dutch. But Alan, despite being low on time, came up with a surprising pawn sac to break my attack and get to an ending in which he had correctly judged that I had no real winning chances.

John Marney blundered horribly against Ian Sellen in a good position. John Cook should have punished greedy pawn grabbing Ross Jackson but missed the decisive idea of playing Nf3-e5-d3 to pick up Ross' stranded queen on b2. John settled for a perpetual attack on the queen instead, for a draw in only 11 moves.

Andrew Brockway's win over John Gillespie was yet another illustration that the Sicilian obliges White to play incisively if he doesn't want Black to take over the position. Dylan Frater had a bad day at the office against Peter Stoeveken. Layla Timergazi reached a much better ending against Hamish Shierlaw (good knight versus bad bishop) and should have played on. The Strauss family had a good week. Keegan showed he has the technique to win a game with an extra piece, always an important milestone for an improving player. Werner also showed some tactical ability, I liked the simplifying tactic to give up Q for R and B and reach the (possibly unique) material balance of R+R+B+B+N vs Q! This was not a situation where having the queen is a good thing!

Late edit: Looking at the reconstruction of Sknar-Whittle on the blog I must give credit to Andrew Sknar for by far his best game at the club to date. A nice, conventional, attacking game exposing Jonathon's play as a little too ambitious on this occasion. However Jonathon almost finished this very disappointing tournament on a bright note, when he very nearly came back from an absurdly lost position to pull off a miraculous comeback. Scorning the perpetual on offer with 47...Qc1+ turned out to be a mistake.

Round 6

Check out live playthroughs of the games (thanks Ian). Ker-Nijman was an exciting advance French (by transposition from a c3 Sicilian). Brian was giving as good as he got all the way to the end, but then with the electronic equivalent of the flag teetering he chose an attempted refinement rather than the obvious check that was screaming to be played. The obvious line led to an interesting rook and pawn ending where Brian may have been slightly better, but his attempted refinement was a disaster that led to mate in two for Anthony.

I used the Dutch defence to first equalize, then hold the balance for a long time against Russell. But I ran out of time first (despite Russell giving me a 30 minute start) and immediately collapsed. Chess is such a stupid game. Incidentally, the game features a charming skewed assymmetrical position with four knights on four central squares, four bishops on the long diagonals, pawn on c4 and Queen on c2 balancing a pawn on f5 Queen on f7, etc.

Mike Roberts continued his good form, and outmanoevred Michael Nyberg from the black side of an Italian/Guicco Piano. He seemed content to keep the draw in hand though and never pushed for victory.

John Gillespie put up a good fight against Scott Wastney, dropping a pawn in an Open Sicilian battle but having a little compensation with his two bishops. But the top players love milking technical positions, and perhaps it wasn't a big surprise when a second more serious mistake emerged costing John a piece and the game.

Frater-Aldridge saw another transposition, this time from an attempted Benoni to a Maroczy Sicilian. On first sight I was all set to accuse Al of a positional blunder, swapping his knight for white's anaemic light squared bishop (dominating that bishop with the knight is perhaps the major theme for black in this opening). On a second look, I notice that Al did win a pawn as a result of this exchange, and the extra pawn was the deciding factor, so I'll shut up.

Brockway-Sellen was a second exciting French, featuring a classic white kingside attack versus black queenside attack. Ian broke through first and was close to a win but Andrew's attack yielded a perpetual just in time to save the day.

Layla Timergazi v Peter Stoeveken was a topsy-turvy QGA. White's kingside attack was strong enough to carry the day, but Layla missed her opportunity and allowed Peter to beat off the attack and come close to winning the game on the queenside. But Layla successfully confused the situation and managed to liquidate to an evenish ending where Peter missed one last chance to win. A bunch more rating points from this game will push Layla closer to her real rating.

John Cook played his best game since returning to the club this year. A really nice, thematic Stonewall attack. Hamish Shierlaw neglected to either strike quickly with ...c5 or fianchetto his king's bishop, the normal antidotes to this system, and John took full advantage, building a decisive kingside attack.

I am not sure what to make of the Jackson-Veldhuizen stonewall Dutch. For a while things are fairly conventional as white gained space on the queenside and black's attention was on the centre and kingside. Ross' king was displaced to f1 by an early check, and appeared to be a big target as Matt doubled on the f file. But then comes an unusual king walk, Kf1-e1-d2. Surprisingly, the king seems quite safe here as Ross had a vertical wall on the e file protecting it (white pawns on e2, d4 and e5, bishop on e3, black pawn on e4). Ross followed up with the even more original manoevre of posting his rooks on g1 and h1 even though he had no space on the kingside which, I hope you are paying attention, was nominally owned by black. Possibly this is a new genius plan from Ross, especially given that it worked out beautifully as g and h pawn advances ultimately led to an overwhelming kingside attack for White! Amusingly, the final attack involved Ross bullying Matt off the f file, which he had previously completely owned.

Andreas Theodosiou asked me not write about him this week. Fair enough. But I am allowed to write about John Marney. John Marney was white in a Rubinstein French against a friendly Greek Cypriot Gentleman, one of the real nice guys in the club. The game proceeded conventionally enough, with the FGCGOOTRNGITC successfully demonstrating the Rubinstein strategy, basically accepting a cramped position for a while, but then striking at white's centre and liquidating for equality. Unfortunately, as so often happens to the FGCGOOTRNGITC, unfortunate tactical details intervened and John Marney scooped up a whole buttload of material, more than enough to win the game. As always, the FGCGOOTRNGITC was gracious in defeat, and he continues to be a real asset to the club!

It was family day on the bottom boards. Keegan Strauss looks as if he has been carefully reading Murray Chandler's "How to Beat your Dad at Chess", whereas young Andriy perhaps has been neglecting this essential homework. Actually both of these games are entertaining slugfests, with no quarter asked for or given, and not much attention paid to positional niceties. Andriy you should have won with your extra piece! Werner nearly pulled off the comeback of the century, with his king charging forward to lead an unlikely looking attack against a numerically much superior army. Tragically, the attack should have prevailed, as Werner missed a mate in 4 during this phase!

Finally Jonathon Whittle will no doubt be looking forward to the end of this tournament which started so promisingly for him. In this round his textbook English queenside attack secured several extra pawns, but a routine conversion process was interrupted by a horrible blunder that dropped a whole piece. White's extra pawns then sufficed to hold a draw, but no more.

Round 5

I have been busy attending to other duties (principally watching us getting pounded at cricket, also arguing with strangers on the internet). I forgot all about my duties here, until being roused from my stupor by an email from Ian with live playthroughs of the games! Do you think he's trying to tell me something ? :-)

I am still going to bore you with some of my quick impressions of the games;

Ker-Nyberg was a c3 Sicilian where Nyberg did some preparation but was surprised by Ker's dxc5. Something similar happened to me last time I tried to prepare for Anthony's c3 Sicilian, with similar results (Anthony progressively taking black's pawns and generally giving him a good seeing too).

Brian Nijman played a very nice game against me, first making sure my king would be uncomfortable on either side of the board, then throwing in a nice positional pawn sac to open a centre file that turned my stranded king into a desperate hunted animal. The comp finds defences but my wetware was nowhere near equal to the task.

Russell Dive brutally exploited some indecisive opening play by Peter Stoeveken.

The usually carnivorous Michael Hewson was content to play a nice positional game against Layla Timergazi, first winning Layla's IQP, then focussing on kingside weaknesses.

Scott Wastney, playing the black size of an open Lopez, demonstrated that Don Stracey's apparently comfortably developed minor pieces were in fact short of squares, and one of them consequently fell off, right out of the opening.

Not for the first time, Mike Roberts smashed a much higher rated opponent with quiet yet purposeful positional build-up. Ross Jackson the victim this time. Nice work Mike!

Shierlaw-Brockway was a Dragon that burned out early to a level looking double rook ending that neither player apparently fancied much. A few more rating points for Hamish.

Gillespie-Theodosiou was an exciting encounter, I think Andreas might have been watching Jonathon Whittle, although his rather eccentric opening was a bit less of a hippo and more of a hedgehog. A hedgehog that John was intent on turning into roadkill. Andreas was hanging in there though until he suddenly self destructed.

Ian Sellen won a pawn from Jonathon Whittle with a mini-combination right out of the opening, and then an exchange in similar fashion early in the endgame.

Each week Keegan Strauss demonstrates some ability, but tends to be caught out by the tactical tricks more experienced players have assimilated. I expect him to start getting results as he builds up some experience himself.

Andrew Sknar was well on top before blundering horribly against Werner Strauss. Sad for Andrew but the good news is one of our new members gets his first win. Congratulations! let's hope it's the first of many.

Luke Palmer was perhaps a little lucky against Andriy Sknar. Andriy blundered a pawn in a good position. He had a little bit of compensation but wasted it by voluntarily swapping off all the pieces into a dead lost pawn ending. Andriy, if you ever read this, a fundamental rule of chess strategy is to swap pawns, not pieces when you are behind in material - you've just provided a textbook example of why this is so.

Round 4

On top board I managed a rare draw with Anthony Ker. Basically this was all down to overcoming my natural laziness and doing some serious preparation for once in my life. Anthony of course invites this. He is a man of principle and plays what he believes in, so when doing prep you can be confident you are not wasting your time. Studying his beloved 5...c5 antidote to the Austrian attack was like returning home to me, I studied this in depth as a schoolboy when I discovered Keene and Botteril's Pirc book in the Wellington Public Library and took it up in preference to the Giuccio Piano all my friends played. Of course I was hopelessly out of my depth then. Some things haven't changed, so I shamelessly asked a grandmaster for some "recipes from his kitchen". It was possible to prepare a long way ahead because the path is fairly narrow, even the comp which knows no theory quickly concludes the established pathways are much the best. I actually had looked at the position from the game after move 20.Rxh1 ahead of time. I remembered Gawain's comment on the exchange sac "this looks promising for white" and also that Houdini approved. I didn't really believe it myself, but given that the alternative was to waste all the preparation time, I decided to trust the GM's judgement. It turned out that he was right, I was wrong, it's tricky for black to unravel and make his rooks count. I suppose I should have played on but given that Anthony would almost certainly have outplayed me in the looming complications, taking the draw was a pragmatic decision.

Nijman v Pomeroy on board 2 was at the other extreme of the theory vs improvisation spectrum. I suspect both players were making it up after Brian chose 2.a3?! entering the ultimate Sicilian sideline. Arthur had chances to emerge from the opening with a healthy material and positional plus, but instead the course of the game justified the Nijman debut as Brian found a way to "make it work" as Tim Gunn might say on "Project Runway". (Those of you out of touch with their gay sides might be unfamiliar with this Reality TV Fashion show, but it's good I assure you). Needless to say, Brian's ability to play "any old rubbish" successfully means I certainly know better than to waste time trying to prepare next week.

Scott Wastney was in bounceback mode this week and quickly got an ideal Catalan position against Ian Sellen, when a tactical skirmish broke out White had all the trumps.

Last week Michael Nyberg struggled against the Queen's Indian, but this week was a complete contrast as he invaded the seventh rank and finished off Alan Aldridge with a nice little combinative flourish.

Dylan Frater fought bravely against Russell Dive, before falling into nice little piece winning trap. An encouraging effort considering the gaping ratings chasm.

The medical drama Jackson-Hewson earned high ratings from the viewing audience as Dr Mike essayed the daring Albin Counter Gambit. This is a canny choice against the Killer Driller, he prefers close manoevring to wide open tactical mayhem. Ross' liking for early pawn thrusts over quick development should have been reigned in on this occasion. It wasn't, and Michael was rewarded with a huge development lead and a fabulous attacking position which he duly converted.

Don Stracy got another good Queens Indian-ish black position, and perhaps emboldened by his strong showing against Nyberg last week, pressed for victory this time, against Chris Dallow. A nice win.

Last week Hamish Shierlaw missed an endgame win against Peter Stoeveken, this week he got another chance, against Jonathon Whittle, and made no mistake this time.

John Cook, Matt Veldhuizen, Andreas Theodosiou, John Marney and John Gillespie scored comfortable wins over Andriy Sknar, Keegan Strauss, Luke Palmer, Andrew Sknar and Werner Strauss respectively.

Round 3

A few even quicker impressions;
Mike Roberts got to fire an impressive looking shot at Anthony Ker (...Bc4xf2+, ...Qd8-h4+, ...Qh4xc4) but unfortunately this rather surprisingly left his king more exposed than Anthony's, and bad things followed quickly.

I saw the end of Pomeroy-Dive. Towards the end of what looked like a wild game, Art had R+N+5 v R+N+B. So nominally Art had extra material, and Russell had no pawns at all making any kind of conventional winning procedure unavailable no matter how many pawns he could round up. With Russell out of time and Art down to maybe two minutes, Russell did round up one pawn, but seemingly his actual intent was to surround the rather awkward Pomeroynian king and mate it, so perhaps an unconventional winning prodedure was in view. However, fate intervened in the form of a glitch in Russell's phenomenal ability to play calmly whilst running down the 30 second increment close to zero each move. With 4 seconds on the clock Russell momentarily hesitated, then noted he was down to 1 second, then moved with calm quick movements, but too late by 200 milliseconds or so by my estimate.

Against Scott Wastney I disrupted a perfectly sensible positional battle to create a chaotic mess instead. I am not sure why. But somehow it worked out in my favour.

Gillespie v Jackson was a strange game. Is there a mistake in the game score ? John has been a pawn down with maybe a little compensation for almost the whole game, there's a flurry of activity that doesn't change this evaluation, then John resigns (he is only a queen down temporarily). Layla followed up her heroics from last week with an even more impressive game against Chris Dallow. I think she probably expected her piece for two pawns sac to yield an immediate knockout on the kingside. But when Chris defended well and it didn't, she didn't panic, recognised this is only a small material deficit, and started an unhurried yet powerful attack on the other side of the board. The queenside attack eventually did deliver a knockout. Yet another upset occurred after Dylan Frater repelled Jonathon Whittle's attack to secure his biggest scalp to date by some margin. Congrats Dylan.

Hilarity broke out mid-table where Matt Veldhuizen was fighting an awkward bind against Al Aldridge. Matt couldn't develop his bishop because it was blocked by his knight. He couldn't move the knight because if was preventing Qf8 mate. Tricky. I inadvertently left Houdini analysing the position all night and despite Houdini's ability to find defensive resources the result of all that careful computation was that Al was 1.67 pawns up. Anyway so Matt moved the knight (presumably so he could develop the bishop). No more time for quick impressions this week, check the games yourself, there's good stuff there.

Round 2

A few quick impressions;
Ross tried a principled approach to Anthony's Pirc; Play the Byrne variation (4.Bg5, very aggressive), castle queenside and blow him away. Unfortunately he never got around to castling queenside and his king was very exposed once Anthony broke up white's centre and got his pieces working.

Art Pomeroy as black also caught white's king in the centre (this time Peter Stoeveken, in a King's Indian) and got to drive that king up the board and into a mating net. Nice.

Alan Aldridge tried to play the Dutch against Russell Dive with apparently no knowledge. Extrapolating from my own miserable experiences trying to play the Dutch against Russell, in my case with at least a little bit of knowledge, I feared this wouldn't turn out well. And so it proved. I was a little lucky against Chris Dallow (finally a win, 37 years after my first game against Chris). My progress looks steady according to the computer kibitzer, but unfortunately this was misleading because I didn't actually see the fundamental tactical detail that justified my play towards the end.

Don Stracy out-manoevred Michael Nyberg from the black side of a Queen's Indian, but didn't press for a win in a much better position.

Not for the first time Mike Robert's play seemed completely out of step with his rating. A nice smooth positional win against the much higher rated Ian Sellen.

Whittle v Marney is developing into a rivalry. A typically tough fight, with Jonathon winning a couple of pawns and slowly turning them into account. Last week I predicted that Layla Timergazi's first club win wouldn't be too far away, and for once my prediction was accurate. John Cook was actually very unlucky, he was well on top for most of the game. But Layla fought hard, got back into the game, then grabbed her opportunity and converted well when John lapsed.

I was impressed by Hamish Shierlaw's very confident dismissal of the challenge of newcomer Keegan Strauss. Dylan Frater also might be benefitting from Queenstown experience, he took down A. Sknar senior handily.

Round 1

Just a reminder to ask Ian to email you the games each week, if you aren't already on his list. Make sure you leave Ian a copy of your scoresheet so your game is included. Better yet, enter it yourself, there's no better time than on the night, and we have a computer setup to make that possible.

A really good turnout showed up for the first tourney of the year. Just about all the usual suspects, plus some old friends, plus some bright new faces. Superb organisation as always from Ian Sellen got us away smoothly. Chaotic tournament kick-offs are now just a bad memory. Ian also deserves credit for voluntarily taking a first round bye to ensure none of the new and enthusiastic members got to start their tournament career with a "no game tonight sorry" disappointment.

As it happens there were no upsets (neophytes should note that in the first round of a Swiss tournament the top half of the field plays the bottom half, so typically there is a big ratings gap on all boards, and upsets are correspondingly rare).

The ultimately predictable results didn't mean there weren't some good fights. On top board Jonathon Whittle got to put his Hippo to the ultimate test, in the form of 12 time NZ champ Anthony Ker. Regular readers will know I am a big fan of the imaginative and brave chess Jonathon inevitably displays with this opening as black. But could he reproduce this form in the big leagues ? I didn't see too much of the game, but from what I did see the provisional answer is yes. Of course unlike the typical B and C grader, Anthony knows better than to obstruct his f pawn in this opening, the most testing approach being to throw that pawn forwards with the intention of opening lines and smashing black into a million pieces. An approach that is entirely in keeping with Anthony's blood-thirsty style. Incidentally this just might mean my own habitual (at least recently) 1.Nf3 is an inaccurate move. Anyway, when I left a full-blooded battle was raging (maybe I can update later)...

On board 2, Dr Michael Hewson also put up a good fight against Russell Dive.

Young Layla Timergazi showed in the Wellington Rapid last year that she is already a good player, and it was great to see her playing her first Wellington Club tournament game. At one stage she seemed to be applying something of a blowtorch to our noble Club President's kingside. Ross was looking a little uncomfortable, a bit like one of his work-day victims contemplating an imminent root-canal treatment. But Ross defended successfully, as he so often does. So Layla's first victory at the club is still in the future, but I'd guess from this effort not too far in the future.