Sunday, January 2, 2011

118th NZ Chess Championship Round One

More information can be found here

Round One Championship results

No Name Result Name
1 Russell Dive 1:0 Peter Stuart
2 Richard Taylor 0:1 Anthony Ker
3 Robert Smith 1:0 Alan Ansell
4 Hilton Bennett 0:1 Michael Steadman
5 Bruce Watson ½:½ Nathan Goodhue
6 Fuatai Fuatai ½:½ Daniel Shen
7 Leonard McLaren 1:0 Ross Jackson
8 Luke Li 1:0 Helen Milligan
9 Matthew Barlow 1:0 William Forster
10 Hans Gao 1:0 Antonio Krstev
11 Noel Pinic ½:½ Judy Gao
12 Hamish Gold 0:1 Robert Gibbons
13 Ivan Dordevic ½:½ Winston (Yow-Jen) Yao

The first round had a couple of upset results. The position below is from Luke Li (1992) verse WFM Helen Milligan (2148). Luke has just tried an interesting knight sac on c5 for 2 pawns unfortunately for Helen she continues in Luke's spirit of sacrificing and play's 21....Rxf5? and then falls apart later with 24...b5?? With the sequence 21...Ne3 22. Bxd7 Nxc7 23.Bxe8 Nxa1 24. Rxf8+ Kxf8 25.Bd7 Ne8! to hold up d6 which is more important than retreating the knight. 26. Bf5 Nd6 27. Bd3 Bg7 White is in the game, although this line does look complicated as black's knight has to stay on a1 with no way of getting out so it seems even better is 21...Qg7 and then 22....Ne3 with equal chances although black's position requires high energy to maintain.



The next position shows a missed opportunity by FM Bruce Watson (2321) against Nathan Goodhue (2030). The game ended in a draw but right here White can snip another pawn by 27.Bxe5 and black cannot take back because the queen would be pinned by white's rook to his King. White played the routine 27. h3 and had to be satisfied with a draw at move 51 after some up and down play by both sides.



The next position below is Matthew Barlow (2137) verse Bill forster (1990). Bill has played a good game so far but now loses the plot and plays 32...Nd4 forgetting about his a pawn which Barlow swiftly takes after 33. Bxd4 Bxd4 34.Qxa5 white won in 63. Black had the much better 32...Bd4 with equal play.



The top seeds had their usual easy first round game. Below is IM Russel Dive (2460) verse Peter Stuart (2070). Dive has trotted out his usual English opening which Stuart seems to be coping with so far, until now. Black tries a trick with 33. ...Nf5 which just drops a piece after 34. Rxf8 Rxf8 35. Bxf8+ +\-. 33...Ng8 was best although white is still slightly better because of his Q-side majority but black is still well in the game.




The position below is from the wild game Ivan Dordevic (2080) verse Winston Yao (1676). White has bashed out a dubious attack against black's Sicilian dragon and has come to the moment of victory. Crushing is 27.Bxf7+ when kxd7 leads to mate after 28. Qxg6+ and if 27...Kd7 28. fxg6 and the g pawn is crushing. Instead perhaps due to some sort of chess karma white plays Qh7 losing all of his advantage and black manages to force a perpetual at move 45.