Palmerston North Chess Club Championship

The palmy champs are slowly moving in the direction of the finish line and at this point Ben Chris and Mark are the favourite's to win. This coming Wednesday will see the two top players Ben and Mark face off where if Ben is able to win would put him firmly in the driver's seat for first.

One of the big upsets of the tournament was Jack James 1784 win over John McDonald 2114
The following position is from their game White(John) to move

John tried 17. d5? and lost after 14 odd moves in a rather unusual game. The position is quite tricky anyway but white's best chance was 17.Ne4!? when 17...Nxd1 runs into Nxd6+ followed by Rb3 when white is better so black's best is 17...Bf8 keeping the position balanced if tricky.

This next position is from last week's game Chris Burns - Mark Noble black to move.

Black with more time on his clock now than at the start of the game played the shocker 41...Rd7? and simply resigned after 42.Rxc5! when black cannot recapture because of the Bb3 threat to pin the Queen to the King. Better is 41...Kh7 or Qe7 and we have a pretty equal endgame.