Upper Hutt Rapid Photos

Palmerston North Chess Club is Moving

On Wednesday the 29th the Palmy chess club is moving to a much nicer venue at the Hearing house 435 Church street. Two rooms will be available one for analysis and drinks the other for serious games. The club will be open by 7:30pm sharp.

The following club night is on a Tuesday July the 5th, and from then on every Wednesday.

The first tournamnet of the new venue is the Rapid Championship played at a time control of 25 +5 at two rounds per night with a total of 6 rounds.

Two club tournaments have recently been completed the 60/60 which Mathew King won with a perfect score and the 10/10 which Justin Davis won with a perfect score.

Upper Hutt Rapid

No Name Loc Total 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 FM Scott Wastney 2253 6 19:W 13:W 4:W 2:W 5:W 3:W
2 Brian Nijman 1997 5 8:W 6:W 3:W 1:L 15:W 5:W
3 Justin Davis 1973 4 7:W 18:W 2:L 16:W 6:W 1:L
4 Ben Thomas 1986 4 10:W 9:W 1:L 5:L 14:W 8:W
5 Alan Ansell 2087 4 11:W 15:W 16:W 4:W 1:L 2:L
6 Mathew King 1901 4 12:W 2:L 7:W 17:W 3:L 11:W
7 Jack James 1496 3.5 3:L 21:W 6:L 11:W 9:D 15:W
8 Lawrence Farrington 1744 3.5 2:L 12:W 18:W 15:D 13:W 4:L
9 David Paul 1768 3.5 20:W 4:L 17:L 12:W 7:D 16:W
10 David Capper 1572 3.5 4:L 20:W 15:L 18:W 16:D 17:W
11 Bruce Kay 1594 3 5:L 14:W 13:W 7:L 17:W 6:L
12 Nicholas Moore 1223 3 6:L 8:L 19:W 9:L 20:W :W
13 Ross Jackson 1929 3 14:W 1:L 11:L 20:W 8:L 21:W
14 Robert List 1455 3 13:L 11:L 21:W 19:W 4:L 18:W
15 Alistair McGowan 1798 2.5 21:W 5:L 10:W 8:D 2:L 7:L
16 Stewart Holdaway 1763 2.5 17:W 19:W 5:L 3:L 10:D 9:L
17 Brian Luo 967 2 16:L :W 9:W 6:L 11:L 10:L
18 Layla Timergazi 947 2 :W 3:L 8:L 10:L 21:W 14:L
19 Andrew Brockway 1749 2 1:L 16:L 12:L 14:L :W 20:W
20 Dylan Frater unr 1 9:L 10:L :W 13:L 12:L 19:L
21 William Qihao Zhang 1217 1 15:L 7:L 14:L :W 18:L 13:L

Waitakere and ICC Tournaments

National Master Leonard McLaren won the Waitakere Licensing Trust Open with a score of 5/6, Palmerston North was represented by Justin Davis who finished on 2.5/6. Crosstable taken from here, full results here. The Waitakere is clearly one of the bigger and better tournaments on the New Zealand chess calendar. Unfortunately the games from these tournaments are not easily available which is rather sad.

I was unable to take part in the Auckland tournament and had to console myself with the Internet Chess Club Open. Top prize of $600 was won by World Number 8 Hikaru Nakamura. The attractive part of the tournament were the grading prizes including u2200, u2000, u1800 and u1600 each 1st place was worth $200 2nd $100 and 3rd was a years free membership to ICC. I finished out of the prizes but had some interesting games along the way.

The ICC open consisted of 4 qualifiers of 11 rounds, in the game below I am white.

The time control is 3 0 so moving quickly is quite important so when I played 20.Qg5 threatening mate I thought maybe I have a chance until my opponent bashed out 20...Nb3# oops. Luckily I was able to redeem myself on the very last game of the tournament

I am white in the position below

My opponent rated 300 points higher than me hammered down the move 10...b5 allowing a 11.Nf6# and probably one of my quickest wins in blitz.

Waitakere Licensing Trust Chess Open

The biggest tournament before Queenstown in January will be the Waitakere Licensing Trust Open June 4th-6th. Nearly $7000 in prizes and a great way to play people close to you in rating, avoiding the annoying swiss pairings of playing only people alot higher or alot lower rated than you.

All Details can be found here

Palmerston North Blitz Championship

The Blitz tournament is normally the first event every year at the club and finished in March.
Group sections are double round robin
Quarter final best of 3
Semi and Final's best of 5

Group A

Mathew King 4
Jack James 4
Stewaret Holdaway 4
Yuri 0

Group B

Justin Davis 6
Dennis Davey 4
John Baker 2
Jacob Donnelly-King 0

Quarter Finals

Justin - Yuri 3-0
Mathew - John 2-1
Stewart - Dennis 2.5- .5
Jack- Jacob 2-0

Semi-Finals

Justin - Stewart 3-1
Mathew - Jack 2.5-3.5 (after going up 2.5 to .5 I proceeded to lose all games from then on.)

Finals

Justin - Jack 5-0

For four years running I believe Justin Davis takes the title of Palmerston North Chess Club blitz champion.

North Island Championship

Photo's Courtesy of Shaun Waugh

Turnbull house the excellent venue for the North Island Championship. To the right out of the picture is the Beehive.

Round Two

A former NZ Champion following the games

North Island Championship 2011

Congratulations to FM Robert Smith on winning the North Island championship.

This years tournament attracted a pathetic number of entries, only 25 with a large number of local players missing from Wellington and other near by towns. The venue and playing conditions were very good, no dirty plastic sets were used only nice quality wooden ones and their was no major noise issues. Palmerston North was represented by myself and Jack James. I placed 4th equal on 5/8 and had chances for more. Jack is Palmerston North's highest rated Junior and is clearly improving winning against two higher rated opponents in Stracy and Dolejs, his score of 4/8 enabled him to take a share of first place in the C grade. The tournament was top heavy with IM Ker, IM Garbett and FM Smith well above the rest and it was no surprise whoever won this mini tournament would take first place. Smith was able to beat Ker and all other games between them were drawn so once again Congrats to Bob on winning with a convincing score of 7.5/8

Results can be found here and here

North Island Championship 1981 and now

Going over some old New Zealand chess mags I stumbled upon a stellar issue from 1981 which included an article about the North Island championship. As I am competing in this years North Island championship it was with great interest to me what happened some 30! years ago. The tournament was held at New Plymouth between May 18-23 and attracted a "good field" of 54 players. The "leading lights were Paul Garbett, lasts years co-winner Mark Levene,Premier reserve champion Tony Dowden and Aucklanders Ewen Green,Robert Smith,Peter Stuart and Peter Weir". It may seem funny now but smoking was prohibited in the building which was not the norm some 30 years ago.

Going into the final round the top of the crosstable was Weir 6 Garbett 5 1/2 Green, Levene, Stuart, Dowden, Sarfati, Spiller, Gibbons, Lynn 5. In stunning fashion Garbett was able to beat Weir in the final round to become the 1981 North Island champion. Palmerston North was represented by 19th placed Dave Cooper on 4.5 (ahead of former NZ champ D Lynch 4) and 41. R. Wood 3.

Many of the strong players from 1981 some 30 years ago are still around and still at the top of New Zealand chess, both FM Smith and IM Garbett are competing in this year's North Island and will be among the favourites again to win the NI title.

118th New Zealand Chess Championship

International Master Anthony Ker is again New Zealand champion finishing on 9/11 1.5 points ahead of the field. Not only was he undefeated but he beat all his close rivals leaving a strong impression of dominance. Results and games

FM Steadman,M (2362) - IM Ker,A (2444) [A41]118th NZ Championship 2011 Auckland Round 3 Board 1, 04.01.2011
1.Nf3
Round three of the championship and it is Ker's first titled opponent and an expected rival for first place.
1...d6 2.d4 Bg4
The Wade defence an expected choice from IM Ker. It is quite surprising that Ker does not deviate from his opening repertoire trusting he will know his pet lines better than anyone.
3.e3


Other more popular moves include 3.c4 Nd7 4.Nc3 e5
3.e4 Nf6 (3...Nd7 4.c4 e5 5.Be2) 4.Nc3 e6 5.h3 Bh5 6.Qe2 (6.g4!?)
3.Nbd2 Nf6 4.h3 Bh5 5.e4 e6 6.Bd3
3...c6
3...Nd7 4.c4 e5 5.Nc3 Ngf6 6.Be2 c6 7.0-0 Be7 8.e4 0-0 9.Be3 Bh5 10.Nd2 Bg6 11.d5 Nc5 12.f3 a5 13.Nb3 Nfd7 14.Nxc5 Nxc5 15.Qd2 Qc7 16.Rad1 Rfd8 17.g4 h6 18.Kg2 a4 19.Rh1 Bh4 20.Kh3 Qe7 21.Qc2 a3 22.b4 Na6 23.Qb3 c5 24.bxc5 Nxc5 25.Bxc5 dxc5 26.d6 Qg5 27.Rd3 h5 28.Rf1 hxg4+ 29.fxg4 Qh6 30.Kg2 Bg5 31.Rh3 Bh4 32.Rd1 Rd7 33.Bf3 Ra6 34.Nb5 Qg5 35.Qd3 Qf6 36.Qd5 Rc6 37.Rd3 Bg5 38.Rxa3 Ra6 39.Rxa6 bxa6 40.Qa8+ Rd8 41.Qxa6 Be3 42.Qa5 Bxe4 43.Qe1 Qf4 44.Qg3 Bxf3+ 45.Qxf3 Qxc4 46.Qxe3 Qxb5 47.Qxe5 Re8 48.d7 0-1 Tregubov,P-Akobian,V/Khanty-Mansiysk RUS 2009
3...Nf6 4.Be2 c6 5.c4 Qc7 6.Nc3 e5 7.h3 Bh5 8.b3 Nbd7 9.Bb2 Be7 10.Rc1 e4 11.Nd2 Bg6 12.g4 h6 13.h4 Rd8 14.b4 d5 15.cxd5 Bxb4 16.dxc6 Qxc6 17.Qb3 Qd6 18.Nc4 Qe7 19.a3 Bxc3+ 20.Bxc3 Nd5 21.Bb4 Nxb4 22.Qxb4 Nf6 23.Ne5 Qxb4+ 24.axb4 Nd5 25.Kd2 h5 26.g5 Bf5 27.b5 f6 28.gxf6 gxf6 29.Nc4 Bg4 30.Bxg4 hxg4 31.Rcg1 f5 32.Ra1 Rh7 33.Rxa7 Rc7 34.Ra4 Kf8 35.b6 Rc6 36.Rb1 Rdc8 37.Rb5 Ne7 38.Kc3 Rh6 39.Rc5 Rb8 40.d5 f4 41.d6 Ng6 42.h5 g3 43.fxg3 fxg3 44.hxg6 Rxg6 45.Ra1 Kg7 46.Rc7+ 1-0 Bischoff,K-Schlindwein,R/Germany 2001
4.c4 Nd7 5.Be2 e5 6.h3 Bxf3 7.Bxf3 g6 8.Nc3 Ngf6 9.0-0 Bg7 10.b4
10.d5 c5
10...0-0 11.b5 Qc7 12.bxc6 bxc6 13.Ba3 Rfe8
13...exd4 14.exd4 Nb6 15.Qd3





14.dxe5
The following pawn sac by Ker is interesting. White could decline the pawn by 14.Qd3 and finish development but white has no reason to step away from complications.
14...Nxe5 15.Bxd6 Nxf3+ 16.gxf3 Qd7 17.Kg2 Red8 18.Bh2 Qe6 19.Qe2



For the sacrificed pawn black has damaged white's King safety caused the bishop on h2 to be out of play and currently has the initiative. It must also be realised the extra pawn is doubled and will be hard to convert a win with even in an endgame.
19...Nh5 20.Rac1 Bxc3
It may seem strange to swap black's good bishop for white's knight but 20...Qe7 21.Ne4 f5 22.Ng3 Nf6 Black's attack is not progressing.
21.Rxc3 Rd4 22.e4
22.Rh1 Rad8 23.Rc2 R4d7
22...Rad8 23.Qe3 c5 24.Qg5 Rc8 25.Qe5 Qa6
Maybe better is 25...Qd7 26.Qg5² Both sides have equal chances although white's position is harder to play. (26.Rb1? f6-+)
26.Rb1 Qxa2 27.Rb8± Black has got his pawn back but white now has chances for a good counter attack.
27...Rdd8



28.Rb7?
White misses his chance 28.Rcb3!? Black is forced to bring his Queen back to defend which costs him a pawn leaving white clearly better. 28...Qd2 29.Qe7 Rf8 (29...Rxb8 30.Rxb8 Rxb8 31.Bxb8 Nf4+ 32.Bxf4 Qxf4 33.Qxc5±) 30.Rxc8 Rxc8 31.Rb7 Nf4+ 32.Bxf4 Qxf4 33.Rxa7±
28...Rd2 29.Bg1 Qa1 30.f4?
30.Rb8 Rxb8 31.Qxb8+ Kg7 32.Rb3 (32.Qe5+ Nf6 33.f4 Qe1 34.Kh2 Rd1-+) 32...Qd4 33.Rb7 g5 34.Rxa7 Nf4+ 35.Kh1 Qc3 36.Kh2 Ng6 (36...Qxf3 37.Qe5+ Kh6 38.Qf6+ Kh5 39.Qxf7+ Kh4 40.Qxh7+ Nh5 41.Qf5) 37.Qg3 h6 black still has a nice edge and will break through soon anyway.
30...Rd1-+ 31.Bh2 Rh1 32.Qd5
32.Rb8 Qf1+ 33.Kf3 Rxb8 34.Qxb8+ Kg7 35.Qe5+ Nf6 36.Kg3 h5 37.h4 Qe2 38.Kg2 Re1 39.Re3 Qf1+ 40.Kg3 Rxe3+ 41.fxe3 Qxc4 42.f5 Qxe4 43.Qxe4 Nxe4+ 44.Kf4 Nd2 45.e4-+]
32...Qf1+ 33.Kf3 Rf8 White resigns
33...Rf8 34.Bg3 Rxh3 35.Qg5 Qd1+ 36.Ke3 (36.Kg2 Qh1#) 36...Rh1 37.f3 Nxg3 38.Qxg3 Re1+-+ 0-1