Hello everyone,

Here is a very belated report on the goings on in round 2 of the MCC Open.

I have also managed to secure a game other than my own this week, so that is hopeful!

On Board 1, Guy West played a Queen's Gambit exchange where his opponent Milenko Rikalo seemed to perform some unusual opening moves, and eventually other things happened! Actually that is the game I am to append at the end of this post, so will let the game speak for itself.

Mirko Rujevic playing his first game for the event, as his round 1 game was postponed, was really put to the test by Jim Papadinis. Jim has been playing consistently well this year, and this game proved no exception. Jim essayed his favourite Torre attack, and it seemed that pieces left the board at a great rate of knots. First the queens, then a knight, and finally both sets of rooks were gone within the first 25 moves leaving a three minor piece endgame. This is turn first became a two piece ending, and finally a bishops of same colour ending which looked like it should have been drawn. I am unsure what part of Mirko making something happen, or Jim not stopping something happening was involved, but if anything, Mirko's very active king eventually lead to him queening a pawn and winning the game.

I played black on board 3 against Peter Fry, who essayed his current main opening 1.b3. In a sharp contrast to Mirko and Jim's game, we did not swap anything at all until move 20 when the first pawn left the board. An unclear choice to capture a knight on f4 perhaps was a bit suspect on my behalf, and the game was still very much in the balance. Peter ran short of time, and made an unclear pawn sacrifice which did not work out well at all, and rebounded badly. Peter eventually lost on time, but the position was very difficult, and he was living on the increment.

Victor Kildisas has not played a Monday night event at MCC for a long time, and was given his second pairing versus R McCart in two rounds; though this time it was Richard, and not Roger. The game appeared to be some sort of 4.Qc2 Nimzo Indian to my eye, with Victor putting his bishop on b7 and pawns on, intially, b6, e6 and f5 giving the position a Dutch-ish look, over time the centre became closed after the push of ...e6-e5, and d4-d5. Richard initially had quite a modest set up with pawns on e3, b3 and a3 and his bishops on b2, and e2/d3. Victor set his sights on Richards king, while Richard in the now King's Indian looking position charged forward on the queenside. I went away from this board for a few minutes and when I returned, almost every one of Victor's queenside pawns had disappeared. Richard may have given up the exchange to get all of those pawns, as he was an exchange down when I left. He did have some "compensation" for the exchange in the form of 4 or 5 extra pawns, and Victor's lone remaining pawn was looking quite unlikely to keep on the board if Richard should have wanted to swap it off. That was the state of play when I went home, and Richard went on to win.

Board 6 saw a Grunfeld opening, with Paul Kovacevic playing an early Bb5+, which lead to the light square bishops being exchanged. Later it seemed that his opponent Rad Chmiel was generating a useful amount of pressure on the central pawns, the d4 pawn in particular, but Paul weathered the storm, and eventually as exchanges occured, Paul was able to make Rad's knight an awkward piece to find a good home for. Paul was able to transpose into a knight ending, and was two pawns up when I left to go home. This proved enough to win.

Daryl Prasad continued his good form of round 1, and again followed his keeping things solid approach against Endre Simon. I saw that he had won a pawn by about move 20ish when I walked past, and after that, unless I counted wrong, he had sacrificed a piece, but had won a number of pawns and had an attack against Endre's king. I did not see this game conclude, but the attack must have worked as Daryl went on to win.

John Beckman was on the white side of at a guess some sort of Nimzovich Defense. He looked to have lost a pawn early on, and later that seemed to be two pawns, and his opponent Bosko Mijatovic seemed to have all the play too. Bosko went on to win, though if other adventures happened along that path, I am unaware of them.

Felix Wyss had a very large centre when I first walked past his game against Jake Kostrzewa. The position resembled some sort of 4 pawns attack position against the King's Indian, though I suspect it may have been a Modern Benoni Bb5+ line. In any case Felix had chosen to allow Jake to advance ...a7-a6 and ...b7-b5 and concentrated on his central pawn armada advancing in strict battle formation. Jake had played Qa5 at some point in the opening, and when I last saw it, had an open diagonal for his Bg7 as Felix had just advanced ( I think ) his pawn from e5-e6. The next update on the game was 0-1 on the pairing sheet. This was the first game finished for the night, so I guess that Jake must have landed some game winning tactic early.

On board 10, Nikola Ivanov was able to set up a reverse Dutch-like position from his Bird's opening. He was playing Shaun Hose, who is a recent player to the club, though not untalented, and seems to be close to the 1600 provisional rating we assigned him. This game also finished early, with Shaun victorious.

In a like manner to Victor Kildisas, Tristan Rayson-Hill was also paired for the second time in two rounds against R McCart; this time Roger rather than Richard. Roger eventually acquired an extra piece and went on to convert this into a win.

Andrew Louis is often at the club, and even when at home, he is not far away as he lives very close by. Andrew played against Alex Kaplan in a Modern opening, that looked quite King's Indian like by move 10 or so. The main differences were that Andrew had not always got his pieces on their more regular squares. Alex forced open some lines for his heavy pieces on the queenside, and then after some exchanges, although at that point materially level, looked to have a strong position. The actual game conclusion is something I am unaware of...which is sort of funny as Alex is a good friend of mine who gives me a lift to the train most weeks and did so last week, so we must have been busy talking of other things. In any case Alex won the game.

Regarding the postponed games in this event, the round 1 game between Mirko Rujevic and Andrew Louis was played on Saturday, with Mirko winning.

The postponed round 2 game between Pano Skiotis and Sarah Anton is to be played in the week between round 3 and round 4. The round 3 pairings have been generated upon an assumption that Pano will win this game. Choices like this are made in this manner ( by me at least ) when rating differences are wide enough.

So here are the round 2 results



 1 Guy West       2292 [1]      1:0    Milenko Rikalo      1793 [1]  
 2 Jim Papadinis  1873 [1]      0:1    Mirko Rujevic       2223 [1]  
 3 Peter Fry      1778 [1]      0:1    Malcolm L Pyke      2078 [1]  
 4 Pano Skiotis   2054 [1]       :     Sarah Anton         1749 [1]  
 5 Richard McCart 1732 [1]      1:0    Victor E Kildisas   1886 [1]  
 6 Paul Kovacevic 1745 [.5]     1:0    Rad Chmiel          1732 [.5]
 7 Daryl Prasad   1187 [.5]     1:0    Endre Simon         1300 [.5]
 8 John Beckman   1488 [0]      0:1    Bosko Mijatovic     1706 [0]  
 9 Felix Wyss     1697 [0]      0:1    Jake Kostrzewa      1457 [0]  
10 Nikola Ivanov  1408 [0]      0:1    Shaun Hose          1600 [0]  
11 Roger McCart   1570 [0]      1:0    Tristan Rayson-Hill 1100 [0]  
12 Andrew Louis   1354 [0]      0:1    Alex Kaplan         1522 [0]  


and the Round 3 pairings



 1 Malcolm L Pyke      2078 [2]       :     Guy West       2292 [2]  
 2 Mirko Rujevic       2223 [2]       :     Pano Skiotis   2054 [1X]  
 3 Paul Kovacevic      1745 [1.5]     :     Richard McCart 1732 [2]  
 4 Victor E Kildisas   1886 [1]       :     Daryl Prasad   1187 [1.5]
 5 Bosko Mijatovic     1706 [1]       :     Jim Papadinis  1873 [1]  
 6 Milenko Rikalo      1793 [1]       :     Shaun Hose     1600 [1]  
 7 Alex Kaplan         1522 [1]       :     Peter Fry      1778 [1]  
 8 Sarah Anton         1749 [1X]      :     Roger McCart   1570 [1]  
 9 Jake Kostrzewa      1457 [1]       :     Rad Chmiel     1732 [.5]
10 Endre Simon         1300 [.5]      :     Felix Wyss     1697 [0]  
11 Andrew Louis        1354 [0]       :     John Beckman   1488 [0]  
12 Tristan Rayson-Hill 1100 [0]       :     Nikola Ivanov  1408 [0]  


And finally the Round 2, board 1 game

[Event "Melbourne Chess Club Open"]
[Site "Melbourne Chess Club"]
[Date "2009.09.07"]
[Round "2.1"]
[White "West, Guy"]
[Black "Rikalo, Milenko"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D35"]
[WhiteElo "2292"]
[BlackElo "1793"]
[PlyCount "63"]
[EventDate "2009.07.??"]
[EventType "game"]
[EventRounds "9"]
[EventCountry "AUS"]
[SourceDate "2009.09.13"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 Nbd7 7. Qc2 Nb6 8.
Bd3 h6 9. Bh4 c6 10. Nf3 Nh5 11. Bxe7 Qxe7 12. O-O Be6 13. Rae1 O-O 14. Ne5 c5
15. f4 c4 16. Be2 Nf6 17. Bf3 Nfd7 18. f5 Nxe5 19. dxe5 Bd7 20. Bxd5 Nxd5 21.
Nxd5 Qxe5 22. Qxc4 Qxb2 23. Rb1 Qe5 24. Rxb7 Rfd8 25. f6 Be6 26. Ne7+ Kh7 27.
Qc2+ Kh8 28. Ng6+ fxg6 29. Qxg6 Rg8 30. Rxg7 Qxe3+ 31. Kh1 Bf5 32. Rh7# 1-0

Well that is all for now, but will try and get some more updates mid week.

TCAGB, Malcolm Pyke, secretary, MCC

NB X=an unplayed game