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