22 players entered in the Melbourne Chess Club Open on Monday 31st August.Top seed was the 2009 MCC champion, IM Guy West. He was followed by IM Mirko Rujevic ( 2007 MCC Champion ), and Malcolm Pyke ( 2008 MCC Champion ).

Most games went to seeding. Guy played an "eventual" Benko/Blumenfeld defence against Bosko Mijatovic (  I say eventual because white chose e3 and held d4 for a while and then later advanced. In a materially equal ending, Guy found a tactical way to win a pawn and then seemed to have a dominant position when I left, which I am informed he very capably converted.

Mirko's round 1 game had a slight hitch; he was unable to make it on the first night, so he is playing one of a couple of people for his round 1 game sometime this week.
I played Felix Wyss on board 2, and out of a very unorthodox English opening missed an opportunity to win a piece on move 17, and in a fairly level position was fortunate to win.

 On board 3, Pano Skiotis and Shaun Hose played a very thematic Classical King's Indian, with Pano losing all of his queenside, but checkmating Shaun's king via a piece sacrifice on h3.

On board 4 Victor Kildisas ( Welcome back Victor! ) was victorious on the White side of a Semi Slav Meran against Roger McCart. Victor quickly got a dominating position and won in a queen ending after avoiding Roger's threats to give perpetual check.

On Board 5, Jim Papadinis won an exchange early against Alex Kaplan, and then converted that into being 2 pawns up, and then reached a rook ending still having the two pawns and won comfortably from there.

On Board 6 John Beckman's full scale attack didn't quite work, leaving him material down. His opponent, Milenko Rikalo, played safely and well, and was about to  checkmate when John  resigned.

On Board 7 Peter Fry won a Queen ending owing to his passed a - pawn, which was unstoppable if the queen's were swapped. Peter duly arrange  a swap and his opponent Jake Kostrzewa resigned.

Sarah Anton played Nikola Ivanov on Board 8. Sarah missed an early winning line and went a piece down but with a still big attack against Nikola's king. Meanwhile Sarah's king was very safe on the queenside. The attack broke through when Sarah played a clever temporary queen sacrifice that netted her a whole rook, and  a couple of moves later she checkmated.

Recent member Endre Simon held what looked to be an awkward rook ending against Paul Kovacevic. We had given Endre a provisional rating of 1300 to generate the first round pairings taking his allegro rating as a guide.This turned out to be quite accurate as the September ratings has him listed as 1299.

I did not see any of Board 10 but in the words of Darryl Prasad when I spoke to him after the game, " I just played carefully, and solidly and then it was a draw," This is possibly not the complete quote but that is a reasonable approximation. Darryl has been living away from Victoria and the Melbourne club for a few years, and it was good to see him back again.

Richard McCart seemed to quickly have a big advantage against Tristan Rayson Hill, another recent member. Richard's greater experience showed in the course of the game, and he went on to win.

Here are the Round 1 results

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

Andrew Louis was also unable to attend on Monday, and will become Mirko Rujevic's round 1 opponent in the event of no further entries. It is planned to publish the round 2 pairings in the next couple of days, once the field is finalized.

 

Well let's end with a game.

 Here is my own not very impressive effort from Board 2

 1. c4 d5 {a very uncommon response that I did not handle well} 2. cxd5 Qxd5 3.
Nc3 Qa5 4. Nf3 (4. g3 {is a much better move in this position avoiding many of
Black's opening ideas from this game}) 4... Nf6 5. g3 e5 6. d3 (6. Bg2 {
is more common}) 6... e4 7. dxe4 Nxe4 8. Bd2 Nxd2 9. Qxd2 Bb4 10. Bg2 O-O 11.
O-O c6 12. Rfd1 Nd7 13. Qc2 Nf6 14. Ne4 Nxe4 15. Qxe4 Bf5 16. Qf4 Rfe8 {
now not a move that loses material but a poor move nonetheless} 17. Nd4? {
missing} (17. a3! {which wins a piece, as the black queen is overloaded} Bc5
(17... Bf8 {is even worse} 18. b4 Qb5 19. Nd4 Qe5 20. Qxf5 Qxf5 21. Nxf5 Rxe2
22. Ne3) 18. b4 Bxf2+ 19. Kxf2 Qb6+ 20. e3 Be6 21. Nd4+- ) 17... Bg6 18. a3
Be7 19. b4 Qb6 20. Nf5 Bf6 21. Ra2 Be5 22. Qf3 Rad8 23. Rad2 Rxd2 24. Rxd2 Rd8
25. Ne7+ Kf8 26. Nxg6+ hxg6 27. Rc2 {
white has very little if anything here, except the hope of creating an attack}
Qd4 28. Bf1 a6 29. Kg2 Rd6 30. e3 Qa1 31. Bc4 {
White begins 'angling' by directly attacking Black's position} Bf6 (31... Rf6 {
is worse, as after} 32. Qg4 {White begins to make real inroads}) 32. Qg4 Rd8
33. Ba2 Qe5 34. Qc4 Qe7 35. a4 Re8 36. Kg1 Qe6 37. Qc5+ Qe7 38. Qb6 Qd7 39. Kg2
Re7 40. Qc5 Kg8 41. Qc4 Re5 42. Rd2 {
a very flashy move which should have not have lead to anything at all} Qe7 ({
Black certainly can not accept the Rook "sacrifice" as after doing so} 42...
Qxd2??  {he is mated by force} 43. Qxf7+ Kh7 44. Qg8+ Kh6 45. Qh8+ Kg5 46. Qh4+
Kf5 47. Qf4#) ({far simpler was} 42... Rd5 {when exchanging leads to an
immediate drawn opposite colour bishop ending, and not exchanging may allow ...
Rd5-h5}) 43. Qg4 Re4 44. Qxg6 Re5 45. f4 Kh8 46. Bxf7 Qxb4 47. fxe5!? ({
much simpler was} 47. Rd4! Qb2+ 48. Kh3+- {
and the game will not go much longer}) 47... Qxd2+ 48. Kh3 Qd7+ 49. g4 {
the Black king will not be very safe here for long ie 49...Bg5 ( otherwise
there is no answer to Qh5+ ) 50.e6 Qe7 51.Qh5+ Bh6 52.Qe5 and black has no
good moves} 1-0
 

And here are the round 2 pairings on Friday 04/09/09

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

X = an unplayed game