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