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First we should congratulate Sam Chow for a marvellous score of 8.5/9 to
win the 2003 Championship. Only Milenko Lojanica was able to get ½ a point from
Sam.
The full results are on display elsewhere on the noticeboard and cheques
have been written for all winning parties. Please see the Treasurer.
Juniors dominated the results in both A and B divisions with the exception
of placings for Mike Woodhams and Scott Sharman. And of course it is a relief
that juniors are not eligible for the best Senior prizes; these were picked
up by David Flude and Anton Nincevic.
Did we have any upsets in the final round I hear you ask. I counted 5 full-point
upsets and 6 creditable draws. Let me list them because a fair number were in
favour of oldies for a change. John Nemeth had a good win over Armen Aghamalyan,
but Denis Bourmistrov lost to the trappy Milenko Lojanica. Scott Sharman scored
a large rating gain at the expense of Janusz Dutka. Edward Rice proved troublesome
again, and this time Shane Lawson was on the wrong side. Norm Wilson captured
some glory against Peter Schultzer. And Sally Yu took points from Alan Gray.
The unexpected draws included Anthony Miller v Marcel Rothlisberger, Rukman
Vijayakumar v Rad Chmiel, Trevor Stanning v Ruperto Lugo, Eric Neymanis v Phillip
Wheelwright, Udit Thakur v Richard Martin, and Robert Chan v Joe Kloprogge.
The Dutka Rapid Play starts tonight. It is recommended that you look carefully
at the flyer for this event.
When the pairings were posted, all interest focussed on board 22. Of
course 22 is not such a remarkable number except that the 2 repeats; but combine
this with the fact that both players had the initials A.N. (Anton Nincevic v
Artem Nikolevsky), and had the same score 4/8, and you have the makings of a
coincidental oddity. Looking further we noticed that both players had
the same ranking, 1317! Now it was getting spooky. The result at
the end of the evening should have been 1/2-1/2 to complete the coincidence;
but Anton let the side down.
The feature game of the week was watched closely by Gerrit Hartland at the
time and I am sure if you link here you will enjoy the game
Dusan Stojic v Mehmedalija Dizdarevic as much as GH did.
It features the Scandinavian defence; Portuguese variation, a cosmopolitan mixture.
As a special, we feature a second game of interest where the defence is not
so prosaically named. In Trevor Stanning v Arie Meydan,
black’s defence was called the Garbage truck defence by LM Flude. You
will see via the link that neither player felt comfortable with this offbeat
line and the game’s interest-point is the race between white’s mating attack
and black’s passed pawn.
Most upsets in round eight were draws between players with large rating deltas.
In particular, Julien McDonald did well to share with Janusz Dutka; Anthony
Miller halved with Howard Liston; Rukman Vijayakumar split the point with Ruperto
Lugo; and Casey Hickman forced George Umber to yield half a point.
Only three full-point upsets this week saw Alan Gray topple Sean Devoy; Edward
Rice beat Phil Wheelwright and the Treasurer scored off the immediate past-President.
Last week we mentioned that the new ratings had created a lot of interest
when displayed on the Club notice-board. The ACF website contains the
advice that the ratings have been recalculated again for June to include more
tournaments. This new list is on the Club board tonight. Unfortunately
for Norm Wilson his rating lead over the Treasurer has prevailed for only one
week. Norm is now 34 points behind.
Final round of the Championship tonight and then we begin the Dutka Rapid
Play. It is recommended that you look carefully at the flyer for this
event.
Keep contact with Club activities by reading http://www.boxhillchess.org.au.
Most interest this week centred on the release of the latest ratings.
We obtained a printed copy for those desperate to see the measure of their progress.
I hope that Norm Wilson does not notice that he has ‘sneaked’ one point in front
of the writer. Grrr.
One of the notable results for this week was Miralem Campara’s win over Marcus
Raine (Miralem had a nice rating increase in the previous cycle and looks to
be on the way to more). And Michelle Lee caused a bit of damage to Marcel
Rothlisberger’s equanimity by winning with the white pieces. Down on board
14, Rukman Vijayakumar scored a fine half from Svetozar Stojic, while Devrim
van Dijk may have taken away George Umber’s interest in seeing what his next
rating will be.
Anton Nincevic improved his rating by scoring over Eric Neymanis, while Natasha
Lauder will gain rating points big time by the win from Sam Elbrish. Natasha’s
mother was happy for the win but just wishes it did not take so long.
On board 35, under the lights, Robert Chan played Tony Petrou in their squillionth
game over the years; Mr Chan showing that he has finally worked out Mr Petrou’s
no-holds attack.
Sally Yu caused a huge upset by accounting for Sean Devoy, and Christopher
Tham took the points against Marieke van Dijk.
Two more rounds to go in the Championship and then we begin the Dutka Rapid
Play. It is recommended that you look carefully at the flyer for this
event.
Keep contact with Club activities by reading http://www.boxhillchess.org.au.
Many current games have been recently loaded (but not early enough for Tim Anderson
who went looking for clues how to beat the Sam Chow. Tim, there is a ‘Chow-game’
there now if you link here).
Another great round of results. The top board game Woodhams v Chow
was played on a Tuesday evening and Sam now sits in outright first. Scot
Sharman nicely outplayed Keith Jenkins French defence and showed in the post-mortem
that he had seen more.
Some big upsets were Edward Rice’s long win over Arie Meydan, Udit Thakur’s
win over Kohei Endo (nice touch that, a former upstart losing to a new upstart),
and Melford Leong’s full point from Elena Galiabovitch. The big red alert
is Christopher Wallis who scored from Phillip Wheelwright, and now has three
upsets in a row to his credit. Duck if you are paired with him in round
seven.
Alan Gray played steady on board 41 to take the points from Christopher Tham
and get one back for the older members.
Finally a mention that the Treasurer played his first queen sacrifice in
29 years to force checkmate on James Shackell; although as bystanders uncharitably
pointed out it was more of a pseudo sacrifice than a true one.
Nice to see Domagoij Dragicevic get back on the winners board after his rocky
start to the tournament.
Three more rounds to go in the Championship and then we begin the Dutka Rapid
Play. It is recommended that you look carefully at the flyer for this
event.
Our anticipated visit from a Box Hill Chess Club Life member Brian Robson
was a pleasant occurrence for members such as John Butler, John Kable, Eric
Neymanis and Gerrit Hartland; there was a deal of reminiscing. Brian lives
in Canberra. He is a founding member of the Club 50 years ago and has
kept contact with Club activities by reading http://www.boxhillchess.org.au
Wow! What a big round for upsets and feature games.
Sam Chow bagged a pair of Lojanicas. Milenko in round four and Zdravko
in round five. Close readers of the bulletin will recall that ZL was observed
showing ML how ML should have won the end-game in round four.
Michelle Lee’s draw against Denis Bourmistrov means a rating swing as does
Christopher Wallis’ draw with the Treasurer (link here to see this ebb-and-flow
game).
Rad Chmiel had a good win over Ruperto Lugo, but Rukman struck back for the
juniors with a win over George Umber.
Shaun Fielder scored for the coaching group over Sam Elbrish, well done.
Phil O’Connor needed to be more enterprising to win rather than draw with Richard
Martin. Udit Thakur upset Ted Glennie-Infield, and Paul Qian polished
Tony Petrou.
For round 6 we are anticipating a visit from Brian Robson who is a Box Hill
Chess Club Life member. Brian lives in Canberra and is visiting Melbourne
this week. He is a founding member of the Club 50 years ago and has kept
contact with Club activities by reading http://www.boxhillchess.org.au
Last Sunday the MAY ROOKIES Cup was held at our Club. The ROOKIE and
QUEENS cups were won by Casey Hickman. Jesse Jager collected the money
in the adult section from David Flude (2nd). In Jesse’s game with Neil
McNab, Neil missed a mate in one, and several good continuations; but he went
away happy to be competitive. A good outlook on a good day.
I suspect from round four results that quite a few players have a theory
that their best hope of a mention in this bulletin is to be involved in an interesting
end-game.
On board one Mike Woodhams (v John Nemeth) eventually won a game he suspected
he was losing in the end-game. The DOP has called for the score-sheet
so that we can all view with annotations in the next Newsletter.
On board two, all of Milenko Lojanica’s friends showed him how to win the
end-game against Sam Chow. Unfortunately (for) Milenko could not find
the win at the board.
On board four, Marcel Rothlisberger had King and 4 pawns (on a2,b2.g2,h2)
symmetrically opposed to Janusz Dutka’s King and four pawns. All the arm-chair
experts now think Marcel would have been better to DO NOTHING but oscillate
his King between d2 and e2. This would have been enough for a draw.
And on boards 11 and 24, Ruperto Lugo v Keith Jenkins; Anton Nincevic v Shaun
Fielder were hard fought draws.
We wish Adrian Turner a speedy return to health.
Only three upsets of note this week. The ever-resourceful Zdravko Lojanica
defeated Denis Bourmistrov. Christopher Wallis took the full point against
Kohei Endo; Kohei might have been well-advised that Christopher won our most
improved JUNIOR award last year. And for those who read the warning in
bulletin #3, the premonition came true in the Jonathan Loo v Phillip O’Connor
clash.
Game of the week features the end-game between Rothlisberger and Dutka. Link
here and convince yourself that Marcel would have been better to sit on his
hands rather than move pawns.
The two week break over Easter and Anzac Day allowed all the top seeds to
regain their composure and the first 17 boards in Round three saw results match
the ratings of the players.
But Rukman Vijayakumar, on board 18, saw off the Treasurer, and on board
20 Artem Nikolayevsky accounted for stalwart Norm Wilson. Next door unrated
James Shackell accounted for Bruce Simpson .
Down amongst the ankle-biters Joe Kloprogge yielded many rating points to
Jonathan Yap, Udit Thakur scored against the improved Derek Yu, and Natasha
Lauder defeated Ted Glennie-Infield.
I am looking forward to round four because some of the better performed Division
B players now float upwards in the pairings to play sluggish Division A players.
Any upsets in these games have a profound impact on ratings and heighten the
misery of the unfortunate victims. For example those who could lose rating
points big-time, in round 4, would be Messrs Nincevic, Stanning, O’Connor, Butler,
Neymanis, and Ms Richter; we will watch those boards with interest.
Game of the week features an early exchange of a piece for three pawns in
the Opening phase of the game. Was this a good trade? You be the
judge by linking here to our Box Hill Chess Club web-site.
Fritz 8 thought the trade was questionable and turned a small advantage for
white into a sizeable deficit.
About half the entrants have renewed their Club annual subscriptions due
1st April. If you have not done this yet please see the Treasurer.
A few notable results on the second night of our Championship. Miralem
Campara won with the black pieces against the highly rated Armen Aghamalyan.
And on board 10 Rad Chmiel scored a fine upset over Domagoij Dragicevic.
Unrated Josiah Jiri accounted for Henning Meldau and here is a new alert to
watch.
On the lower boards Bruce Simpson was playing a desultory knight and pawn
ending against Ruperto Lugo; this was quite the wrong environment for Bruce
as the end-game called for accurate calculation rather than the random shot.
Next door on board 20 Phil Wheelwright took a draw with Adrian Turner; now that
is news reporting at its best.
New-comer Wung Song took the points from Ted Glennie-Infield. But my
favourite result was Jerome Lugo’s upset of Tony Petrou’s do-nothing attack.
Jerome’s mate was wonderful to see. (Jerome have you put the game on the
web-site?)
On board 40 there was a huge result where Hie Sing Din, playing her first
Championship game with clocks and scoring sheet, and having learnt the piece
moves only just last Tuesday, beat Robert Chan. (Hie Sing has previously
only played chess using the Chinese version)
So there you have it. A full quota of upsets for you to appreciate
while we take a two week break over Easter. The Club is not open 18/4
and has scheduled an Allegro for 25/4…this can be used as a catch-up night.
About half the entrants have renewed their Club annual subscriptions due
1st April. If you have not done this yet please see the Treasurer.
Ninety players have entered for the 2003 Championship and in round one we
had plenty of upsets from upstarts. You will note that this is a big change
from the last round of the Autumn Cup where we could not locate one decent bingle.
So, let us appreciate fine wins by Svetozar Stojic over Janusz Dutka, Shane
Lawson over Tim Anderson, and Rad Chmiel over Kim Cornish.
The second last game to finish for the evening was a draw between Henning
Meldau and Marcus Raine. Marcus had the upper hand in a rook and pawn
ending but at a crucial moment miscalculated what should have been an easy win.
They say time mends all wounds but Marcus has had three recently that have cut
deep.
The last game was Edward Rice v Anthony Miller and the DOP had to ask the
players to adjourn. In the 'old' days adjournments were frequent and the
procedure was well known. This is the first adjournment I can recall in
10 years, probably a consequence of quicker time controls.
Completing the picture on upsets was Ion Kloprogge’s win over Garry Lycett,
Farn-Ling Khung accounted for Fred Tischman, and Cathy Farrelly defeated newcomer
Surya Raviganesh.
About half the entrants renewed their Club annual subscriptions on the first
night. If you have not done this yet please see the Treasurer.
The game of the week was on board 16 where Grayson
O’Connor held well-prepared David Flude to a draw.
Late entrants to the tournament should contact Gerrit Hartland asap on 9878
3163.
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