Hamilton Chess Club

We had a great turnout lastnight with 26 players entering the graded round robin.

Richard Dare, Fuatai Fuatai, Stefan Wagner, Hilton Bennett, Graham Nolan, Daniel Davis comprise the A division. Currently Richard is the only player with 2 points. In the B division (Gary Judkins, Ian Kennedy, Murray Tuatini, Sivaram Manoharan, David Whiting, Richard Jackson) Gary currentl y leads on 1.5 points. The C division has 14 contestants, and is running as a Swiss tournament. There are currently 4 players tied on 2 points each. The crosstables can be found here, and player ratings have been updated.

The club is pleased to welcome Fuatai Fuatai and Thyx Joubert as new club members. Fuatai is a strong player with a national rapid rating of over 2000 and several games listed on chessgames.com. He is so strong in fact that after only 3 weeks he has managed to be placed second only to Richard who still scrapes in at top space on the club rating board. Thys is a keen internet chess player, and is looking forward to getting some more over the board competition.

Remember this week we will start a members only graded tournament with divisions based on your current club rating. Providing we have enough players turn up we will run this as A B and C grades. Ideally 6 players each in A and B divisions, and the remainder in group C. A and B grades will be round-robin, so please commit to turning up on all 3 nights (9, 16, 23 September – or borrowing a club set and clock to play a catch up game on a weekend). The C grade will be run as a Swiss tournament so players can miss out night(s) if they wish

With two more rounds to go in the club rapid champs Richard is leading on five points following last nights games. The crosstable and club ratings pages have been updated.

We had a record join-up tonight with four new members signing on. The club welcomes brothers Jeff and Jarvis Xiang. Jeff and Jarvis join the growing contingent of lads from Hukanui School that are regulars at the club. Jarvis has the distinction of being the clubs youngest member at 6 years of age. Also joining up Joel Kaumoana. Joel is 10 years old and goes to Norton School. Suriya Srinivasan completes the quartet of new members. Welcome

Club nights will be restricted to members only for the next 4 weeks. You can pay a sub online, or on the night ($40 adults, $20 under 18) and join in the fun. By becoming a member you support chess in the Waikato, get a discount on entry for club weekend tournaments, and acquire a club rating. Non members are allowed three free nights attendance before deciding to commit to full membership.

On September 9 we will start a graded round robin tournament. There will be three divisons: An A and B grade (based on club ratings) consisting on groups of six players based on club ranking. There will also be a C grade that will be a five round Swiss style tournaments. There will be two rounds on 9/9/14 and again on 16/9/14, with the final round 23/9/14 followed by a very brief AGM. I think this will be a very popular tournament. Please players will need to commit to being there on each of the three nights to take part as we don’t want any no-shows signing on.

Next week we will have round 5 of the club rapid champs, followed by a break with round 6 resuming on 14th October. If you have forgotten where you stand on the cumulative points table so far it can be found here.

Round 6 of the blitz last night once again drew a big crowd with 22 players. Final points have been tallied. The Club Blitz champion 2014 (Open division) goes to Richard Dare, well clear of the rest of the pack on 30.5 points. Second was Ian on 24, followed by Stefan on 21. The title of Club Blitz Champion 2014 (Reserve Board), awarded to the highest scoring player whose club ranking was pawn, knight, or bishop at the start of the tournament, is shared equally by Sivoram and Richard Jackson on 21.5 points each. Nick came in third on 18. To try and tiebreak Sivoram and Richard I went back over each of the rounds to see their scores against each other, only to find that not a single game was played between them over the whole tournament. The winners have been immortalized on the champions board. Our next blitz event will be “Super Blitz” with eight rounds of 3 minutes on the clock and a 2 second increment. That tournament will be held over 2 club nights starting on September 30th.

There has been bit of a hiatus in club ratings as the openings tournament wasn’t used for ratings purposes. Last nights blitz was a ratable event though, and so club ratings have been updated accordingly. Joel Nick Eddie and Richard all achieve new personal bests.

We had 23 for round 5 of the blitz last night. Fuatai looks like a strong addition to the club with his clean sweep score of 6. Second on the night to Richard and Stefan, both on 5 points apiece. The crosstable and cumulative points tables have been updated. Richard Dare has an unassailable lead in the open division on 26.5, 6.5 points clear of his nearest rival. In the reserve board division two players are tied on 17.5 points each, so it may come down to the wire next week. Welcome to a lot of new youngsters as well. The sixth and final round of the 2014 club blitz champ will be held next week. Guests welcome to come along for a look. Games kick off at 7:30 so don’t be late.

Round 5 of the club blitz champs are next week, with the sixth and final round the week after. Guests are welcome to participate. Richard would look to have a fairly unassailable lead, but there is still plenty of scope to jockey into position for the minor placings. We will be having a graded round robin shortly in which your playing division will be dictated by your club rating. The next few weeks will be your last chance to polish up (or polish down?) your rating in preparation for that event.  Kick off is 7:30 so dont be late.

We had the final two rounds last night. Richard bought along the symmetrical variation of the four nights defence as the study for the evening. The final crosstable has been updated here, with Richard Dare and Graham both finishing on 7 points apiece. Richard took out pole position on tiebreak points. The big news of the tournament is Elijah who finished with 3.5 points along with Sivoram and Ian. Elijah claims 5th position based on tiebreak points, which is a tremendous effort for a youngster who is clearly coming ahead in chess ability in leaps and bounds. Well done. Next week we look towards some faster action with the return of the club blitz champs. See you there. (For the record Shredder favours  the continuation 1.Bg5 Bxc3 2.bxc3 Qe7 3.Qe2 h6 4.Bh4 g5 5.Bg3 Bd7 6.Rab1 in the position at left)

Last night Matt entertained us with the Benko Gambit. The Benko Gambit is characterised by the move 3…b5 in the Benoni Defense (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5). When White accepts with 4.cxb5 we are entering into a lively encounter as Black will almost certainly come back with 4…a6 offering the second pawn. If White accepts this (he will often refuse playing 5.b6 instead) we are in true Benko territory. Before long we have Bxa6 and the gloves are off. White’s main dilemma is what to do on his kingside. Playing his pawn to e4 has the drawback of the light-square bishop exchange where he will lose the right to castle. Now he’s in the King Walk Variation where he will lose a number of moves getting his king safe and developing his rook. This is the variation we played last night. Richard, Daniel, and Graham now lead on 5 points. The crosstable has been updated. Richard has volunteered to bring along an opening for the final two rounds next week.

Gary, Gerri, Richard, and Graham ran a very successful regional school’s competition on Sunday to find the local Waikato representatives to go to the Nationals in Auckland later this year. Each of the three divisions was run in round robin style. In the High School division there were 2 teams each from Hamilton Boy’s, St Paul’s, and Putaruru. Hamilton Boys-1 came first on 19 points, followed by St Pauls-1 on 16.5. The Intermediate division had 8 teams from Fairfield (2 teams), Maeroa (2 teams), Southwell (2 teams), Marian, and Peachgrove. Southwell-1 came first on 22 points, Maeroa1 were a close second on 21. The primary division also had eight teams competing (2 each from Hukanui, Hilltop, and Southwell, one each from Marian and Tamahere.) Honours went to Hukanui-1 on an impressive 27 out of a possible 28 points, with Southwell-1 second on 19.5. Three of the four players in Hukanui-1 are club regulars. We wish each of the three teams good fortune for the National competition. Some photos from the weekends event are here.

Last night we had the Cambridge Springs Defense, a variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined that begins with the moves:

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Nbd7 5. Nf3 c6 6. e3 Qa5

Black breaks the pin on the h4–d8 diagonal and forms a pin of his own on the c3 knight (exploiting the absence of the White’s queen bishop from the queenside). If Black later plays dxc4, there may be threats against the g5-bishop. Graham now leads on 4 points, followed by Daniel and Richard Dare on 3, then Richard Jackson on 2.5. The crosstable has been updated. Matt has volunteered to bring along an opening for next week.

Rounds one and two of the openings tournament used the fiendish Frankenstein–Dracula Variation, a branch of the Vienna Game. (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bc4 Nxe4 4. Qh5 Nd6 5. Bb3 Nc6 6. Nb5 g6 7. Qf3 f5). The opening involves many complications, however with accurate play the opening is very playable for both sides. The variation was given its name by Tim Harding in his 1975 book on the Vienna Game, in which he said that the bloodthirstiness of the character of play was such that “a game between Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster would not seem out of place.” The line is seen extremely infrequently in top-level play, mainly because the Vienna Game is seen so little at top-level play. Ivanchuk used the opening against Anand in Roquebrune in 1992 in a game that ended as a draw. The crosstable so far is here

Next week Graham will bring along the opening that will be used in rounds 3 and 4

For the next four weeks we will have a novelty tournament involving prespecified openings. The first 7 moves will be played out on the board, and then you are on your own. Each night there will be two games at time control 25 + 0. The same opening will be used in each game, so you will get to play one game as white, and one as black.

The cumulative points table for Club Blitz has been updated after round 4 last night. Once again Richard Dare leads the open division on 21.5. Round 5 will be played in August. Openings tournament next week.

For those of you keen to relive the memories here are a few more photos of the Waikato Open courtesy of Simon Lyall