After a long Covid break, the DCA Head Coach IM Alex Wohl is giving a simultaneous exhibition for 20 keen juniors this Saturday 27th Feb 2021 at the Burleigh Farmers Market.
The simul starts at 9:45am and will run for approx 2 hours.
It is pleasing to see that the Gold Coast Chess Club are continuing to provide quality events to encourage juniors.
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Last Sunday’s Gold Coast Allegro Championships saw a record 85 participants take part across the 2 divisions with International Master Alex Wohl claiming the title of Gold Coast Allegro Champion for 2018.
The photos are courtesy of Shaun Curtis from Gardiner Chess.
So while the Doubleroo leader was ensconced on Board 1, I was surveying the crowd from my seat at the other end of the playing hall! At least it made me able to enlighten the juniors on the touch move rule!
Anson looked at me in puzzlement when I said that I resigned. He said “…are you sure..?” I said “Touch move. The only piece that can capture your knight is the queen and so I resign.
A few minutes later Jordan Chan came up to me and asked whether Anson had won and I said yes and told him why.
So in Jordan’s next game he picked up one pawn, then picked up a second – so he had 2 pawns in his hand. He must have been as confused as I was the previous game! Anyway, Jordan found that neither pawn could complete a legal move and so he replaced both pawns on their correct squares and made a legal move with another piece. His opponent said nothing.
Some moves later, Jordan’s opponent picked up his Bishop, only to find that doing so exposed his Queen to capture. He replaced the Bishop and made another move. Jordan said “touch move”. The opponent complained that earlier Jordan had handled pieces without moving them and so an arbiter was called – who correctly ruled in Jordan’s favour.
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Ben Hague lived on a knife’s edge all tournament, from the first round on where he survived a deadly attack against Vishal. His last round game had more roundabouts than Canberra, as Daniel was winning, then Ben, then it was a draw, which both sides spurned many times. You can view this game and al the others on the New Zealand Chess News Website
Finally the result all Kiwi’s were hoping for but had abandoned many times, actually happened. Ben won the tournament and got his norm. Congratulations are most definitely in order.
Vishal, after failing to find a one move win in round one against Ben, played, in my opinion, the best chess. As a coach and trainer to many of India’s top players, he has a wealth of knowledge and a keen sense of position and the initiative. He never looked in trouble and seemed to be giving lessons instead of playing games.
This was his first tournament in decades and was only lured out of retirement by the opportunity to visit New Zealand. Perhaps this successful outing will inspire him to play again occasionally.
Chris Wallis was heading for an IM norm before coming unstuck in round 7 against Daniel Gong. He works very hard on his chess and I’m sure he’ll join the ranks of Australian IM’s soon.
I shared 4-5 with Alexei Kulashko on 5/9. The other notable result was the shocker the top seed, Gary Lane had. Often in a tournament, something goes wrong and goes from bad to worse, as I experienced recently in Mumbai. He will be back.
The qualifiers tournament was won by Gord Morrell, a Canadian import, and the organiser, Mike Steadman, who spent his last 10 days ensuring everything runs smoothly while playing excellent chess. Not to mention the year+ of assembling the field and communicating with fickle chessplayers. Thanks for everything, Mike.
Then there was the Chief Arbiter Keong Ang and His deputy, Helen Milligan, who ran everything with calm professionalism. Helen also found time to take pictures, input games and many other things required in a tournament that I and the players are unaware of.
The one thing that annoyed me a bit is that many people, even prizewinners did not have the good manners to stay for the prizegiving ceremony. May I suggest that if you don’t attend the closing, your prize should be considered a “donation” to the after party.
Round 9
I finally managed to win a game again and it was by playing sensibly. Not launching optimistic premature attacks before all the pieces are developed. Actually, by developing, playing central chess and avoiding unnecessary complications, the game did play itself.
That’s it from me for another tournament. It could have gone better, but it could have gone worse, but playing in New Zealand is always fun 🙂
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Photos in this post by Helen Milligan
We had a quiet day today. Intermittent showers and exhaustion from the previous few days (tourism, not chess) put paid to our enthusiasm. Also, the tournament is hotting up and norms are on offer so all the players in the hunt are being a bit more serious. See for yourself.
George-Trundle-Masters-2018-Standings-R7Ben Hague, the leader, is the only one in the hunt now, as Chris Wallis got beaten by Vishal today in another scintillating attacking game. Watch all the games by clicking on
George Trundle 2018 Masters games
Simon Lyall and Gordon Morrell
CM Oliver Picken
I really liked my position today, although Stockfish only awards white a very slight edge. White has a central space advantage, but that doesn’t mean that black deserves to be mated. We both played reasonably normally until I lashed out with 23.d5. After that, it looks like two blind people fencing. I somehow found a perpetual.
There is a little young Sri Lankan Elephant, curiously enough in the African section but let’s not quibble. We saw it being fed and showered and here it is brushing its teeth with a log.
The pink flamingoes were very popular, especially when they spread their colourful wings
In the South American section, we saw some Capybara, the largest rodents on earth. They were the size of pigs. I guess they would terrify your average domestic cat.
Tortoises under a sunlamp? I guess the Auckland temperature is a bit cold for them.
Meerkats! According to an Attenborough documentary, some always stand guard to look for predators. Not these. They feel perfectly secure despite dozens of people gawking at them only a few feet away.
My favourite section was the Avery. This looks like a Kea. If you are in the mountains on the west coast of the north island, these cheeky birds will land on your car, ask for food, and if you don’t deliver they take your windscreen wiper instead!
My game with Vishal today was a very short draw. He wanted to see more of Auckland with Arty and I felt like a rest day. So today instead of our half-dozen moves I present you with a brilliancy by Vishal against Paul Garbett from round four with annotations by the man himself.
A quiet outing at the Gold Coast Chess Club meeting at Nerang last night. School holidays and the recent packed chess schedule accounted for many missing juniors. Organisers FM Dusan Stojic and WIM Alex Jule suggested an allegro round robin and so away we went.
There is a trap called the Fishing Pole, and the main variation of it arises on the black side of the Ruy Lopez – I ran across a refresher while surfing youtube for chess videos – and yes it was a Mato video!
The theme of the Fishing Pole is to sacrifice a bishop against a castled King on h2 or h7; then to be able to give a discovered check when sacrificing the 2nd piece on either g5 or g4 – it works when king-side defenders are deployed elsewhere especially if there is no knight covering the h2 or h7 square.
Then the following position occurred in a French Defence Advanced variation against promising junior Ethan Carr. I worked out that if the knight sac was not accepted on g5 then white was still going to be exchange and 2 pawns and a loosened King for 2 pieces – so here goes!
The birdlife is extremely friendly. This could be due to the fact that people feed them. As soon as you arrive, ducks, swans, seagulls, pigeons etc, come over to see if you have any food on offer. We came unprepared.
This goose was particularly forward and patient but left disappointed.
Cute is not the word for this scene. Mind you, don’t threaten the chicks whatever you do. These Swans are huge with large claws and a bony beak.
Weird stone sculptures are dotted around the lake as well.
Some kind of pretty waterfowl.
And finally a tiny Japanese garden.
Round 6
A relief and a disappointment.
Tomorrow I play Vishal with white…after a visit to the zoo. That way neither of us can prepare 🙂
The ferry terminal from another angle
Turn around and you have the maritime museum. If time permits, I’ll pay it a visit and let you know if its worth the effort. I suspect it is.
This looks suspiciously like a boat that was featured in a documentary about some students who sailed around the world on a traditional Maori boat with solar panels being the only mod-con.
Botswana Butchery? Ok, I have no idea but am curious.
Round 5
Today I faced the top seed, IM Gary Lane, author of many fine chess books. We have played only once before, many years ago in an Australian championship. In that game, I played sophisticated hypermodern chess and got brutally crushed. I had expected Gary to play his usual stuff against the English, but he managed to surprise me on move 2. I was now thankful that I had not spent the whole morning preparing.
One funny moment was when he played 6…Bb4+. I have been troubled by Queen’s bishops all tournament, so was glad to get them off the board. Gary then made the mistake of calculating 14…Nf5 for nearly an hour. His position was ok after he didn’t play it (the correct decision) but he didn’t then have the time to play with the accuracy demanded by quite a complicated decision. Without going into too much detail, he should have swapped rooks on the e file before playing Be6. A scrappy win, but I’ll take it.
Tomorrow I’m playing the only other player on 50%, Alexei Kulashko with black. Prep or sightseeing? Let’s see what the weather is like in the morning 🙂
As you can see below, a few minutes after the above picture was taken, Auckland showed us it’s volatile temperament. Luckily the sheet of ice cold rain passed as quickly as it appeared.
The last two games I lost because I attacked before completing my development and I was very aware of this tendency before my game today, yet I repeated the error. I even spent a bit of time on move 7 contemplating Bg4 just to avoid repeating this error. No, I thought, closed position, I’ll get around to it. Then, when Ben played 8.Ne2 on the very next move, I, of course, couldn’t restrain myself.
In itself, my response was not too bad, but then I needed to follow up with 13…e3 14.fe3 Be3 15.Kh1 Nc5 with equality. 13…Re8 instead just got me into trouble because I couldn’t open the f file anymore due to the weakness on f7. I thought for about 40 minutes and found a way not to lose immediately and held a draw somehow, although in the final position white was still a bit better if he doesn’t repeat. Qd2 instead of Ne3 is possible.
Oh well, at least I avoided queenside castling. Notice that the idiot on c8 is still there in the final position.
Tomorrow I’m playing the top seed, IM Gary Lane, with white. My goal will be to develop all my pieces.
There must be some hallucinogen in the Auckland water supply judging by my game today. Of course, I should have played 11.f4 and play a normal Kings Indian type of position. Ok, playing on both sides is ok too, but 19.a5 is stupid. Attacking with not all pieces developed never works. 19.Qb4 with the idea of b4 is fine.
After that, it just got worse and I started hallucinating quite badly. Funny thing is, in the post-mortem, everything was crystal clear again. I’m not quite sure why the brain malfunctions when playing, then returns to normal.
So tomorrow I am playing the leader with black. Oh well, its always darkest before the dawn 🙂
