Report on the Australian Chess Championship 2008

The Championship was won by Serbian GM Dejan Antic, now living in Australia and hoping for permanent residence. However, since this has not yet been granted, the title went to runner-up IM Steven Solomon of Queensland. Brazilian IM Herman Van Reimsdijk tied with Solo on 8 points, just half a point behind Antic.

One of the big performances came from young Max Illingworth who has worked quietly to improve his chess over the past few years and who just failed to secure his first IM norm in this. Among his victims were IM Gary Lane, FM Igor Goldenberg, and Tomek Rej. Max is a young man with a big future.

Gary would have been disappointed with his tournament. After sharing the
lead with 3/3 he slipped to 3.5/8 before securing a win and two draws in
his last three games.

The Major was a tie between Yongtae Kim of Korea and Sydneysider James
Watson. Still level after the two rapid games of their tie-break, James broke through in the two lightning games to take the trophy.

Rooty Hill was represented by Levi Descallar who finished 8-12, just 1.5
points behind the winner. He defeated two 2000+ players (Alex Mendes da Costa and Henk Jens) as well as Brian Press and Rooty Hill regular, Joshua Christensen. His only two losses were to Adrian Rose and Phil Viner.(Joshua himself finished with 4.5/11.

I was the only Rooty Hill player in the Minor and had a good start with 5/6 (losing to eventual winner Bob Liang). That left five of us with a share of the lead. After that the wheel fell off. I lost to former QCA president, Howard Duggan and drew my other games to finish two points (and too far) behind the winner.

One of my games was comical when I encountered the chess equivalent of the Sharapova Shriek. Playing with black, I won my opponent's c-pawn and there was a sharp intake of breath which was then exhaled angrily. That became the pattern each time I created problems in white's position. Then, when the game was over, the post mortem (which would have been audible six boards away) went something like, ?You lucky. You very lucky. If I do this you lose. Hundred percent!? And so on. I had to admit I'm a very lucky bloke. I'd been afraid that those angry exhalations were going to burst into flame and set fire to my beard.

Congratulations to Shane Burgess who organised a superb tournament at the last moment when it seemed likely that this year's championship may not have been played.

Charles Zworestine's excellent report is available on line. You can find it on the Live Games page of the official web site. Just click here
http://www.parramattachess.org/auschamps2008/livegames.html and select ?View Daily Reports? at the bottom of the page.

There are also many games from the tournament available on the Rooty Hill web page. Click here http://www.rootyhillchess.org/chesstheatre/AusCh08/CT_AusCh08.html

- by David Evans (17/01/2008)