Sydney placed 10th in 17th Asian Cities Chess

Sydney placed 10th in 17th Asian Cities Chess

Sydney team catch up the tally board by adding two wins and two draws against Bagdad in the 9th and final round to finish 10th in the conclusion of the 17th Asian Cities Chess Team Championship in Jakarta, Indonesia on 29th April.

The 17th Asian Cities Team Chess Championship begun with 24 teams in Jakarta, Indonesia. The tournament runs from April 21-29 and was hosted by Indonesian Chess Federation (PERCASI). In the strong field are 18 Grandmasters, 2 WGMs, 11 IMs and 1 WIM. The tournament is a 9 round Swiss system. At stake is the Dubai Cup sponsored by the Dubai Sports Council and a total of $24,000 in cash prizes.

Top seed Shi Jiazhuang (China) won the overall title with 18 match points while Astana (Kazakhstan) nabbed 2nd place with 15 match points. Former champion Tehran (Iran) took solo 3rd with 13 match points. While 4 teams namely: Tagaytay(Philippines), Palembang(Indonesia), Jakarta(Indonesia) and Mashhad (Iran) notched a total of 11 match points each. The Tagaytay team eventually took 4th place after winning the tie break points against Palembang , Jakarta and Mashhad .

Sydney team consisting of IM Garry Lane(2366), FM Tim Reilly(2271), FM Lee Jones(2109) and FM Brian Jones(2045). Except for Tim Reilly, the Sydney team are all members of Rooty Hill RSL Chess Club.

View PGN games in Chesstheatre here:
7th Asian Cities Chess Team Championship

10th Dubai Open - Wesley seizes solo lead

WINNING what could be his greatest game yet, 14-year-old GM Wesley So seized the solo lead with a perfect score of 5.0 points from five games at the 10th Dubai International Open in the United Arab Emirates Thursday.
The Bacoor Wonder Boy got out of well-known book lines on White’s side of the Sicilian Pelikan/Sveshnikov early on and stormed Black’s "Bastille" with all the firepower he could muster, sacrificing pieces in the process to strip the enemy king of its defenses.

When Black - Fide Master A.R. Saleh Salem of the UAE - resigned, checkmate was in the air.

GM So (2540) and FM Salem (2429) were the only ones with a perfect score of 4.0 points each entering the fifth round.

Wesley had earlier disposed of four rivals, including GM Levan Pantsulaia (2617) of Georgia in the third round and in the fourth world junior champion Ahmed Adly (2578) of Egypt, his nemesis in Yerevan, Armenia last year.

- Reported by Manny Benitez

Here are 4th and 5th GM So’s "Dubai Immortal" using Chessgenie game viewer:

Click here to view more games of 10th Dubai Open using Chesstheatre.

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)

Rooty Hill Open 2007

Round 7 Pairing

Rd 2 results
No Name             Loc  Total  Result   Name             Loc  Total
 1 Brian A Jones    2098 [4.5]     :     Tony Bouchaaya   2181 [5.5]
 2 David W Dick     2042 [4.5]     :     Noel Mangrobang  1941 [5]
 3 Angelito Camer   2021 [4]       :     Leonardo Tenorio 1861 [4]
 4 Peter Cassettari 1834 [4]       :     Longjas Norman   1920 [4]
 5 Armen Ayvazyan   2241 [3.5]     :     Levi Descallar   1787 [3.5]
 6 John Yao         1739 [3.5]     :     Robert Ambalong  1839 [3.5]
 7 M Munir Anjum    1608 [3]       :     Ron W Kite       1747 [3]
 8 Muhamed Buza     1622 [3]       :     Rolando Gonzales 1458 [3]
 9 Hans P Muller    1854 [2.5]     :     Eddie Quesada    1388 [2.5]
10 Stevan Jovanovic 1636 [2.5]     :     Frank Barisic    1726 [2.5]
11 David A Evans    1597 [2.5]     :     Ken Macgillivray 1405 [2.5]
12 Michael Jansen   1298 [2]       :     David Van Look   1250 [1.5]
13 Peter Barreca    1545 [1]       :     Henry Rara       1620 [1.5]
14 Peter Watts      1139 [1]       :     Daniel Bell           [0]
15 Edis Franca      904  [1]       :     BYE

For crosstable result click HERE

Combination from WC Candidate Matches

In Game1 of the second round of the World Championship Candidate Matches, Sergei Rublevsky had just played 31...Rf2, cornering white's King. Can you tell us how Alexander Grischuck turn the situation around by a briliant combination?

Alexander Grischuck - Sergei Rublevsky

You'll find the answer by viewing this game from the collection of World Championship Candidate Matches here rootyhillchess/chesstheatre

Enjoy...

Olympic Chess title a dream:Vishy

From Chennai on Line, June 04, come Vishy Anand's thoughts on the improbability of chess being accepted as an Olympic sport any time soon:

QUOTE

New Delhi, Jun 2: Viswanathan Anand may have claimed every big honour in chess but he has no hope of winning an Olympic medal in his career.

World Number One and former World Champion Anand said it was a lengthy procedure for a sport to be included in the Olympic Games and at the moment he was content with the fact that the sport had been included in the Asian Games.

"I can say I have just a little over zero per cent hope of playing in the Olympics. It takes at least eight years from proposal to acceptance of a sport in the Olympics and I don't see its inclusion in the Games in near future," he said.

The Madrid-based player made light of the talks about the game being affected by changes made to suit Olympics.

"I think the time-control factor and double rounds in a day are possible. All those who are complaining about it now would agree when they would see the glory associated with it," he said.

"Earlier, rapid chess was also not accepted easily as people said it was bad for the game but today it's very well there," said Anand, known as 'lightning kid' in his early days.

Anand said his motivation and passion for the game had not diminished an iota since his childhood.

"You think about other alternatives if you do not have desire to play, but I still have burning desire. If sometimes it goes away it comes back in a month or two. I am still as passionate about it as I was in my earlier days. "The day I will start dreaming about doing something else it would mean I am not fit to or want to play chess with my full mind," he said.

Anand feels the advent of technology was changing the game of chess as it was important for players to keep up with fast-changing trends.
END QUOTE

That's less than half of the article. You can read the rest here

Two hours to execute a chess player

Way back in one of the early Star Wars movies when C3PO was beating Chewbacca at chess he was warned of the danger of winning against something that could tear your arms off. It could have been worse: This week in Ohio a man was executed for killing his opponent in a chess game. The following report, dated May 26, comes from Novinite, the Bulgarian on-line news service.

The execution of a prisoner for killing a fellow cell mate over a chess game took two hours as his executioners struggled to find a vein in his arm for the lethal injections, reports said Friday.

Christopher Newton, 37, was said to have joked with prison workers and even had a toilet break, the Indianapolis Star reported.

The delay in carrying out the execution was the longest since Ohio reintroduced capital punishment in 1999, the report said.

"Yes, boy I could sure go for some beef stew and a chicken bone. That's it," Newton said in his final brief statement before he died at 11:53 am (1553 GMT) Thursday.

It is believed Newton's weight, at just over 102 kilograms, was a contributing factor in the difficulties in administering the death penalty. Executions normally take 20 minutes, the newspaper said.