Club captain's News & Weekly Bulletins

Round 1 of the Box Hill OPEN for 2005. 

Eighty-nine players entered the tournament by the close of entries (7.30pm) and the pairings were on display 6 minutes after the scheduled start time of 7.45pm. And additional 5 players were accepted into the tournament as late entrants (after 7.30pm) and were separately paired with opponents (manually, instead of SWISS pairing rules). Thus 93 entrants to date.

The field was strengthened significantly by Domagoj Dragicevic and John Nemeth and they showed their class by getting early winning positions.

The first upset occurred on board 3 when the second seed blundered in a very advantageous position and let one of previous years upstarts take the full point. Devrim van Dijk 1-0 David Hacche.

I forecast that board 7, Eugene Schon v Marcus Raine would be a feature game due to Eugene's recent form improvement; and so it happened with a draw the eventual result.

The game on board 16 was eagerly watched as newcomer Hong Lin from NSW was paired with Steven Doon from Dandenong; but the rating-differential was too much for the local.

Early in the evening there was a rash of calls for Arbiter action from players who were zealous about their opponents writing the move before playing the move. The recent rule change appeals apparently.

Board 20 saw the first real breakthrough for an upset by an upstart. This guy is one of my favourite upstarts and Shane Lawson found that you cannot give away material to Samuel Dalton.

Simon Takouridis had his best result since joining the Club as he accounted for Alan Elliott, nearly 400 points higher; board 22. And on board 25, Susan Sheng scored a fine win over life member Eric Neymanis; similar rating-differential.

Zhong Hao Gan had to be arm-twisted into entering but he must be pleased by the early upset of David Creedon, who to be fair is returning after an extended break. Oliver Lemmel had a good win over Vladimir Zacharczenko who has been in good form recently. Micro-junior Andrew Gurevich arrived a little late but was able to spot 400 rating points to Laurence Matheson and still prevail.

Provisional pairings for round 2 have been made and will be published soon. Any player wishing to lock in their provisional pairing (so that they can prepare for their round 2 game) should follow the instructions on the web-site

Round 2 of the Box Hill OPEN for 2005.

Eight late entrants to the 2005 Box Hill OPEN have swelled the numbers to 97 for round 2. The provisional pairings were first on display on the web-site on Tuesday 20/9 and went through a few iterations as the school holidays made some players unavailable. Please ring on the Club mobile (0409 259 490) as early in the week as possible to allow us to arrange postponements or to adjust the pairings.

John Nemeth arrived early, resplendent in uniform, for his board 5 game against the rapidly improving Chris Brooks. Their game ended in a surprise draw, which will make for some interesting pairings in later rounds.

Many players took the opportunity to discuss progress on our search for alternate premises next year. The Committee is having some success identifying options but it is hard to find one the equal of our current location for cost and access.

The first real upset was on board 13 and this was by far the longest game of the night. Shane Lawson jettisoned a pawn and then two for an early attack against Alan Glenton. Alan maintained his cool although in time-trouble for much of the last 30 moves; this is one of the benefits of the 30-second increment on the electronic DGT clocks. Proper management of time is a key skill for chess at all rates of play.

Board 16 players left the building with nary a sign of the result on the pairings sheet (the winner’s responsibility) nor the scoresheets (both players responsibility). It helps the organisers if you leave some footprints behind.

I was tipping an upset on board 17 where our Club President was playing the Club Secretary; but the result went according to the rating advantage and Rolf Exner prevailed.

The after game analysis of the game between Rengan Vijayakumar and Norm Wilson proceeded along strategic grounds with a few observant bystanders. Over the past few years Derek Yu has been featured on the plus side of upsets from upstarts on many occasions; but on this occasion he was the board-wreck at the hands of the improving Jason Tang; board 21. Sister Sally Yu also featured on the wrong side of an upset by Zhong Hao Gan.

Our web-master had a big chance to take the scalp of veteran Anton Nincevic but could not find the right resource. On board 29 Nicholas Liu stood up in the big arena of Friday events to defeat Stuart Cuxson in a well played game.

Not all upsets are by juniors as Simon Takouridis had a second good result above his rating, this time to defeat Frank Benjamin. Sasha Simonov was very relieved to win against micro-junior Raymond Chan.

I was pleased to see a large amount of after game analysis occurring this week. This is the road to improvement for plenty of good players in the past and it is good to be able to see another player’s view of the positions throughout the game.