Much like there first round of the Spring Cup there were very few upsets in the round 2. However games started being more hard-fought as ratings got closer.
PGN for Round 2 of the Spring Cup by Alex Nagorski.
A Grade
In Ben Hague vs Nathan Goodhue, Ben got a good position out of the opening and slowly improved it.
Paul Macdonald vs Alxei Kulashko was a long game. While Alexei had a small advantage throughout Paul fought on for 68 moves before resigning in a lost endgame position.
Don Eade made some early mistakes against Bruce Watson and resigned quickly
Gordon Morrell pushed Richard Taylor into a cramped position and trapped one of Richard’s pieces. Richard resigned soon after.
Allen Fan and Pouya Seifi had a logn game. Allen was ahead for most of it but Pouya was equal ahead many times and even missed a mate in 3!
Allen won a few moves later however with a temporary rook sacrifice to gain a passed pawn
Jasmine Zhang vs Alphaeus Ang. A fairly even game swapped down to an unbalanced endgame with Alphaeus a pawn up but Jasmine having more mobile pieces. Eventually everything was swapped to a draw.
Upsets were Jasmine’s draw above and Andrew Michael drawing against Alex Nagorski. Simon Lyall also got a point due to a default by Mike Steadman.
After 2 round 6 players are now on 2 points and another 5 on 1.5
B Grade
There we’re several upsets. Tom Fu beat Temu Maroroa and James Liu beat Neil Sonnekus. The unrated players Kenny Zhang and Felix Xei also had wins.
After two rounds 5 players are on 2 points and another 5 on 1.5
Vega for links for the Spring Cup are:
Draft Draws for round 3 are below. Subject to late byes as usual.
