Winter Cup – Round 4

All Grades are now seeing some players pulling out ahead. However in A and B there are several unplayed games while in C Grade things are still very close.

  • Upcoming tournament at the Club is the Merv Morrison over Labour weekend ( October 21st to 24th). The entry form has more details
  • Also a reminder than the NZ Chess Congress will be in Wellington in early January 2017. Go here for the entry form and entries so far.

PGN for Round 4 by Alex Nagorski

A Grade

Nathan Goodhue and Alex Huang played a long game (in time if not moves) before agreeing on a draw.

Bruce Watson and Alphaeus Ang swapped down to a Q+3P vs RN+4P endgame (Bruce had the Queen).  Bruce managed to pick up all 4 pawns and avoid Alphaeus’ traps

Daniel Gong never seem to get into the game against Mike Steadman and resigned once Mike was in a winning endgame position.

John Duneas, Bruce Watson and Mike Steadman lead the grade but several games are unplayed.

B Grade

Tim Ha on his game against Tomas Midr: “We castled opposite sides and it was equal at first, but I was slower in attack and finally lost to the powerful bishop pair and pawn storm from Tomas”.

After an unusual Opening (which I’m sure I’ve seen him play before) Hilton Jacobs was equal with Alex Nagorski before losing a piece to a tactic and resigned after getting into zugzwing in the endgame

Paul MacDonald struggled in the opening against Keith ward before picking up an exchange via a tactic and then a dominant position.

Alex leads the grade by half a point from Paul but they meet in round 5.

C Grade

Bishop Everett beat Seifi Pouya to take the sole led. Clinton Wells and Euan MacDougall are just half a point behind him however.

Round 5

The Vega Websites for the Winter Cup Are:

Links to the Schedule for A and B grade are on the 2016 Tournaments page.

If you are unable to play please contact Simon Lyall either via text (021 575 233) or email to contact @ aucklandchess.nz . Normally you will get a half point bye. Please let us know as early as possible.

The draft draw for C grade is below. Please remember that this may change if there are additional byes

wc_r5_draw