The Final Round of the Winter Cup was on October 15th.
Remember to get in your entries for the Spring Cup as soon as possible as we are almost full
A reminder that the New Zealand Chess congress is on in the New Year in Palmerston North. If you want to play you need to plan you holidays, travel and accommodation soon.
Round 7 PGN by Ewan Green
A Grade
Ben Hague vs Mike Steadman – Black swapped down the pieces but ended up with a bad position where White could just pick off his pawns. 1-0
Allen Fan vs Danial Gong – Black tried a pawn push against White’s King but White nicely broke it up. White then kept a slightly lead with better placed pieces. After a swap black bad a bad move and resigned after white mate threat allowed him win material. 1-0
Bruce Watson vs Gordon Morrell – White got control of a file and then another and pushed Black steadily. After another threat along a diagonal was created Black was unable to defend them all. 1-0
Alexei Kulashko vs Alphaeus Ang – An early draw after most of the interest was swapped out of the game. Draw
Final result was Alexei Kulashko and Ben Hague were 1st equal on 5.2 points. Alphaeus Ang was 3rd on 3.5
B Grade
Alex Nagorski vs Caroline Yan – Black made a mistake out of the opening and left her castled King under-defended. She gave up a piece to avoid White’s attack. White used his extra piece to win fairly easily. 1-0
Don Eade vs Nathan Goodhue – White went a little wrong in the opening and Black was able to improve his position with threats wot Whit’s over-extended pieces. Black then broke up White’s pawn structure and picked off the isolated pawns. 0-1
Mark Brimble vs Paul Macdonald – See the PGN for Paul’s full analysis – Paul played the Petroff to reduce White’s winning chances. His 8. ..f5 was a dubious line however. White’s good start gradually went away as he was unable to find the best move to maintain the pressure and a draw was agreed on move 29. Draw
Roy Seabrook vs Keith Ward – White won by default
Final result was a very good first place to Paul Macdonald with 6.5 ( 6 wins and one draw). Second was Nathan Goodhue on 5.5 and third Alex Nagorski on 5.0
C Grade
Simon Lyall vs Everett Bishop – A long game as both players pushed for an advantage in a even position. Eventually everything was swapped down to a draw,
Tim Ha vs Euan McDougall – A very long game. White pciked up a pawn in the middle-game and things swapped to a Queen and Pawn endgame. after much play and many checks Black exchanged the Queens favorably. 0-1
Grant Burrows vs Aaron Wang – Black made an error in the opening and after pieces were swapped made a passive move to give White control of the center. White used the advantage to pick up Black’s Queen. 1-0
Xinyang Liu vs Winston Weng – After the opening went from a c3-sicilian to an advanced French white showed he had a better understanding of the position. Black was unable to castle and white eventually picked up a piece. 1-0
Isabelle Ning vs Louie Wei – Black gained the advantage and then it was all over when White dropped a piece. 0-1
Stephen Peak vs Kelvin Xiao – An exciting game of tactics, it swapped to a pawn endgame which ended up being winning for Black. 0-1
David Ansell vs Virginia Milne – White lost a piece after miscalculating a sequence of exchanges. 0-1
Felix Xie vs Andrew Michael – White had an awkward opening but Black made a careless move and allowed white a tactic from which he eventually got 2 pawns. But as White pressed his advantage Black found his tactic and picked up a piece. 0-1
The C-Grade winner was Everett Bishop on 6.0/7 with Grant Burrows and Euan MacDougall 2nd-equal on 5.5.