Spring Cup 2017 – Round 1

The last tournament for 2017 is the Spring Cup. This is 7 unrated rounds for the whole club from October to December.

The first round was draw randomly to mix things up a little and avoid nothing but games between players separated by 400 points in ratings.A large number of people also took byes, main due to school exams. This resulted in a few more interesting games.

Kelvin Xiao vs Simon Lyall – Fairly uninspired play by both players. White won a pawn but gave it back when he miscalculated a tactic. A dead draw but White looked much better than is 950 rating. Draw

Stephen Peak vs James Liu – White had a shaky start but found a good tactic and suddenly Black was lost. 1-0

Sylvia McDougall vs Nathan Goodhue – White made a couple of mistakes to go down two pieces. It was over quickly after that. 0-1

Alex Nagorski vs Alphaeus Ang – More closely rated players. Black got ahead early in the game as pieces were exchanged. But just as he went a piece up White was able to sacrifice a piece to force perpetual check. Draw

Ben Hague vs Isabelle Ning – Black managed to keep equality for around 35 moves (although she missed the chance of winning an exchange on move 22). But White eventually picked up a pawn and then got a passed pawn. 1-0

Aaron Wang vs Wayne McDougall – White picked up a pawn early on but miscalculated the follow-up sequence and lost two pieces. Black converted without trouble. 0-1

Jain Bo Yu vs David Ansell – White misplayed the opening and ended up undeveloped and cramped. Things went downhill from there. 0-1

Paul Macdonald vs Bruce Watson – Another early clash between high ranked players. White had a good start but lost a central pawn which left him under a lot of pressure. Black swapped the pieces down to same coloured bishops plus pawns. He then used his better position and extra pawn to win. 0-1

Samuel Sajch vs Erica Hu – White failed to notice a checkmate threat and lost on move 13. 0-1

Tim Ha vs Andrew Michael – Black failed to accurately defend an attack against his castled King. 1-0

Leo Li vs Keith Ward – Black picked up a key pawn and was able to leverage his advantage from there to win. 0-1

Eric Liang vs Mark Brimble – Black had a slightly better position thought most of the game as pieces were swapped. But it was not enough to make progress once the position was down to 2 rooks and 8 pawns each. Draw.

Alexei Kulashko vs Clinton Wells – Black made an error in the opening and attempts to recover made the position worse. 1-0

Philli Park-Tamati vs Oscar Qin – A quick draw.

Upsets

  • Kelvin Xiao drew with Simon Lyall
  • Eric Liang drew with Mark Brimble
  • Jeffrey Yu beat Hugh Gao
  • Philli Park-Tamati drew with Oscar Qin