Summer Cup – Round 7

A reminder that we have only a couple of places left for entries for the Autumn Rapid and Autumn Cup. Please enter asap.

Monday the 27th of March was the final round of the Summer Cup. I’ll review the round in this post and give a summary of the results in another post.

Links for the Summer Cup

PGN of Summer Cup round 7 by Tim Ha and Ewen Green

A Grade

Steadman vs Hague – Black gave up a pawn for a good centre early in the game but his compensation declined. However black regrouped his attack and white was soon in trouble. However black missed two winning moves (one of which Ben posted to facebook) and had to settle for perpetual check. Draw

Garbett vs Duneas – A slightly better opening for white but black equalised with some swaps. There was a tense position around moved 23-30 but both players found the safe moves and things swapped to a draw.

Ang v Watson – White seemed to get lost after the opening and gave black lots of room to advance and put pressure on his position. A couple of swaps later black had a past pawn. 0-1

Gong vs Kulashko – White made a mistake and gave up a pawn. He got it back and had a small attack with the Queen shortly afterwards but was unable to get his other pieces to help. There were some sharp tactics as the players reduced the number of pieces on the board. However Black ended up an exchange plus a pawn ahead and kept up the pressure until he had a win. 0-1

B Grade

Wells vs MacDonald. Paul has once again extensively annotated his game. See the pgn for the whole thing. The opening left Black in a slightly better position. After much Knight maneuvering blacks position was the better and he was able to win and then two pawns leaving White with no chance with just a piece each in the end. 0-1

Morrell vs Fan – This is also annotated in the PGN. Black played a inferior line in the opening, leaving himself with a pawn on h6 that served as a nice target for white (who built up all his pieces for a king side attack). Black had a small chance of a Queenside push against whites king but was too slow. When Whites eventual push came Black had little chance. 1-0

Nagorski vs Wang – A kings Gambit declined!? But by move 16 Black was still two pawns up. Sloppy moves by black gave white a chance a few moves later which he missed and black was an even exchange up. He was eventually able to turn this into a winning endgame. 0-1

Goodhue vs Jasmine Zhang – Black had some chances but eventually things evened out to a draw.

C1 Grade

Ward vs Milne – Black came out of the opening a little better but gradually got worse as her better pieces were swapped off. Black resigned when white was three pawns up. 1-0

Burrows vs Song – A bit of inattention by Black allowed white to sacrifice a Bishop on h7 and threaten a mate follow-up which force black to give up her Queen for two pieces. White was unable to follow-up correctly though and lost and exchange, then a pawn and eventually resigned while under pressure. A lucky escape for Black. 0-1

Lyall vs Nicole Qin – White unwisely castled into a pawn storm and spent the rest of the game under a lot of pressure. Black tried find a way though for about 20 moves before giving up and agreeing on a draw.

Wu vs Kozakevych – Players swapped pieces until that had opposite coloured bishops and white was a pawn up. Not enough to force things however. Draw

C2 Grade

Joy Qin vs Peak – The players open with the Spanish which while it may be popular elsewhere in the world is not at the club.  We even go the “Spanish Knight” going to g3. Things were fairly even before black allowed a tactic which led to a crushing attack. 1-0

Jacobs vs Euan MacDougall – A even looking opening and early game. Black moved most of his pieces to the Queen side which gave white pressure allowing the half-open F-file. It all came to an end when black overloaded a defender and forgot it was stopping mate. 1-0

Bishop vs Ha – Black got off to a good start, swapped a Night for a Bishop and leaving white with doubled pawns and a blocked in Bishop. After some swaps black was still a little ahead but didn’t take a free pawn and the players were in an endgame with 7 pawns each and White’s bishop vs Black’s Knight.  30 moves later with the position still even (and fewer pawns) Black lost on time. 1-0

Yan vs Eade – Black got into a great position with a dangerous attack. However he missed the best follow-up and the blundered into a mate-in-one. 1-0

D Grade

Wayne MacDougall vs Rodney Li – After some sharp tactics both players decided to call it a night and took the draw.

Andrew Michael vs Xinyang Liu – A very long game that looked like being a drawn endgame but Xinyang eventually won.

Upsets this round:

  • Renae Ghadiali  winning against Mike Steiner (576 points rating difference!)
  • Isabell Ning beating Sarah Yan
  • Hugh Gao beating Louie Wei
  • Kenny Zhang beating Jacob Chai
  • Felix Xie drawing with David Ansell