Round one of the Spring Cup had mostly large rating gaps but there were big upsets in both Grades.
2018 Spring Cup – R1 PGN by Alex Nagorski and Tim Ha
A Grade
Alex Nagorski vs Ben Hague – 15 moves of Kings Indian theory before black heads down a sideline. White had the better run but the psotion swapped to a draw.
Alexei Kulashko vs German Giulani – The opening was 1. d4 h6 2. e4 g5 3. h4 g4 which is the “Borg Defense: Troon Gambit” , Black gives up a pawn and develops while he kick’s White’s Queen around. Black gained a lot of threats which White kept on top of until he missed on his position fell apart. 0-1
Paul Garbett vs Clinton Wells – White built up a nice position, countered black’s threats and picked up a pawn. Black resigned as white’s attack started to gather steam. 1-0
Winston Weng vs Bruce Watson – White was going well but pushed a pawn in front of his King which allowed Black in for a mating attack. 0-1
Daniel Gong vs Roy Seabrook – Black tried a new defense against the London System ( 1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 f6 ) but lost a pawn for little compensation. White picked up another pawn and swapped pieces for a winning endgame. 1-0
Tim Ha vs Nathan Goodhue – More opening innovations, this time from White in the c3 Sicilian which got him an even opening. Black picked up a pawn and white resigned in a lost endgame position. 0-1
Paul Macdonald vs Don Eade – White played 1. b3 “continuing the clubs’ pursuit of ridiculous openings”. White looked okay until he blundered into a back-rank mate. 0-1
Allen Fan vs John Duneas – White looked better but black managed to come back with some favorable swaps and the players agreed on a draw in am even endgame position. Draw
Caroline Yan vs Mike Steadman – Whites position went steadily downhill. 0-1
Lew is Jordan vs Alex Huang – More dubious openings ( 1. Nc3 c5 2. g3 Nc6 ). Black pushed white back and eventually black made some mistakes and lost material. 0-1
Upsets in Round 1
German Giuliani beat Alexei Kulashko
Don Ease beat Paul Macdonald
Alex Nagorski drew with Ben Hague
John Duneas drew with Allen Fan
B Grade
A huge number of upsets. Around 11 games out of 17!
The major upsets were:
Silei Wang beat Priyanshu Pattani
Jeffrey Yu beat John McClory
Stephen Peters beat A Sriham
Narasimhan Lakshimi Ravi beat Mike Steiner
Uday Jain beat Virginia Milne