The Annual General Meeting was held at the club on Thursday night. Too many things were covered for me to mention all of them in this article, so I'll just touch on a few of them.
The club committee remains mostly the same, with only Neelu not available for re-election this year and me being the only new member.
The 2007 committee is:
President: John van Ryneveld
Treasurer: Otto-Carl Marte
Secretary: Daniel Glago
James Gaylard
Travers Waker
Charles de Villiers walked away with most of the silverware (Club Championships and Club Blitz Championships). Stephen Galleid was mentioned for winning a tournament during the year, while James Gaylard and John van Ryneveld shared the coveted top spot in the candidates section of the Club Championships, which should see them playing in the championship section next year.
After the meeting, a consultation game was played between Charles and a team consisting of me, John, James, Otto, Andrew and Daniel. Those who didn't want to join the consultation game played blitz.
Below is the consultation game. The comments and analysis are mine, so don't take them too seriously. Although I am far from qualified to analyse games at this level, I hope my effort will inspire some discussion about the game in the comments section of this article. Click on the word "comments" at the bottom of this article to read other people's comments and leave your own.
I've included the game in PGN format in the comments section, so you can cut and paste it into your favourite chess database program (probably Fritz for most of you) to make viewing and analysis easier. I haven't used a chess engine to analyse the game yet, so feel free to tell us what the chess engines think if you do let one loose on this game.
Charles de Villiers - Claremont Chess Club 07.12.2006
1.d4 d5 2.c4
James suggested that Black play the Slav. Impressed that he, like Kramnik and Topalov, knew the Slav, the rest of the team agreed.
2...c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 Bf5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 Some of the team were considering 5...cxd5, but the team's Slav expert wanted 5...Nxd5.
6.Qb3 We'd now reached the limit of our Slav expert's knowledge, so the Black team took a long time to decide on...
6...Nb6 7.Bf4 e6 8.e4 Bg6 9.Be2 Be7 10.0-0 0-0 11.Rfd1 N8d7 12.a4 a5 13.Be3
13...Bb4 A move proposed by Otto, but initially rejected by the team due to the response 14.Na2. Andrew pointed out that 14...Qe7 keeps the line alive, so we played it.
14.Ne5 I think this move came back to haunt Charles later in the game. After 14..Nxe5 15.dxe5, the opening of the d-file and the diagonal leading to the knight on b6 looks good for White, but giving up contorl of c5 gives Black some play, and the White pawn on e5 becomes a target.
14...Nxe5 15.dxe5
15... Nd7 This odd-looking move turns out to be quite strong, since the knight is now heading for c5. I think Daniel was the main proposer of it.
16.f3 Qc7 17.Na2 Nc5 18.Qc4? Better looking is 18.Qc2.
18...Nxa4
19.Nxb4? Again, 19.Qc2 would probably still have been better, forcing the knight back to b6. [ 19.Qc2 Nb6 20.Nxb4 axb4 21.Qc5 Nd7 22.Qxb4 If Black plays 22... Nxe5, White's dark-squared bishop runs riot. 22...Nxe5 23.Bc5 Rfd8 24.Rxa8 Rxa8 25.Bb6 ( 25.Bd6 Qa5!) 25...Qb8 26.Rd8+ Qxd8 27.Bxd8 Rxd8 28.Qxb7]
19...Nxb2 20.Qc3 Nxd1 21.Rxd1 axb4 22.Qxb4 Ra2 23.Bc4 Qa5 24.Qe7 Ra1 25.Rxa1 Qxa1+ 26.Kf2 Qb2+ 27.Be2 Ra8 28.h4 h5 29.g4 Ra2 30.Qd8+ Kh7 31.Qd3 hxg4 Black's flag fell. 32.f4 g3+ 33.Ke1 Ra1+ 34.Bd1 Bh5
Charles said "Yup, that's good enough." There was some undignified celebrating by the consultation team (possibly unwarranted too considering that their flag had fallen). Charles muttered something about a "crass blunder".
