The first day of February saw the first round of a new annual tournament, the Claremont Invitational, which got underway at the club on Thursday evening.
The players who accepted their invitations were:
Charles de Villiers
Warrick Erlank
Nathan Geffen
Anant Dole
Denise Frick
Tinto Seotloadi
Howard Goldberg
Deon Solomons
Anzel Solomons (formerly Laubscher)
Laura Irving
Stephen Galleid
Nick Barnett
That's quite a diverse field in many ways, but they all have at least one thing in common - they're strong chess players. This 12-player event boasts an average rating of around 2000, and it seems likely that the trophy awarded to the winner will become one of the more sought-after prizes on the local chess calendar in future years.
One of the aims of the tournament was to attract strong past club members back to the club, particularly those who haven't been very active players in recent years. With this in mind, we were delighted that Nathan Geffen and Howard Goldberg accepted their invitations. Nathan's last tournament at classic time controls was in 1998. I haven't asked Howard when last he played serious chess yet, but the CHESSA website seems to indicate that he was registered with them in 2002, so it might be 5 years ago. Among Nathan's chess achievements are multiple victories in the Claremont Club Championships (3 or 4, I seem to remember - I'll have to check on the boards in the club to be sure). Howard has been Western Province Champion at least once (again, I'll have to look at the boards in the club to check how many times he won that title).
Rather than try to explain the tournament format, I've included the description from the invitation below.
Tournament Format
The tournament will be played by 12 players over 8 rounds, incorporating 2 phases:
PHASE 1
Players are divided into two groups of 6 with approximately equal average strength.
Player numbers 1 to 6 are randomly assigned within each group.
A round-robin (5 rounds) is played in each group according to the 6-player Berger Table.
Round1. 1vs6 2vs5 3vs4
Round2. 6vs4 5vs3 1vs2
Round3. 2vs6 3vs1 4vs5
Round4. 6vs5 1vs4 2vs3
Round5. 3vs6 4vs2 5vs1
PHASE 2
The top 3 players on the final log from PHASE1 in each group progress to SECTION A.
The bottom 3 players on the final log from PHASE1 in each group progress to SECTION B.
A round robin is played in each section.
Game scores against players in the same section from PHASE 1 will be carried through to PHASE 2. (Each player will carry 2 results through.) Thus 3 additional rounds will be played in PHASE 2.
The Claremont Invitational Championship will be decided on log points in SECTION A. In the case of a tie, the championship will be shared.
The time control for each game is 90 mins per side, with 15 minutes added to both sides after 36 moves. One round is scheduled to be played each weak, on Thursday evening.
Round 1 Results:
Deon Solomons 1 - 0 Denise Frick
Nick Barnett 0 - 1 Nathan Geffen
Laura Irving 0 - 1 Warrick Erlank
Charles de Villiers 0 - 1 Anzel Solomons
Anant Dole 1 - 0 Tinto Seotloadi (default)
Howard Goldberg vs Stephen Galleid was postponed.
It's hard to consider it an upset when a Solomons beats another player, but Anzel's victory over Charles was a bit of a surprise. I believe that Anzel recently married Deon (congratualtions to both of you!) and married life is clearly not doing her chess any harm. After her victory, there was discussion amongst the committee about exactly how many rating points the surname Solomons is worth. This got me thinking that if they have kids and one of those marries a Gluckman and takes on the double-barrel surname "Solomons-Gluckman", South Africa might have its first Grandmaster. "Solomons-Gluckman-Willenberg" and we have a World Champion!
Tinto forgot that the tournament was starting on Thursday, leaving Anant to wait out the first hour of the game in order to claim the forfeit.
Nathan kindly provided me with the moves of his game against Nick, together with some analysis.
Nick Barnett - Nathan Geffen [C78]
Claremont Invitation, 01.02.2007 Analysis by Nathan Geffen with assistance from Fritz 4.01.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 b5?! 6.Bb3 Bc5 7.Nxe5 Nxe5 8.d4
8... Bxd4
[8...Bb7 9.dxc5 Qe7 10.Nc3+/-;
8...Bd6? This was the move I had planned to make, but ... 9.dxe5 Bxe5 10.f4 Bd6 11.e5 Bc5+ 12.Kh1 Ne4 13.Qd5+-]
9.Qxd4+/- Nc6? [9...d6]
10.Qc5?!
This move is objectively good and Fritz's first choice. White has a number of good places to move his queen. He has a much better game than black after the text because of his strong centre and two bishops, but the resulting ending requires master technique to convert into a win. Keeping queens on with Qc3 or Qd3 would have given black considerably more practical problems at club level chess.
10...Qe7 11.Qxe7+ Nxe7 12.e5?! Nfd5
13.Nc3 With this move, white begins to lose his positional advantage.
13...Nxc3 14.bxc3 Bb7 15.Ba3?! a5 16.Rfd1 Bc6
[16...Ng6 17.Bxf7+ Kxf7 18.Rxd7+ Ke6 19.Rxc7 Bd5 20.Rxg7 Rag8-/+ Black seems better but the position is unbalanced and therefore unnecessarily complicated;
16...a4 17.Bxf7+ Kxf7 18.Rxd7 Rhe8 19.Rxc7 Be4 20.Rb1 Rad8 21.f3 Bxc2 22.Rxb5 Rc8 23.Rxc8 Rxc8 24.Rb7 Re8∞]
17.Bxe7 Kxe7
18.a4?! Rhb8-/+
[Also possible is 18...bxa4 19.Bxa4 Bxa4 20.Rxa4 Rhb8 21.Rda1 (21.Rad4 a4 22.Rxd7+ Ke8-+) 21...Rb2 22.f4 Rxc2 23.Rxa5 Rxa5 24.Rxa5 Rxc3-/+]
19.axb5 Bxb5 20.f4
[20.Bd5 Bc6 21.Bxc6 dxc6 22.Rd4 a4 23.Rb4 Rxb4 24.cxb4 Ke6-+]
20...a4 21.Bd5 Bc6 22.Bxc6 dxc6 23.Rd4 a3 24.Rb4 Rxb4 25.cxb4 Ke6 26.Kf2 Kd5 27.Ke3 Kc4
28.Ke4?
[Forced is 28.Ra2 Kxb4-/+ Black has much the better of it because of the extra pawn and the poor position of white's rook. E.g. 29.g3 Ra5 30.Ke4 Rd5 31.h4 h5 32.f5 Rd1 33.Ke3 Re1+ 34.Kd4 Rg1 35.e6 Rd1+ 36.Ke5 Re1+ 37.Kf4 fxe6 38.fxe6 Rxe6 39.Kg5 Re3 40.Kf4 Rc3 41.Kg5 Rxg3+ 42.Kxh5 Rg1 43.c4 Kb3-+]
28...a2-+ 29.f5 Kc3 30.e6 fxe6 31.fxe6 Kb2 32.Rxa2+ Kxa2 33.Ke5
The game is easily won now. White resigned on move 46. 0-1
The matches due to be played in Round 2 this Thursday are:
Nathan vs Denise
Stephen vs Deon
Nick vs Howard
Anzel vs Tinto
Warrick vs Anant
Charles vs Laura
Will Round 2 provide the first draw of the tournament?
No comments:
Post a Comment