Summer Cup 2019 Begins

After the offbeat brilliance of last week, we were back to business as usual at the chess club. The Summer Cup, traditionally the first tournament of the year, began with a record breaking line-up of 58 players, which includes the returning ex NZ Champion Scott Wastney, and the Maltese Candidate Master David Cilia Vincenti, who has recently moved to Wellington from Christchurch.
A warm welcome to all our new players, too many to mention here!

The tournament as usual is an eight round Swiss, with one round being played per week.
Round 1 of a Swiss is generally a one-sided affair, but there were some upsets. Most notable was Daniel Kibblewhite's victory over Bill Forster. Thanks to Bill for sending me this:





It was great to see the return of Jack Baker, who has something of a maverick style, perhaps because he was one of Mark van der Hoorn's first pupils in the early 2000's. Here he plays a brilliant attacking game against new member Wallace Enegbuma, is about to deliver checkmate, but then falters and loses.




Congratulations also to Nicholas Heyworth and Jamie Quayle for coming away with draws from high rated opponents.

Summer Cup Round 1

No Name                  Loc  Total  Result   Name               Loc  Total

 1 Farrington, Lawrence  1755 [0]      0:1    Ker, Anthony       2475 [0]  
 2 Dive, Russell         2433 [0]      1:0    He, Paul           1687 [0]  
 3 Stracy, Don           1632 [0]      0:1    Wastney, Scott     2396 [0]  
 4 Nijman, Brian         2175 [0]      1:0    Ashe, Michael      1572 [0]  
 5 Osborne, Geoff        1550 [0]      0:1    Winter, Ryan       2118 [0]  
 6 Nyberg, Michael       2099 [0]      1:0    Darr, Samuel       1549 [0]  
 7 Heyworth, Nicholas    1532 [0]      ½:½    Tanoi, Edward      2060 [0]  
 8 Sellen, Ian           2041 [0]      1:0    Hurndell, Robert   1518 [0]  
 9 Kibblewhite, Daniel   1496 [0]      1:0    Forster, Bill      2023 [0]  
10 Benitez, Edgar        2017 [0]      1:0    Stannard, Lars     1412 [0]  
11 Guthrie, Milo         1360 [0]      0:0    Laking, Robert     2000 [0]  
12 Jackson, Ross         1955 [0]      1:0    Stannard, Bobby    1357 [0]  
13 Theodosiou, Andreas   1356 [0]      0:1    Wilkins, Mark      1933 [0]  
14 Mullan, Brett         1923 [0]      ½:½    Quayle, Jamie      1300 [0]  
15 Langford, Joshua      1291 [0]      0:1    Rossiter, Philip   1923 [0]  
16 Sole, Michael         1897 [0]      1:0    Sole, Christopher  1230 [0]  
17 Asher, Bruce          1216 [0]      0:1    Day, Fabian        1896 [0]  
18 Chen, Wei Kai         1895 [0]      1:0    Cooke, Xandi       1200 [0]  
19 Mukherjee, Raash      1200 [0]      0:1    Hall, Nathan       1889 [0]  
20 Aldridge, Alan        1877 [0]      1:0    Carroll, Lewis     1178 [0]  
21 Ackroyd, William      1100 [0]      0:1    Stoeveken, Peter   1853 [0]  
22 He, Caleb             1845 [0]      1:0    Anderson, Nicholai 1100 [0]  
23 Paley, Yonah          1100 [0]      0:1    Brockway, Andrew   1841 [0]  
24 Slagle, Jim           1830 [0]      1:0    Dunlop, Rafe       1000 [0]  
25 Enegbuma, Wallace     1000 [0]      1:0    Baker, Jack        1782 [0]  
26 Croad, Nic            2445 [0]      ½:½    BYE                          
27 Cilia Vincenti, David 2208 [0]      ½:½    BYE                          
28 Pomeroy, Arthur       2082 [0]      ½:½    BYE                          
29 Lyall, Gordon         1923 [0]      ½:½    BYE                          
30 Dixon, Hamish         1701 [0]      ½:½    BYE                          
31 Rabina, Romeo         1662 [0]      ½:½    BYE                          
32 Bennett, Sarah        1404 [0]      ½:½    BYE                          
33 Rodrigues, Kane       1100 [0]      ½:½    BYE                          

Timur Gareyev at the Wellington Chess Club

We were very privileged to be able to host a blindfold simultaneous exhibition at the Wellington Chess Club last Thursday given by the world record holder GM Timur Gareyev who currently resides in the USA.
If you don't already know, He played 12 games, of which he won 8, drew 3 (Russell Dive, Anthony Ker and Michael Sole) and lost 1.
Unlike other visiting grandmasters doing simuls, Timur takes the black pieces on alternate boards. Nigel Short, for example, took white on every board when he visited.

The game he lost was to Wellington College school student Ryan Winter. This was going pretty well for Timur until some time after 1 am (!) when he made a blunder.
Anthony and Russell were playing with blank boards without any pieces, but they were allowed score sheets so they could see what moves had been played. Russell ended up with a won position, but with only seconds on his clock (no increment for the challengers) they agreed a gentlemanly draw.
Michael Sole refused a draw offer early on, after which Timur sacrificed a bishop for some pawns. The game was fairly even when Michael made a draw offer back, which was accepted.

Here are pictures and games: