Wellington at the NZCF Schools Finals

A reminder that there is a chess feast going on at the moment courtesy of Feilding's Mark Noble. It's not too late to enter, find out what's going on at http://newzealandchess.co.nz/calendar.html

We had a number of Wellington club members in action at the National Schools Finals in Palmerston North over the weekend.

Scott Wastney was up there in his capacity as coach of the Eastern Hutt primary team, and they did brilliantly!

In the Senior division Wellington College did commendably against really tough opposition, coming 8th out of 14 teams, with Ryan Winter scoring 4/7 on board 1 and Michael Sole 6/7 on board 2.

Scott's other team, Newlands Intermediate were also represented, coming 9th out of 14. Karthik Konakanchi played board 1 and scored 4/7.

Full results are here:
http://newzealandchess.co.nz/results.html

Scott Wastney writes:

"The NZCF nationals was held over the weekend. 

The highlight for Wellington was Eastern Hutt 3rd place in the national primary schools yesterday, where the top three schools finished well above the rest of field.  The 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th places were all take by Auckland schools.  The team was Zhiheng Dai (4/7), Zac Li (2/7), Samuel Darr (7/7) and Vincent Luo (4.5/7).  Samuel Darr was the top player on board 3.

Newlands Intermediate 9th place from 14 teams (Konakanchi, Karthik Adwani, Sahil Prakash, Jaysh Witehira, Marco),

Wellington College 8th place from 14 teams (Winter, Ryan Sole, Michael D Meravanage, Satwik Bloor-Wilson, Ethan)

A good number of players are staying on for the NZ Junior events with others from Wellington also going (including Layla, Aiden and Jeffrey from the Wellington Club).

Many of these players will be in action again with the Chess Power Nationals being held in a couple of weeks time in Wellington for the first time (15th and 16th October at Newlands College). 

On the 15th October is the Champions trophy which is an individual tournament requiring a top 3 place in regional tournaments to qualify - and already there are over 100 entries with this from all around the country.  Then on the 16th October is the team competition which is an even bigger competition. "

Week 3 of the Club Championship

Russell Dive was back in action after his Baku duties, Scott didn't make it in, presumably still jet-lagged.
Brian Nijman drew with Arthur Pomeroy and stays at the top of the A grade, although obviously there are a few games missing in this grade.
Here is his round 3 action against Arthur Pomeroy (draw)

In the B grade Andrew Stone beat the leader Philip Rossiter, so now the 3 of us share the lead with Philip having played an extra game.

Lots of games missing in the C grade, Fabian Day and Ryan Winter share the lead with 2 out of 3.

In the D grade Alexis Wevers and Sarah Bennett both still dominate with 3 out of 3.

Jackson 0-1 Nyberg

Forster 0-1 Dive

Nijman 1/2-1/2 Pomeroy

Farrington 0-1 Sellen

Kulkarni 1-0 List

Brockway 1/2-1/2 Wilkins

Stone 1-0 Rossiter

Coghini 1/2-1/2 Aldridge

Day 0-1 Wight

Winter 1-0 Anderson

Cunningham 0-1 Forlong-Ford

Kibblewhite 1-0 Konakanchi K

Konakanchi P 0-1 Bennett

Proctor 1-0 Zhao A

Sknar 0-1 Wevers

Asher 1-0 Zhao J

A Grade

No
Name
Loc
Total
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
1
Nijman, Brian
2206
2.5
*
½
1
1

2
Ker, Anthony
2461
2
*
1
1

3
Croad, Nic
2429
2
*
1
1

4
Pomeroy, Arthur
2134
1
½
0
*
½

5
Dive, Russell,
2440
1
*
1

6
Timergazi, Layla
2105
1
0
*
1

7
Nyberg, Michael
2085
1
0
0
*
1

8
Forster, Bill
2066
.5
½
0
0
*

9
Jackson, Ross
2067
0
0
0
0
*

10
Wastney, Scott
2448
0
*

B Grade

No
Name
Loc
Total
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
#11
#12
1
Stone, Andrew
2047
2
*
1
1

2
Rossiter, Philip
1897
2
0
*
1
1

3
Sellen, Ian
2064
2
*
1
1

4
Coghini, Phillip
1872
1.5
*
1
½

5
Wilkins, Mark
1969
1.5
0
*
½
1

6
Aldridge, Alan
1979
1
½
*
½

7
Kulkarni, Yogesh
2036
1
0
*
1

8
Brockway, Andrew
1801
.5
0
0
½
*

9
Barraza, Jesse
1957
.5
0
½
*

10
Farrington, Lawrence
1811
.5
0
0
*
½

11
List, Bob
1794
.5
0
½
*

12
Bye,
0
*

C Grade

No
Name
Loc
Total
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
#11
#12
1
Day, Fabian
1605
2
*
1
0
1
2
Winter, Ryan
1533
2
0
*
1
1

3
Wight, Joshua
1622
1
1
*
0

4
Forlong-Ford, Colwyn
1726
1
0
1
*

5
Anderson, Gordon
1648
1
0
*
1

6
Dixon, Hamish
1648
1
*
1
7
Sole, Michael
1637
1
*
1

8
Baker, Jack
1619
1
*
1

9
Austin, Tama
1539
0
0
0
*

10
Cunningham, Pat
1652
0
0
*

11
Landrain, Marc
1490
0
*

12
Stracy, Don
1748
0
0
0
*

D Grade

No
Name
Loc
Total
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10


1
Wevers, Alexis
1472
3
*

1

1

1





2
Bennett, Sarah
1414
3

*



1


1
1


3
Asher, Bruce
1316
2
0

*





1
1


4
Kibblewhite, Daniel
1418
2



*


1
1




5
Proctor, Matthew
1369
1
0



*



1



6
Konakanchi, Pramodh
1191
0

0



*






7
Sknar, Andriy
1184
0
0


0


*





8
Konakanchi, Karthik
1484
0



0



*




9
Zhao, Aiden
1289
0

0
0

0



*



10
Zhao, Jeffrey
980
0

0
0






*

Scott on his Olympiad Performance

Looking forward to seeing the Olympiad players Russell and Scott back at the club tomorrow.
Here is Scott on his Olympiad performance, where he achieved a double IM norm. Sounds like Bojkov was a great asset, so it would be nice if NZ could continue with this partnership.

I'm happy to have a good Olympiad with plenty of games against titled players and achieve the IM norm.  I found having the support with the coach Dejan Bojkov helped greatly with prep and having a good approach to the games so I found the whole event a good chess education.  In the final game Dejan suggested the line with 11.Kh1 and 12.f5 to me in our pre-game preparation against Sicilian Kan variation.   I really won the game just following his suggestion (and straight out of the opening 12...Nf8 was obviously a poor move by my opponent - I had considered 12...e5 and 12...Nc5 prior to the game).  I'll catch up at the club next week - it looks like I have it tough first game back with Black vs Nic!

Regards,

Scott

And here is his draw against Denmark where he was pressing for a win, but ran into time trouble and had to settle for the draw - still an excellent result. Very light notes by me

Fixtures for 22-Sep

Here is a list of fixtures for round 3 of the Club Championship, scheduled for 22-Sep-16
A few games have been switched around, so this may change for you. Philip will tell you if you have a different opponent.

Grade A

Croad-Wastney, Forster-Dive, Ker-Timergazi, Nijman-Pomeroy, Jackson-Nyberg

Grade B

Barraza-Stone, Coghini-Aldridge, Brockway-Wilkins, Farrington-Sellen, Kulkarni-List Rossiter bye

Grade C

Anderson-Baker, Cunningham-Austin, Forlong-Ford-Sole, Dixon-Winter, Day-Wight, Landrain-Stracy

 Grade D

Asher-Zhao J, Konkanchi P-Bennett, Proctor-Zhao A, Sknar-Wevers, Kibblewhite-Konakanchi K

Games from Round 2 of the Club Championship

Many thanks to Brian Nijman for providing more quality analysis, this time his round 2 win against Michael Nyberg.

I've also added Andrew Stone's quick win against Yogesh Kulkarni, unannotated.