Closing night Quiz – 7 December
The final event for 2022 was the prizegiving and Quiz on 7 December - The competition was close and hard-fought as usual, with the Poisoned Pawns winning after a playoff. Thanks to Geoff Aimers for once again preparing a unique quiz.
Summer Rapid Open – 4 December
The Summer Rapid Open drew the largest field to date in one of these events with 35 players, beating the Spring Rapid opne by one player. Groups coming from Invercargill and Oamaru boosted the turnout. Top seed was FM Mike Steadman, now based in Queenstown, with second seed Tony Carpinter coming down from Christchurch. Winner of the previous two events Sasha Nedyhalov was third seed. There were again three prize grades: Open, U1650 and U1200.
Results went mostly according to seeding in rounds one, except for local Pratik Jadhav's
win over ARtem Anikonov from Christchurch. Anikonov was also the victim of an upset in round
2 when he lost his queen early to Thisun Kuruppuarachchi of Dunedin, but he wasn't the only one.
Carpinter had to conceede a draw to local junior Alex Sun, while the invercargill derby
Daniel Bell - Richie Christie was also a draw. Jadhav also held seventh seed Atlas Kerr of
Invercargill to a draw. Rick Loos of Oamaru showed his etsimated rating of 1600
was a shade low by winning against fourth seed Ben Suazo of Dunedin. The other results
went with seeding. In round three Steadman was held to a draw on top board by another
local junior Romero Suggate, while Loos vs 6th seed Phil Coleman was also a draw. This
enabled Nedyhalov to take the sole lead with a hair-raising win over Qi-Le Kong-Lim to
be the only player on 3/3. The following pack on 2½ consistened of Steadman, Carpinter,
Chritie, Coleman, Sun, Suggate and Loos.
In round 4 Steadman showed his class with a controlled win over Nedyhalov on board 1, while
Carpinter put an end to Roos' charmed run on board 2. Suggate upset Christie on board 3 and
Sun upset Coleman on board 4 to join the top two seeds in the lead on 3½/4. The
chasing pack on 3 was made up of Nedyhalov, Suazo, who beat local Hamish Gold, Kong-Lim, who beat
Greg Familton of Oamaru, local Edward Sarfas who beat Gary McLean of Invercargill, and
Matt Williams of Invercargill, who beat Kuruppuarachchi.
The final round saw the top two seeds Steadman and Carpinter grind out ebndgame wins over
their younger opponents, Sun and Suggate respectively. That meant the shared first place
on 4½/5. In the scramble for the minor places, upsets ensued: Nedyhalov overpressed
against Sarfas and lost, while Kong-Lim overcame Suazo to join Sarfas in thrid equal place
on 4 points. Williams coudln't join them, having drawn with Richie, but his 4&frc12; was enough
for first in the U1650 grade, while second was sahed by Gold, McLean and Familton on 3 points.
Jadhav upset Coleman in to socre 3½ and take out he U1200 Grade, with local junior
Conor Kerr in clear second on 3 points after a notable win over Christchurch's Blake Gilmore.
Nedyhalov had the consolation of being the winner of the Westpac Trophy for the best 2/3 aggregate
scores from this years tournaments, having won the Winter and Spring editions.
Open Grade
1st equal 4½/5 FM Michael Steadman
1st equal 4½/5 Tony Carpinter
3rd equal 4/5 Edward Sarfas
3rd equal 4/5 Qi-Le Kong-Lim
Under 1650 Grade
1st 3½/5 Matt Williams
2nd equal 3/5 Rick Loos
2nd equal 3/5 Gary McLean
2nd equal 3/5 Greg Familton
2nd equal 3/5 Hamish Gold
Under 1200 Grade
1st 3½/5 Pratik Jadhav
2nd 3/5 Conor Kerr
Perpetual Handicap - 30 November
This year's winner in the Standard Perpetual was newcomer Greg Familton with +137, just narrowly beating last year's winner Jens Paulsen, who continued to improve with +128. Emmanuel Santiago was third on +52 despite not playing any games after mid-year. The Rapid Perpetual was convincingly won by Jens Paulsen on +122 points, ahead of Hildon Nisa second on +59 and returning member Elliot Munro on +54. Jens also took out the Blitz perpetual on +75 points. Hamish Gold was second on +65 points, with Emmanuel Santiago third on +52.
View the Perpetual Handicap 2022 progress and graphs
Blair Freeman Trophy Blitz 4 - 30 November
The final Blitz tournament was won by Romero Suggate on 8/9, just ahead on Ben Suazo on 7½ and Hamish Gold on 7 points. Ben Suazo wins the Blair Freeman Trophy for 2022 with an aggregate score of 19 for his best three results, a point ahead of Romero Suggate on 18, with Edward Sarfas on 15 and Jens Paulsen on 14½.Richard Sutton Trophy - 23 November
This year's tournament saw a return to the usual FIDE-rated swiss, which was tightly contested by the 17 players, although only a few players played all six rounds. Top seed Quentin Johnson was sole leader on 3/3 at eth half-way mark, but consecutice losses to Qi-Le Kong-Lim and Romero Suggate over the next two rounds saw his challenge fade. Kong-Lim lead after round 4 on 3½ and a draw to Ben Suazo saw him take a half point lead into the final round on 4 points with three players on 3½: Suggate, Suazo and Edward Sarfas. Suggate-Kong-Lim was a draw on board 1, offering an opportunity to catch Kong-Lim in first place to Sarfas and Suazo. However Iain Lamont held Sarfas to a draw and Suazo went down to Jen Paulsen after trying too hard to win. That left Kong-Lim the outright winner on 4½/6, with Suggate, Paulsen, Johnson and Sarfas tied for second on 4 points. Iain Lamont, Jens Paulsen and Chris Quiroz achieved their first FIDE ratings.
View the View Vega output.
Club Championship – 12 OctoberStarting on 7 September with two grades, the second leg of the club standard championship was affected by a few absences, preventing all the games bein played. However the winners of the three championship trophies were determined without needing to play these games in the end.
In the A Grade Quentin Johnson started with a point lead from the first leg over Ben Suazo, Romero Suggate and Jens Paulsen. This proved to be the decisive factor, as he finished the 2nd leg 1st= with Suazo on 3/5 points, with Suggate and Paulsen half a point behind on 2½. Even though Johnson, Suggate and Paulsen all had a game to finish, having been unable to schedule catchup games, Johnson's point lead over Suazo and 1½ point lead over Suggate and Paulsen couldn't be caught no matter the results. Greg Familton, who earned promotion to the A Garde in leg 1, finished witha healthy 2 points, having beaten Johnson in their individual game, while Alex Nedyhalov was farced to wuthdraw due to work commitmnets after the first round. Thus Johnson picked up the Senior Championship for 2022, and Familton, who started the year unrated, gained the Junior Championship.
The B Grade was incredibly closely contested, with almost half the eleven player field finishing in shared first place on 3½/6. Terry Duffield was one of them, and his 4 points form the first leg combined to give him the Intermediate Championship trophy for 2022.
The rules mean that
each grade starts with a base score and/or a scaling factor, to allow performances to
be roughly compared between grades, based on the average rating of the field in each
grade. That allows players in different grades to compete for the same trophy on
roughly even terms. The final Championship totals show the effect of these adjustments:
1 Johnson 11 points (Senior Champion); 2 Suazo 10; 3-4 Suggate & Jens Paulsen 9½; 5
Familton 8 (Junior Champion); 6 Duffield 7 (Intermediate Champion); 7 Edward Sarfas 6½; 8
Alf Loretan 6; 9 Hamish Gold 4½; 10-11 Brent Southgate & Cage Ess 4; 12 Bob Clarkson 3;
13-15 Qi-Le Kong-Lim, John Armstrong & Fen McIntosh 2½; 16 Nedyhalov 2; 17 Hayden Kilgour
1.
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all crosstables
View
A-Grade crosstable and rating performances
View
B-Grade crosstable and rating performances
Spring Rapid Open – 4 September
The Spring Rapid Open drew the largest field to date in one of these events with 34 players. Groups coming from Invercargill and Oamaru boosted the turnout. Top seed was again Sasha Nedyhalov, the winner of the Winter Rapid Open in June. There were again three prize grades: Open, U1600 and U1400, witha lot of uncertainty about the ratings.
Results went mostly according to seeding in rounds one and two, except for Naoki Kozakai
beating 5th seed Matthew Ashton in round 1 and Qi-Le Kong-Lim's win over Vlad Barbu in
round 2, though this was more an upset due to Qi-Le being underrated, while Kozakai
showed his first round result was no fluke by holding Oscar Lobb to a draw.
The big results started in round 3 with 2nd seed Quentin Johnson going down to Romero
Suggate, 3rd seed Richie Christie losing a time scramble to Joe McKee and 4th seed
Atlas Kerr being beaten by Kong-Lim. These three winners joined Nedyhalov in the lead
on 3/3. With 34 players a scenario where two players could score 5/5 was possible at the
start of the tournament, but with only four players on a perfect score with two rounds to play,
this could no longer happen thanks to the draw between Lobb and Kozakai in round 2.
There was a point gap back to the rest of the field as both Lobb and Kozakai lost, to
Barbu and Jens Paulsen respectively, so only the four players on 3 points had a chance
for first place. In round 4 Nedyhalov beat McKee to stay in the lead on 4/4. On second board
Suggate beatKong-Lim to join him, meaning these two would play off for first place in the
final round. the large chasing group for the minor prizes on 3/4 was made up of Mckee,
Kong-Lim, Johnson, Kerr, Paulsen, Ashton, Barbu, Matt Williams and Rommmel Ong.
The round 5 game on top board Suggate-Nedyhalov was a real thriller. Suggate obtained the
initiative from the opening and built up an attack, though Nedyhalov kept the game complex
with no clear winning continuation. Then eventually Nedyhalov erred had to go
into a B & N vs B ending a piece for a pawn down with the bishops on opposite colours. This
proved quite complex to win for Suggate who ran into time trouble and started maneouvring
his N around the board without a clear plan, while Nedyhalov advanced a pawn to a2 supported
by the B on b1. Just after missing a N fork to exchange the N for Black's bishop and a-pawn,
Suggate lost the N to a king fork! However the position was still drawn if he put his king on a1
and sacced his B for Black's last pawn on the kingside. But he went the wrong way with
his King and Nedyhalov supported his pawn to a1 with his K, winning the white B and coming
back to win on the kingside with his extra bishop. Thus Nedyhalov made it a second first
place in a row with a perfect 5/5 score. Suggate was second equal on 4 points with McKee,
who beat Johnson, Paulsen, who beat Kerr, Kong-Lim, who beat Ashton, Barbu, who beat Williams
and Ong, who beat Daniel Bell. Because all of these players except Suggate and Barbu were
in the U1600 grade, it was combined with the 2nd and third prizes in the open. Alistair
Morgan won the U1400 grade on 3 points, with 2nd= shared by Flynn Wilson, Alf Loretan,
Raymond Yang and Zihan Fu all on 2 points.
The next rapid open is the Summer Rapid on Sunday 4 December.
Blitz Championship 3 – 31 August
On 31 August the third Blitz event for the Blair Freeman Trophy was held as an 11 player Swiss with a time limit of Bronstein 5 mins plus 3 seconds delay per move. The tournament was won by top seed Alex Nedyhalov, dropping only half a point to Qi-Le Kong-Lim to score 7½/8. Qi-Le was second on 6½. Then three players ashred third on 5 points: Quentin Johnson, Edward Sarfas and Elliot Munro.
Club Rapid Championship – 31 August
The second leg involved promotions and demotions between grades accoring to the rules, but with both Iain Lamont and Mathew King dropping out of the A Grade, both Edward Sarfas and Qi-Le Kong-Lim were promoted to the A Grade, while Jens Paulsen was promoted to the B Grade and Elliot Munro and Roshan Ganagani were put diorectly in as their ratings too high for the C Grade despite not playing in the first leg.
The A grade was very closely contested, with Ben Suazo and Qi-Le Kong-Lim eventually sharing first place on 4/6, with QUentin Johnson 3rd on 3½ and Edward Sarfas 4th on ½. That allowed Ben Suazo to take the Senior Rapid Championship for 2022 with and aggregate score of 16 over the two legs. Qi-Le Kong-Lim came away with the Intermediate Championship Trophy with his aggregate score of 12½.
The B Grade was won by Elliot Munro on 5/6, dropping only one game to Jens Paulsen. Jens might have been able to join Elliot in 1st place, but was not able to catch up with two missed games againt Terry Dffield due to absences caused by illness. He finished second on 3, poinst with Duffield 3rd on 2 points abd Gangani 4th on 0.
The C Grade was again a six-round swiss, but low numbers and a withdrawal by Greg Familton meant that some players had to play each other twice. Hamish Gold and Hildon Nisa shared first place on 4/6, ahead of Fen McIntosh and Alf Loretan 3rd= on 3 points, with Brent Southgate 5th on 1½. Hildon's excellent result earned him the Junior Rapid Championship trophy for 2022 on an aggregate score of 6 points.
In the combined cross table below the inter-grade handicaps of 3½ and 2 points have been added to the A and B grades and show the overall standings after the both legs. The handicaps are derived from the difference in expected score between the average NZCF rating of each grade.
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combined Crosstable and Rating performances
View
Grade Crosstables
Otago/Southland Under 20 (Junior) Championship – 27 August
A large field of 33 players turned out at the Otago Chess Club to contest the 2022 championship - mostly from Dunedin with three members of the Babaranda family making the trip from Invercargill. The pre-tournament favourites were past champions Romero Suggate (16, Bayfield) and Alexander Sun (15, LPHS). These two were expected to be pushed by Oscar Lobb (18, UO), Martin Brook (16, John McGlashan) and Has Barbaranda (16, James Hargest) along with many others with the potential to upset teh favourites.
The first round largely went to seeding, which was mainly based on age groups. There two upsets: third seed Harold Gao (17, John McGlashan) lost to Ethan Then (13, Kavanagh) and Oliver Hobbs (15,OBHS) was beaten by Zihan Fu (11, Balmacewen).
Round 2 saw second seed Alison Latawan (17, Kavanagh) lose to Geordie Stephenson (14, Logan Park) after beginning the game with only five minutes on the clock. Otherwise the favourites won, except Has Babaranda, who split the point with Tyne Grant (14, Logan Park).
Round 3 had the first major match-up in Sun vs Martin Brook on board 3. Alexander prevailed to lead on 3/3, along with Lobb, who beat Luke Woo (15, OBHS) and Suggate, who beat Aidan Dixon (14, Logan Park). Next on 2½ were Has Babaranda and Grant, who defeated Stephenson and Latawan respectively.
The top board match-up in round 4 between Suggate and Lobb was closely fought, until Lobb eventually made a tactical error under sustained pressure. Sun stayed level with Suggate in the lead on 4/4 by defeating Has Babarnada on board 2. Grant also dropped back, losing to Martin Brook, who along with Lobb headed a large chasing group on 3 points.
The critical clash of the tournament occured in Round 5 on top board with Sun-Suggate. Suggate picked up a loose pawn on b2, but if anything the loss of time extracting his queen gave Sun's central e4-e5 break the advantage. After opening and occupying the e-file with his rooks and obtaining the more active minor pieces, Sun seemed on the verge of pressing for victory, but could not find a plan to improve his position further and prevent mass exchanges while pawn down, so offered a draw, which Suggate accepted. These two stayed in the joint lead on 4½/5, with just two players winning from the group on 3 to move half a point behind: Ramon Quennell (14, Logan Park) beat Gao, while Fen McIntosh (15, Logan Park) defeated Dixon. Lobb drew with Naoki Kozakai (14, Logan Park) after the latter mobilised his rooks for force a perpetual check a piece down, while Martin Brook was held to a draw by Conor Kerr (10, DNI).
The 6th and penultimate round saw the two leaders reestablish their point cushion over the rest of the field, moving to 5½/6. Suggate beat McIntosh on board 1, while Sun defeated Quennell on board 2. That meant the only players other than the leaders with a chance to win were Martin Brook, who beat Lobb, and Has Babaranda, who beat Kerr, keeping them a point behind the leaders on 4½. Kozakai-Grant was drawn, leaving both players out of the running for the top prize on 4 points. Tiredness was starting to creep into the play, witnessed by the game Louis Le-Zihan Fu, where black brilliantly sacrificed a rook for a mating attack, only to mix up his move order and miss a mate in two. The game continued with Fu a rook down with an attack, and after many adventures and missed wins by both sides, Fu managed to exchange into a winning ending.
In the final round Suggate defeated Has Babaranda on board 1 to stake an early claim on the championship on 6½/7. However, on board 2 McIntosh-Sun saw white win a pawn and head to a rook endgame. These are much harder to play than most people realise, and Sun missed a chance to exploit his active rook to give a critical 7th rank check that would have forced McIntosh to drop a pawn on the queenside, giving Sun an outside pawn majority and some winning chances. As it went McIntosh lost a pawn on the kingside but successfully defended against all winning attempts by Sun to hold the draw in the last game to finish. Thus Sun scored 6 points and took 2nd place as well as first in the U16 grade. Martin Brook won against Stephenson on board 3 to finish alone in thrid on 5½. Kozakai beat Dixon to finish 4th on 5, equal with Quennell, who beat Grant. These two won the 2nd= prize in the U16 grade. With the rule that grade prize winners must take the higher value prize only, that meant that the U20 3rd place was unclaimed and so was shared by four players on 4½: Lobb, Has Barbaranda, McIntosh and Ethan Then. The U13 grade was won by Henry Le (12, Kavanagh) on 4 points, who repeated his feat of winning the U13 tournament two weeks earlier. 2nd in the U13 grade was shared by Kerr and Raymond Yang (12, Kings HS) on 3½. The female prize was shared by Latawan and Heidi Brook (13, Queen's HS), while the Team prize was won by Logan Park 1 (Sun, Kozakai and Grant).
View crosstable and team standings
Otago/Southland Under 13 Championship – 13 August
22 players turned out at the Otago Chess Club to compete in this year's championship. Players came from Invercargill and Balclutha, as well as from throughout Dunedin. Seedings were based mainly on ages but in a field of young players it is experience that counts. An unknown quantity was second seed Henry Le (12, Kavanagh), who has recently moved to Dunedin from Vietnam. Other players expected to do well were top board prizewinners in the recent interschool Teams event Alexa Choie (12, Columba) and Zihan Fu (11, Balmacewen), as well as Board 4 prize winner Thisun Kuruppuarachchi (11, Balmacewen), high scorer in last year's U13 Conor Kerr (10, DNI), who was favoured for the U11 grade.
The age upsets began in round 1 with the K-K matchup Kuruppuarachchi-Kerr resulting in a win to Conor Kerr and Dinuja Namal Gomuwage (9, George St) beating Scott Samuel (11, Balmacewen), while Alex Lai (8, George St) won against Gus Carr (11, JMC). In round 2 the key matchups began when Kerr-Le on board 2 resulted in a win for Henry Le in a rook endgame. Alex Lai also scored a notable win over Henry Zhong (11, Balmacewen). In round 3 on board 1 Alexa Choie's dangerous attack against Bilal Ahmad (11, Balmacewen) ran out of ammo witha a win to Bilal. On board 2 Henry Le defeated another pre-tournament favourite in Zihan Fu, while on board 3 ALex Lai beat Haley Guan (11, Columba) to join the leaders on 3/3. In round 4 Henry Le assumed the sole lead on 4/4 witha win over Alex Lai, as Bilal hmad went down to Zihan Fu on board 2. Joing Lai and Fu on 3/4 were Alexa Choie, with a win over ZAch Hotton (11, James Hargest), Thisun K. with a win over Hnery Zhong and Conor Kerr, who beat Lincoln Fraser-Heal (8, Stirling). Round 5 saw Henry Le maintain his lead witha win over Alexa Choie on board 1. Staying close on 4/5 wre Alex Lai, who beat Thisun K, Conor Ker, who defeated Bilal Ahmad and Zihan Fu with a win over Scott Samuel. The penultimate round had the leader Henry Le matched up with Henry Zhong on 3 points, as he had already beaten all the players on 4 points. The battle of the Henrys went to form and Hnery Le moved to an unbeatable 6/6. Zihan Fun defeated ALex Lai on Board 2 to keep a chnace at a tie for first on 5/6, as did Conor Kerr with a win over Gus Carr on board 3. Keeping in the hunt for the minor prizes were Alexa Choie and Thisun K, who drew their game on board 4 for move to 3½, while Bilal Ahmad moved to 4 points with a win over Haley Guan. Dinuja N.G. kept a chance for a prize in the U11 grade witha a draw against James Harvie (11, East Otago HS) to move to 3 points.
The final round had Henry Le paired against Bilal Ahmad, and Bilal was not able to reverse the trend in results of Hnery's oppononents. So Henry Le won to score 7/7 and take first prize in the U13 Championship. The battle for second was on board 2 between Zihan Fu and Conor Kerr. Zihan edged ahead and made sure of the victory to secure second place on 6/7. Conor was third overall on 5/7, but was awarded the higher pwize of first in the U11 grade. That meant that Alexa Choie, witha win over Alex Lai and Scott Samuel by beating Thisun K. were able to share the third equal prize in the U13 on 4½/7. Alex Lai's final score of 4/7 was enough to share second equal prize in the U11 grade with Dinuja N.G. who beat Gus Carr to join him. The Best Girl Prize was awarded to Alexa Choie, two points clear of Haley Guan and Evie Alexander (8, Stirling) on 2½. The Balmacewen team of ZIhan Fun Henry Zhong and Thisun Kuruppuarachchi were the winners of the Team prize on a score of 13½ points.
View crosstable and team standings
Swiss Rapid – 3 August
The Swiss Rapid was again a short four rounds this year, but with a turnout of just ten players for the first two rounds, this was ample to provide a decisive winner. The top two seeds Quentin Johnson and Ben Suazo both lost in round 2, to the next two seeds Edward Sarfas and Elliot Munro respectively, to effectively drop out of contention. In round 3 Sarfas beat Jens Paulsen, while Munro beat Cage Ess to join Sarfas in the lead on 3/3. That left these two to play for the tournament in the final round. Munro was the winner to take first place on 4/4, ahead of Sarfas, Johnson, Suazo and Alex Nedyhalov (who missed the opening rounds) in second equal on 3 points.
View Crosstable and Rating performances
Cleland Trophy – 20 July
The Cleland Trophy has a hhealthy turnout of 22 players. Top seed was Quentin Johnson but defending champion Jens Paulsen and new member Sasha Nedyhalov were expected to give strong competition. This proved correct when in round 3 Nedyhalov defeated Johnson to share the lead on 3/3 with Paulsen. The round 4 clash between the leaders resulted in a win to Nedyhalov, who took a point lead over Paulsen and Edward Sarfas, who had earlier lost to Nedyhalov in round 2. In round 5 Nedyhalvo assured himself of at least a share of first place by defeating Gerg Familton to move to 5/5. Paulsen beat Sarfas to be the only player with chance to catch him. In the final round Nedyhalov didn't play but his final score of 5/6 proved enough to win the Cleland Trophy for 2022, as the game Johnson-Paulsen was draw, leaving Paulsen alone in second placeon 4½, ahead of Johnson, Sarfas and Hamish Gold tied for third on 4 points.
View Crosstable and Rating performances
Otago/Southland Primary and Intermediate Interschool Teams Championship 2022 – 25 June
11 teams from eight schools played for the eighteenth annual Otago/Southland Intermediate Interschool Teams' Championships at Kavanagh College Library. James Hargest sent a team up from Invecargill, but only four teams were entred in the Primary section. Therefore the decision was made to combine both grades in a single event with separate prizes.
Defending Champions Balmacewen A were once again favourites in the Intermediate section with a close contest expected from James Hargest. George Street Normal with two teams were favourites in the Primary section, with compettition form perputual rivals, Maori Hill and a very welcome challemnge form Stirling School in South Otago.
James Hargest had the bye in round one due to an admistrative mix-up, where their entry in the same email as the Secondary team's entry had been overlooked by the organiser, so they weren't initially paired. But they soon justified the 4-0 result in the forst round witha second 4-0 result against George Street A in round 2. Both Balmacewen A and James Hargest won their first three matches, so did battle in round for on equal terms. The result was a convincing 3½-½ win to Balmacewen A to take a clear lead. However in round five the gap was closed as Balmacewen A drew 2-2 with George Street A to move to 4½ match points, allowing James Harget to move to half a point behind with a 3-1 win over George Street B. Balmacewen kept the pressure up in round 6 by beating Coumba College 3-1, though on board 1 Alexa Choie scored a notable upset for Columba in defeating Zihan Fu in their game. James Hargest scored a clean sweep 4-0 over the Balmacewen B team, to stay in touch.
Going into the final round the scores were Blamacewen A 5½, James Hargest 5, George St Normal A and B both on 4 points, with Balmcewen B next on 3½, underlining the dominance of the two leading Dunedin schools. Having played all the teams on higher scores, Balmacewen A were paired against Balmacewen B and duly won 4-0 to take the Intermediate title again for 2022 on 6½ match points. James Hargest also won 4-0 over Stirling School to take second place with 6 points. George Street A were similary paired again their B team and won 3-1 to take third place overall on 5 points and win the Primary trophy for 2022. Despite their loss, George St B held on to 4th place on 4 points, based on a superior tie-break on game points over Balmacewen C 17 to 15. This was also second place in the Primary competition.
Balmacewen and James Hargest earned places in the national Intermediate finals in Christchurch in October as representatives of Otago and Southland respectively, while George St Normal won the place in the national Primary finals.
Leading individual scorers were Board 1: (Int) Alexa Choie (Columba) & Zihan Fu (Balmac A)
6/7, Alex Samson (James Hargest) 5/7, (Prim) Marcus Ng (George St B) 4/7;
Board 2: (Int) Sasandu Kiwulegedara (James Hargest) 6/7, (Prim) Zhiqing Li (George St A) 5½/7,
Niko Booth (Balmac A) & Syauqi Alhilmi (Balmac C) 5/7;
Board 3: (Int) Scott Samuel (Balmac A) & Zach Hotton (James Hargest) 5½/7, Lewis Mabon (Balmac B)
& (Prim) Jeremiah King ((George St B) 5/7;
Board 4: (Int) 7/7, Thisun Kuruppuarachchi (Balmac B) 7/7, Elliya Kim (James Hargest) 6/7, (Prim)
Dinuja Namal Gouwage 5/7.
View
Primary and Intermediate crosstable
View
Primary and Intermediate Full Crosstable with individual scores
Thank you to all the participants for making it a great day of chess and a special thank you to Daniel Kelly and Kavanagh College for providing the excellent venue.
Otago Secondary Interschool Teams Championship 2022 – 18 June
A reduced total of 11 teams from eight schools played for the eighteenth annual Otago Secondary Interschool Teams' Championship on Saturday 18 June. Because of Covid restrictions earlier in the year the competition dates were only set and advertised a few weeks ahead of the event, and the number of teams per school restricted, with a corresponding reduced turnout. The event was held in Oamaru in the Waitaki Boys' High School Library. The extra distance from Invercargill resulted in no teams from Southland this year.
Match Points with Game Points as a tie-break meant once again that the result was in contention right to the last round. Top seeds Logan Park HS A were dominant in the early, but there were two major upsets among their rivals when the Otago BHS B team beat their own A team 2½-1½ in round 1, followed it up with another 2½-1½ win over second seeded Kings High School A in round 2, and beat Waitaki BHS 404 in round 3. Normal service was restored in round 4 when LPHS A crushed OBHS B 4-0 to open up a clear 1 point lead at the top. LPHS A retained the lead in round 5 with a 2-2 draw to Kings HS A, who had recovered from their earlier upset. LPHS B beat OBHS B to move to half a point behind their A team, having followed up a round 1 loss to Kings HS with four straight wins. This meant a LPHS match on table 1 in tound 5 and the A team proved dominant with a 3-1 win to take a full point lead into the final round ahead of Kings HS A, who won 4-0 over John McGlashan College. In the final round the top placed teams havde all played each other so the results were somewhat one-sided: LPHS A beat the DJCA mixed team 4-0 to win the eventon 6½/7; not to be outdone Kings HS A defeated the hosts Waitaki BHS 4-0 to finish seond on 5½; while Logan Park HS B squeaked into third place with a 2-2 draw aganst Kavanagh College to finish tied on 4½ match points with OBHS B (who beat Waitaki Combined 4-0), but ahead on game points by 16½ to 16.
Leading individual scorers were Board 1: Alex Sun (LPHS A) 6½/7, Martin Brook (JMC A) 5½/7,
Cam Fraser (Kings A) & Oliver Hobbs (OBHS A) 4½/7;
Board 2: Chay-Hong Rasmey-Sous (Kings A) 6/7, Naoki Kozakai (LPHS A) 5½/7, Ethan Then (Kavanagh) 5/7;
Board 3: Calan McDermott (Kings A) 6/7, Tyne Grant (LPHS A) & Luke Woo (OBHS A) 5/7;
Board 4: Fen McIntosh (LPHS A) & Joseph Chen (OBHS A) 6/7, Connor Gray & Geordie Stephenson (LPHS B) 5/7.
Thank you to Waitaki Boys' High School and Greg Familton for providing the excellent venue.
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crosstable
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full scores with game points
Winter Rapid Open – 12 June
The Winter Rapid Open drew a very healthy field of 32, with a players from Oamaru
and Ross Black returning from Christchurch boosting the local turnout. Top seed
was Sasha Nedyhalov, a recent returnee from the Ukraine, who last played in the
same event in 2014. With such a large field there were three prize grades: Open,
U1600 and U1000, although a number of the ratings were estimated or based on chess.com
ratings. Results went mostly according to seeding in the first two rounds,
but for Greg Familton defeating 6th seed Edward Sarfas in round 2.
After round 3 only two players shared the lead on 3/3: Nedyhalov, who beat Cage Ess,
and seond seed Quentin Johnson, who won against Raine Parlby. Third seed Ben Suazo was
held to a draw by Alex Sun, and the last player on 2 points, Greg Familton, lost to
Matthew Gibb.
In round 4 the clash between the top two seeds was a dynamically balanced Morra
Gambit until both players temporarily lost their minds. Johnson pseudo-sacrificed a
piece but then forgot what that he had to win it back. However Nedyhalov also
failed to notice he was not losing a piece by force and sacced it back, only for
Johnson to blunder it again on the next move. The game went to its natural conclusion
after that with a win to Nedyhalov, giving him the sole lead on 4/4. Both Suazo and
Sun both won (over respectively Parlby and Sarfas) to move to 3½, still with
chance fo first going into the final round. Johnson was joined on 3 points by Familton,
who beat Ess, Jens Paulsen, who beat John Whelan, Elijah Genet, who beat Gibb, Black,
who beat Geordie Stephenson, and Hamish Gold, who beat Brody Mattocks.
The critical games in the final round were Suazo-Nedyhalov on board 1 and Johnson-Sun
on board 2. Sun allowed Johnson to sacrifice a piece for 3 pawns and an enduring
kingside attack, which eventually prevailed. Suazo-Nedyhalov was eventually drawn, leaving
Sasha Nedyhalov alone in first place on 4½/5. Joining Suazo and Johnson in
second place on 4 points were Paulsen, who beat Black in the last game to finish,
Familton, who beat Gold, and Genet who beat Ess.
Because Paulsen, Familton and Genet were all in the U1600 grade, this was combined with
2nd and 3rd prizes in the open grade to ensure all on 4 points had an equal prize.
The U1000 grade was shared by Geordie Stephenson, Hunter Frith, Murphy Munro, Lucas
Harnett, Brody Mattocks, and Dinuja Namal Gomuwage, all on 2 points.
The next rapid open is the Spring Rapid on Sunday 4 September.
Blitz Championship 2 – 8 June
On 8 June the second Blitz event for the Blair Freeman Trophy was held as a 9 player Swiss with a time limit of Bronstein 5 mins plus 3 seconds delay per move. The tournament was won by top seed Ben Suazo on a perfect 7/7. Edward Sarfas was second on 6 points and Jens Paulsen third on 5. Aaron Nelson had a partcularly god event ending on 4 points including a win over third seed Romero Suggate, who had won the first Blitz tournament earlier in the year, but was out of form.
Club Rapid Championship – 8 June
The grades were set using the NZCF Rapid ratings under the rules.
The A grade was again very strong, with the addition of new member Mat King coming in as third seed. In the end the fourth seed Ben Suazo emerged the winner with 4/6, ahead of Quentin Johnson and Iain Lamont on 3, and Mat King on 2 points after shaking off some rust.
The B Grade was headed by Edward Sarfas, who lost his first mini-match with Qi-Le Kong-Lim 2-0. But then Qi-Le didn't turn up for the remaining rounds so his scores were discounted in the final standings, with Edward winning the grade on 4/4 ahead of Hamish Gold and Qi-Le Kong-Lim on 2 and Terry Duffield on 0.
The C Grade was a six-round swiss, and was won by Jens Paulsen on 5/6 head of Brent Southgate on 4½ with Emmanuel Santiago 3rd on 4 points. Santiago defeated Paulsen in the 5th round, but lost in the final round to Alf Loretan.
In the combined cross table below the inter-grade handicaps of 2½ and 2 points have been added to the A and B grades, with the B Grade scores scaled up by 1.5, showing the overall standings after the first leg. The handicaps are derived from the difference in expected score between the average NZCF rating of each grade.
View
combined Crosstable and Rating performances
View
Grade Crosstables
Graham Haase Memorial – 11 May
The third Graham Haase Memorial was a smaller tournament than last year due to the effects of covid, with on 18 players compared to 29 last year. Three of the top seed, Iain Lamont, Romero Suggate and Jens Paulsen had games to finish from the club chmapionship so had to take some half point byes. That left Quentin Johnson and Ben Suazo as the favourites. These two duly met in round and drew their game to share the lead on 2½. Suazo had to take a half point bye in round 4, allowing Johnson to take the sole lead with a win over Malcolm Crack. Meanwhile Paulsen joined Suazo a half point off the lead with a win over Edward Sarfas. In the final round Johnson and Paulsen drew, whiel Suazo lost to Sarfas, so that Johnson emerged as the winnr on 4/5. Second equal were Paulsen and Emmanuel Santiago on 3&frc12;, while Suazo, Sarfas and Lamont shared 4th on 3 points.
View Crosstable and Rating performances
University of Otago Inter-College Teams' tournament – 7 May
The 2022 University of Otago held its annual Inter-College Chess Teams competition on Saturday 7 May at the College of Education staffroom. St Margarets were the champions this year with a score of 9/10.
View the final Crosstable and the photos on Facebook.
Club Championship – 19 April, updated 6 April, updated 20 April
The first leg of the 2022 Club Championship was a little subdued in numbers due to the effects of the Covid Omicron outbreak. Only two grades were formed, the normal six-player A grade and a 12 player Swiss for the B Grade.
At the halfway mark the B grade lead is shared by the in-form Terry Duffield and returning member Roshan Gangani on 2&Frac12;. However the most notable result is the three consecutive losses for top seed Hamish Gold, who appears in terrible form at the moment. Players to watch on 2 points are Noah Oseki, Greg Familton and Emmanuel Santiago, who could easily catch the leaders when the play each other.
In the final three rounds Familton scored three wins, the last being agains co-leader Gangani to take first place in the B Grade on 5/6 and earn promotion to the A grade for the second leg. Duffield lost to Gangani in round 5 to drop off the lead, but won his other two games to finish clear second on 4½. Gangani finished on 4 points third equal with Alf Loretan, despite both players giving up two half point byes.
Top seed Quentin Johnson leads the A grade on 2½ after three rounds, followed by Iain Lamont and Jens Paulsen on 2 points, though Paulsen has a game in hand. secon seed Ben Suazo has had a slow start with two losses to Paulsen and defending co-champion Romero Suggate, who is on 1 point after two games.
Suazo receovered with two wins, over Johnson and Edward Sarfas to finish on a respectable 2½/5, still within reach of the senior championship title. Johnson defeated Paulsen in a game of fluctuating fortunes to finish on 3½, a point clear of Suazo. He could still be passed by Lamont on 2/3, who has two games to play, against Suggate and Paulsen, who are both on 2/4.
The final two games in the A grade were drawn, leaving Johnson on 3½ half a point clear of Lamont on 3 and the three-way tie for third on 2½ between Suggate, Paulsen and Suazo - portending a very tight battle in the second leg.
The rules mean that each grade starts with a base score and/or a scaling factor, to allow performances to be roughly compared between grades, based on the average rating of the field in each grade. That allows players in different grades to compete for the same trophy on fair terms. The Championship totals in the link below show the effect of these adjustments.
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all crosstables
View
A-Grade crosstable and rating performances
View
B-Grade crosstable and rating performances
Allan Chang Memorial – 23 February
The Allan Chang 10 minute hourglass tournament had a turnout 15 participants, which was reasonably good under the circumstances of play under Covid Red conditions. The unusual time limit delivered plenty of upsets, with the trophy going to the largest (based on club rapid rating difference January 2022).
Terry Duffield recorded the biggest upset of round 1 with a win over Ben Suazo (Difference 205 club rapid rating points), but was eclipsed in round two by Jens Paulsen with a win over Edward Sarfas (214 points). In round 3 Hildon Nisa recorded the biggest upset, defeating Hamish Gold rated 207 points higher. In the final round Duffield completed a 4/4 sweep with another upset over Edward Sarfas (112 higher) to finish top of the standings, but the trophy went to Jens Paulsen for his win over Sarfas in round 2.
View Crosstable and Rating performances
2022 Otago chess club AGM – 9 February
Geoff Aimers stood down as President. Terry Duffield was elected as the new President, with Edward Sarfas elected to the vacant Vice President role as well as staying as club Captain. Brent Southgate stayed on as Secretary and Noah Oseki was elected as Treasurer with assistance from Alf Loretan as cashier. Quentin Johnson stayed on as Auditor and Director of Junior Play. Bob Glass was not at the meeting but would be invited to remain as Patron. Jens Paulsen was elected as a new committee memeber. Lisa Oseki and Ryan High stood down as mcommitee members. Subscriptions remained the same as 2021.
The club voted on whether to operated as a Covid Vaccine Compliant organistion and decided in an a majotity vote not to operate as a CVC organiation. The 2022 committee comprises:
President: Terry Duffield; Vice President: Edward Sarfas; Secretary: Brent Southgate; Treasurer: Noah Oseki; Director of Junior Play: Quentin Johnson; Past-President: Geoff Aimers; Club Captain: Edward Sarfas; Committee members: Jens Paulsen; Auditor: Quentin Johnson; Patron: Bob Glass (TBC).
The Calendar for 2022 was accepted with few changes from 2021. Seasonal Rapids will be suspended under Covid Red conditions.
Blair Freeman Blitz 1 - 2 February
The first Blitz tournament for the 2022 Blair Freeman trophy took place on 2 February and had healthy turnout of 14 players. Romero Suggate won his first six games to take out the event with a round to spare. So a final round loss to Iain Lamont meant he still finished first on 6/7. Lamont came second on 5½ after a first round loss meant he didn’t meet Suggate until the final round. Quentin Johnson came third on 5, having lost his first two games so didn’t play either of the top two.
View the final crosstable.
President vs Vice President - 26 January
The opening event for 2022 was the tradition President vs Vice President
match on 26 January. This year Geoff Aimers' President's team triumphed 3½-1½ over
Terry Duffields's President's team::
Geoff-Terry 1-0
Jens-Edward 1-0
Alf-Brent 0-1
Iain-Hildon 0.5-0.5
Emmanuel-Oscar 1-0.