Saturday 21 September 2013

Nell van de Graaff Classic 2013

First thank you all for     100,000 page views!

I have been a bit inactive lately, some temporary health issues {all better now :-) }, nothing much happening and laziness contributed recently. Anyway, I am playing a tournament again and next week I am off to beautiful New Zealand so there will be an inundation of pictures, especially when I get down to Nelson.

I nearly didn't play this morning. It was a perfect beach day this morning but I figured that since I live in Queensland, there will be more. Also it was a strong field. Then my car didn't start. I emailed to say I wouldn't be playing after all. Battery charger to the rescue. I wrote back annulling the last one.

Jason Wang, my first round opponent is one of Brisbane's brightest talents.He has attended some Doubleroo coaching clinics and has participated in several of our tournaments. He played quite solidly today. If he had played 16.Be3 there would have been nothing wrong with his position. I predict this young man is going to get very strong.


Round two was the pick of the day. My opponent Mark Vucak, who hails from Townsville, surprised me in the opening with 3...Be7. I knew the move existed of course but that is where my knowledge stopped. After some thought I decided to play 4.Bc4 and if Bh4 check, then g3 sacking some pawns. Looking at my database now I see that is how Morphy played against Bird in London 1859. The game with notes can be found here. Highly recommended.

I played what I thought was a clever pawn sack but my engine is not impressed. 19...h6 throws the game away though. After 20.Nf7 black could have resigned with a clear conscience allowing us both to squeeze in lunch.





I will not bore you with my third round. Better you look at the Morphy game. My opponent played very quickly, dropping material at regular intervals. He didn't appear very motivated.

So 9am tomorrow morning the business end of the tournament starts. Since the morning bye idea didn't work perfectly at the Logan tournament I have decided to play the dreaded morning round.

Wish me luck :-)

Oh yeah, if you wish to see the draw or follow the tournament you will have to go to http://www.chesschat.org/showthread.php?14860-Nell-van-de-Graaff-Classic-2013

Chesschat is where its happening in Australian chess. I am planning another review of the official Australian Chess Federation website soon. Look for yourself and tell me what you think.





So 

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