City Of Melbourne Open Round 8 Live

A depleted field tonight as withdrawals and postponements due to the Victorian Juniors takes it toll. There is no live transmission tonight due to some technical issues with our computers and my lack of ability in solving these problems. We have postponements to the games Fitzpatrick-Addamo and Lekkas-Shanks (good luck to Michael Addamo and Frank Lekkas in the Victorian Junior Championships) and Ian Sutton has had to go to Sydney for a while and has withdrawn from the tournament so his game against Thai Ly has resulted in a victory by forfeit to Thai. One game was played yesterday, where Domogoj Dragicevic beat Pano Skiotis.

Ok, I will try to post some info about the top game as we have no live transmission. So far it’s a closed Spanish which I know very little about.

Rujevic-Tan

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3
O-O 9. d4 Bg4 10. d5 Na5 11. Bc2 c6 12. a4 cxd5 13. exd5 Nc4 14. h3

The early news is that Laurie Dalton is a winner due to a no show by Alp Akverdi, Dusan Stojic has tried the opening 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6 against Sylvester Urban. This is a sideline that both Stojic brothers have played a fair bit over the past few years so they know the resulting positions pretty well. Victor Kildisas has stodged a Bb5xc6 Sicilian against Sam Low. Roger Beattie appears to be an exchange down for no compensation and the interesting game is shaping up to be Schmidt-Voon with an opposite castled Sicilian.

At the request of a well known IM and Victorian chess personality I have taken a picture of Sam Low as it seems that it’s such a long time since he played that people need reminding what he looks like.  If anyone else has any requests for pictures of chess players, then feel free to ask and I’ll see what I can do. Perhaps a beachwear modelling photo session?

Board 1 update

Not very exciting, Mirko has chased the light squared bishop.

Rujevic-Tan

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3
O-O 9. d4 Bg4 10. d5 Na5 11. Bc2 c6 12. a4 cxd5 13. exd5 Nc4 14. h3 Bh5 15. g4
Bg6 16. Bxg6

Approximately 1 and a half hours into the games:

Board 1 has not moved on much:

Rujevic-Tan: times 67-53

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3
O-O 9. d4 Bg4 10. d5 Na5 11. Bc2 c6 12. a4 cxd5 13. exd5 Nc4 14. h3 Bh5 15. g4
Bg6 16. Bxg6 hxg6 17. b3 Nb6 18. a5 Nbd7 19. Be3 Rc8 20. b4 *

Board 3 has come down an endgame where white (Urban) has a majority on the queen side, but black (Stojic) has a more central king.

White to move here, and Sylvester is having a good long think.

Victor Kildisas is a pawn up, though it doesn’t seem like much against Sam Low who has some pressure along the h1-a8 diagonal. Roger Beattie is a ton of material down against Gary Lycett and the only other interesting point is Jim Papadinis’ orange coloured pen. If I was his opponent I would be complaining about the brightness on Jim’s scoresheet, that contrasts dramatically with the greyness on the board.

2 hour update

I’m finding it difficult to pick winners tonight. Roger Beattie still looks gone but is playing on. Ari Dale looks exhausted after playing non stop for the past 3 days at the Victorian under 12′s and under 18′s. He has already won 2 games today at the Vic Junior’s but is a pawn down against John Dowling. The game between Simon Schmidt and Richard Voon is heating up:

White to move, but who will smash through first?

The board 1 game has moved on a bit with Justin pressuring Mirko’s d5 pawn.

Rujevic-Tan
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3
O-O 9. d4 Bg4 10. d5 Na5 11. Bc2 c6 12. a4 cxd5 13. exd5 Nc4 14. h3 Bh5 15. g4
Bg6 16. Bxg6 hxg6 17. b3 Nb6 18. a5 Nbd7 19. Be3 Rc8 20. b4 Qc7 21. Qb3 Qb7 22.
Rd1 Rc4

And from this position, Justin has taken the lead in this game with excellent calculation:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3
O-O 9. d4 Bg4 10. d5 Na5 11. Bc2 c6 12. a4 cxd5 13. exd5 Nc4 14. h3 Bh5 15. g4
Bg6 16. Bxg6 hxg6 17. b3 Nb6 18. a5 Nbd7 19. Be3 Rc8 20. b4 Qc7 21. Qb3 Qb7 22.
Rd1 Rc4 23. Na3 Nxd5 24. Nxc4 bxc4 25. Qxc4 Nxe3 26. fxe3 Qxf3 27. Kh2

Mirko looks disgusted with himself, and if Justin can press home his advantage then we will have a new leader before the final round.

2 and a half hours

The game between Richard McCart and Felix Wyss has an interesting material distribution, as Felix has a rook for a bishop and 2 pawns. The queens and other pieces are still on so at the moment, the rook looks threatening. Jim papadinis’ orange pen hasn’t helped him as he is a host of pawns down to Paul Kovacevic. Alex kaplan finds himself with a huge time advantage against Adam Lovegrove even though Adam might have a positional advantage in the game. He will find it difficult to play this game out with only 3.27 on the clock compared to Kaplan’s 64 minutes.

The board 1 game now sees an overwhelming advantage to Justin Tan.

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3
O-O 9. d4 Bg4 10. d5 Na5 11. Bc2 c6 12. a4 cxd5 13. exd5 Nc4 14. h3 Bh5 15. g4
Bg6 16. Bxg6 hxg6 17. b3 Nb6 18. a5 Nbd7 19. Be3 Rc8 20. b4 Qc7 21. Qb3 Qb7 22.
Rd1 Rc4 23. Na3 Nxd5 24. Nxc4 bxc4 25. Qxc4 Nxe3 26. fxe3 Qxf3 27. Kh2 Bh4 28.
Qf1 Bg3+ 29. Kg1 Qxe3+ 30. Kg2 e4 31. Ra2 Be5 32. c4

Here is the position which Adam Lovegrove is having to play with under 2 minutes left.

And big news from board 1. After the moves

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3
O-O 9. d4 Bg4 10. d5 Na5 11. Bc2 c6 12. a4 cxd5 13. exd5 Nc4 14. h3 Bh5 15. g4
Bg6 16. Bxg6 hxg6 17. b3 Nb6 18. a5 Nbd7 19. Be3 Rc8 20. b4 Qc7 21. Qb3 Qb7 22.
Rd1 Rc4 23. Na3 Nxd5 24. Nxc4 bxc4 25. Qxc4 Nxe3 26. fxe3 Qxf3 27. Kh2 Bh4 28.
Qf1 Bg3+ 29. Kg1 Qxe3+ 30. Kg2 e4 31. Ra2 Be5 32. c4 f5 33. Qf2 Qb3 34. Qe2
fxg4 35. hxg4 Qg3+ 36. Kh1 Qh3+ 37. Kg1 Rf4 Mirko resigned.

This was Justin’s first win against an International Master

3 hours update

About half the games have finished now. The ending between Urban and Stojic is looking better for Dusan and if he wins, he will join Domagoj Dragicevic in first place, half a point ahead of Rujevic. Sam Low has broken through a lot of stodge that Victor kildisas put in front of him, and looks to have a good advantage. Richard Voon is an exchange up and should convert, while Richard McCart and Rad Chmiel have a long way still to go with hardly any pieces or pawns off the board. Some diagrams to follow soon.

MCC life member Marcus Raine has been a welcome visitor to the club this evening. Marcus has some time off from his university studies and has come into the MCC after a full day at Box Hill Chess Club where he was present for the Victorian Junior Championships. I asked him about the hat imitatation perpetrated by Elliott Renzies and Serif Tuglaci. Marcus said he had no problems with having the same fashion sense as Tasso.

A big disappointment for Richard Voon who just lost an absolutely crushing position against Simon Schmidt after overlooking a threat of mate in 1 which forced him to give up some material. Dusan is now 2 pawns up in an ending where he has rook and knight against Sylvester’s rook and bishop. Sam Low is also 2 pawns up against Victor Kildisas while the McCart-Chmiel game continues on its long course.

Actually, as I was just writing that the 2 top boards ended with wins for Dusan Stojic and Sam Low. This means we have joint leaders going into the last round with Domagoj Dragicevic and Dusan Stojic on 6.5 with Mirko Rujevic just half a point behind on 6.

There is still one game going on, and it is getting to the finale between McCart and Chmiel. Last I looked it was double rooks, a minor piece each and about 5 pawns each, but both are down to the last 5 minutes so time may be a factor. It has now clarified to rook and 5 (Chmiel) v rook and 4 (McCart). Time will definitely be a factor in this result, they are both less than 5 minutes.

This is the end of the blog for tonight. Thanks again for watching and I will be posting the last round draw on the MCC website by Wednesday at the latest. This will mean calculating the draw based on some unplayed games, but that is the way it has to be. I will not be at the club next week so I’d like to thank the players for making the tournament an easy one to be the arbiter of. I have thoroughly enjoyed being arbiter and live blogging from the event. I will definitely be doing this agin in the future.