Dear All,

A much briefer bulletin this week, as four of the St. George grade match teams had the bye! Many thanks to the team captains for writing all the reports this week too. I have hence been able to have a lazy weekend - apologies for not getting round to sending out the bulletin until now... With the byes it is not clear which of our teams are still leading their divisions, as results are somewhat distorted by having played one less game than our main rivals. We will know more, I think, by the end of next week - so tune in for the next exciting instalment!


ROUND 4


Under 2100 St. George had the bye.


Under 1800 St. George Dragons had the bye.


Under 1800 St. George Saints 0.5-3.5 Manly
1. Robert Kovacs 1660 0-1 David Webster 1790
2. Chris Waterman 1603 0.5-0.5 Tze Weng Foong 1621
3. Kole Murgoski 1618 0-1 Jack Mejzini 1607
4. Tom Tomas 1603 0-1 Norm Greenwood 1530

Report by Saints team captain Robert Kovacs - thanks Robert!

The U1800 Saints got off to a very slow start when I arrived to find the cupboard still locked and no-one with a key. No-one had let me know this might happen, and not being familiar with what to do it took me a while to get via Charles on the phone to the front desk and someone to come down and open the cupboard. So set up was 10 mins late all up.

Three games finally got underway after I had extracted Chris from the wrong board and the fourth a little later when I spotted the absent Kole happily chatting, drinking a coffee and playing a "friendly" on the other side of the room. Kole then asked me to explain to him the "don't have to write down the moves in the last five minutes of the game" rule, and then another player asked me to explain how long the games were and how many moves they had to play to reach the time control. If anyone wants to be captain of the U1800 Saints...?

So, the games themselves: perhaps not surprisingly Kole lost pretty quickly on Board 3. Chris' game on Board 2 cancelled down to an endgame pretty quickly - which is not too uncommon for him - but most of his advantage disappeared when he lost his remaining piece for two pawns - leaving him with five pawns versus his opponents two pawns and a knight - he ended up drawing, a bit disappointing but he has got 2 out of 3 so far, which is good and far better than anyone else. On Board 1, I was looking forward to my only game against a player rated less than me, but discovered that Manly had brought along someone new who was rated 130 points more than me! Despite losing about twenty minutes all up on my clock and spending much of my game with my concentration distracted by various above mentioned things, the slow manoeuvring game was going OK until I got short of time and blundered away the exchange and than the game trying to reach the time control - I look forward to playing only one opponent at a time! The last game to finish as usual was Tom's and when I went to watch I saw that he had slowly built up a winning endgame advantage although quite behind on time. I watched him rapidly throw this advantage away and get annihilated - in his words, "the most stupid game he'd ever played!". So, marvellous - we lost 3.5 to 0.5 and are now coming last, hooray!

Under 1600 St. George Saints had the bye.


Under 1600 Bonnyrigg 1-3 St. George Dragons
1. Vlado Cvijetic 1572 0-1 Peter Astorga 1643
2. R. Badovanovic Unrated 0-1 Brian Press 1542
3. M Cvitrovic Unrated 0-1 Geoff Britton 1510
4. Milko Banovic Unrated 1-0 Terence Wall 1506

Report by Dragons team captain Terence Wall - thanks Terence!

A good 3-1 win, and the whole match was over in about two hours.

Once again I was struggling from about Move 3, and the next thing I remember is Peter showing me his - twelve move! - score sheet and vanishing. So I assume he had an easy win.

The enigmatic Brian Press was true to form and assured me he won because he knew more about the accelerated fianchetto Sicilian than his opponent. Hence the result. Maybe next week I'll be able to get a glimpse at one of his triumphs before the board is packed away...

Since my game was next to finish I did get a look at the final stages of Geoff's game in which he'd achieved a comfortable 2 pawn advantage and went on to win with a neat N-Q-R checkmate whilst his opponent's N-Q-R looked on helplessly.

As for me, I got hemmed in, ground down and defeated by a strong kingside attack. I thought I had survived, by covering with my knight, the mate threatened by my opponent's queen - only to find that he welcomed the queen capture because his back up rook could checkmate anyway!


Under 1400 St. George Saints 4-0 Manly
1. Marco Lee 1388 1-0 Martin Van Elmpt 1448
2. Cedric Koh 1222 1-0 Colin Wills 1320
3. Peng Yu Chen 1130 1-0 Michael Dacic Unrated
4. Shirley Gu 842 1-0 Tom Accola 999

Report by Jian Gu, with additions from Saints team captain Jason Koh - thanks Jian and Jason!

We had a sensational night at St George as our juniors performed extremely well, with a massive 4-0 victory over their adult opponents from Manly!

Cedric on Board 2 was the first one to win. He forked his opponent's queen before the endgame to secure his convincing victory, although his opponent tried his best to stay in the game. (Cedric won his game early on in 18 moves, with his knight forking his opponent's queen and king - comment from Jason).

Shirley on Board 4 captured a knight in the middlegame through tactics. With a piece up she started to swap pieces until she had a queen, a knight and 6 pawns vs a queen and 6 pawns. She then took 3 pawns by consecutive checking. Her opponent had no choice but to resign after his queen was swapped by a check.

Peng Yu on Board 3 had an equal game in the beginning, but he managed to gain a pawn before the endgame and made his opponent suffer the consequences! With a knight and 5 pawns vs a knight and 4 pawns left on the board, Peng Yu forced his opponent to swap a knight and a pawn. He then successfully promoted to a queen to claim his victory.

The long and exciting game was on Board 1. Marco Lee had a very close game with Martin van Elmpt, whose rating was higher than his. The situation was tight from the beginning to the end. Marco was a pawn up but a bit down in position. He tried hard to swap pieces as the less pieces left, the easier it was for Marco who was a pawn up. With a queen, a rook and 7 pawns vs a queen, a rook and 6 pawns left, his opponent made his 30th move just a few seconds before running out his regular time to keep himself in the game. Smart Marco forced him to swap piece by piece. After both players promoted, Marco had a queen and a pawn vs a queen. His opponent suffered a regretful loss after a long battle, as Marco successfully stopped his attempt of perpetual checking by a forced swapping of his queen. (I saw a bit of this game, and Marco was a bit lucky to win in the end - his opponent missed a chance to win his pawn back in a rook and pawn endgame and force a draw - Charles Zworestine).

Well done Under 1400 St George Saints!


Under 1400 St. George Dragons had the bye.


Regards,
Charles Zworestine.
Club Captain,
St. George Leagues Club Chess Club.