Doubleroo: Churchie wins 2015 GPS competition.

GPS Chess

Chess does not get much more exciting than this. Grammer and Churchie playing for the title is a fixture of Queensland GPS chess(Click on the link for complete results). I have seen several of these contests and they all see-saw until the time control. Then a single weak move made in haste can decide the fate of the whole season. It seems random from a distance but team spirit and nerves play a crucial role in pressure situations.

The first game that was decided (long before it was finished) was the board three clash between WeiWei Tsai and Harry Hughes. An opposite colour bishops endgame was reached out of the opening and many moves later black won a pawn....and immediately agreed to a draw.

The board 1 clash between Charles Tsai and Tom Slater-Jones was gearing up to be the contest I expected until Tom blundered an exchange to a knight fork. I had blinked and missed it.

Now we were one up with two games to go. Ivan Zelich, as black, had a dominating knight on d4 but had used a lot of time and Alex Au, also black, was attacking Jared Louie. Alex broke through with a controlled display (game below) while Ivan took a poisoned pawn and was soon in a bad ending. This one goes to Churchie. As soon as the match was over the lads were already talking about "States" :-)

Sunday Rapid

Charles doubled up on Sunday by picket-fencing the Doubleroo-Churchie Rapid. Andrew Fitzpatrick got conscripted to hand out the prizes. Alex Au led the pack (Alexander Desses, Armaan Kundal) 2 points behind with 5/7.

Standings

Place Name                Feder Rtg Loc  Score M-Buch. Buch. Progr.

  1   Tsai, Charles       B         1876 7        23.0  31.0   28.0
 2-4  Au, Alex            B         1417 5        20.0  28.5   19.0
      Desses, Alexander   B         1225 5        19.5  28.5   21.0
      Kundal, Armaan      B         921  5        17.5  27.5   17.0
 5-6  Slater-Jones, Henry B         1584 4.5      22.5  32.5   22.0
      Wang, Jason         B         1489 4.5      22.5  31.5   23.0
7-12  deGit, Cole         B         881  4        19.0  24.5   16.0
      Waddell, Craig      B         892  4        18.5  24.0   18.0
      Young, Dashiell     B         1224 4        18.0  25.5   18.0
      Morris, Byron       GC        950  4        15.0  23.5   17.0
      Ng, Sze-Yong        B         659  4        15.0  21.0   10.0
      Tseng, Daniel       B         608  4        13.5  19.0   12.0
 13   Su, Lucas           B         877  3.5      12.0  18.5   12.0
14-19 Yuan, Dylan         B         783  3        20.5  30.0   15.0
      Huang, Aaron        B         588  3        18.5  25.5   14.0
      O'Donnell, Aidan                   3        18.5  25.5   13.0
      Lee, Chun           B         753  3        18.0  24.5   13.0
      Young, Arden        B         682  3        16.5  22.0   11.0
      Houghton, Sam       B         604  3        16.0  21.5    9.0
 20   Miller, Jack        B         671  2.5      15.5  21.0    7.0
21-22 Lang, Eric          B         625  2        17.0  24.5    9.0
      Su, Marcus          B         712  2        15.5  20.5    6.0
 23   Khagram, Aaryan     B         561  1        16.5  22.5    6.0

Novices

The novices section was also dominated by one player, Dillon Fang, with 7/7. Just as in the Open section, three players followed with 5/7. Will Bode took second and third was Ayesha Khagram. Its good to see more girls participating and taking their places on the podium.

Standings

Place Name                Feder Rtg Loc Score M-Buch. Buch. Progr.

  1   Fang, Dillon        B         511 7        21.0  29.0   28.0
 2-4  Bode, William       B         581 5        21.0  28.5   19.0
      Khagram, Ayesha     B         532 5        19.0  28.5   20.0
      Tang, Jayden        B         500 5        18.0  26.0   21.0
 5-9  Congreve, Lachlan   B         624 4        23.0  34.0   20.0
      Huang, Adam                       4        21.0  30.0   17.0
      Lee, Adeline                      4        17.5  25.5   17.0
      Yu, Nathaniel                     4        17.5  25.5   16.0
      Hsu, Kelvin                       4        17.5  25.0   13.0
10-12 Brooks, Ardy                      3.5      17.0  23.0   12.0
      Mathew, Christopher               3.5      15.0  20.0   11.0
      Hsu, Perry                        3.5      11.5  15.5   11.0
13-16 Wang, Malcolm                     3        20.0  29.5   14.0
      Lin, Ian                          3        18.5  26.5   15.0
      Lin, Joe                          3        17.0  24.0    9.0
      Li, Josh                          3        14.0  19.0   13.0
 17   Conway, Charlie                   2.5      16.5  22.5   11.0
18-19 Verma, Akshin                     1.5      17.0  23.0    6.0
      Verma, Aarav                      1.5      15.0  20.0    7.0

Churchies master of Chess, Mr Max Condon has put a lot of effort into the chess program in general and the Premier team in particular. Not only are all details taken care of but players (and coaches) regularly get treated to Sushi :-)

Alex joined the school this year and has had an immediate impact. He look completely overwhelmed by the occasion in this photo. He was tongue-tied after his extremely tense game, a rare event :-)

A great game by Alex considering the context. Yes, white could have gotten a substantial advantage early, around move 11 by playing f4 and e4. Later black may have been able to win more quickly but don't forget, this was a 40 minute game. Enjoy

Brisbane Junior Girls

Just down the road from Churchie, at St Thomas's primary school there was another event. I know the winner was Nina Tchitaev with 7/7. The full results will be published on the Southside Junior Chess Club sometime.