Australian Junior Championships: The Winners

I am finally over the problems that I encountered leaving this event and travelling home, and I apologise for not getting this final report on the championships out sooner. In my opinion there was some good and some not too good to come out of the Championships, but that is probably the case with all tournaments. I'll start with the good, but this is all just my own opinion, so don't think I'm stating any official position here.

The venue wasn't spectacular (last time I was in Queensland the juniors shared a luxurious hotel with the senior championship!) but was more than adequate for the event. I've played in many sports halls for chess events, and always found them fairly comfortable. The surroundings of Bond University were pleasant, and there was plenty of safe outside space for kids to play in, though I'm not sure how many took advantage of this. The tournament was organised well by Andrew FitzPatrick and Gardiner Chess, and events ran more or less smoothly. The Tornelo management software worked well and enabled quick upload of games and results. The players conducted themselves well, and generally put their whole effort into each game. The competitiveness of each section can be seen by the fact that only one age group division (under 10's) was decided before the last round.

So a big congratulations to the winners. In the under 18's Gene Nakauchi was really the stand out and worthy winner of the event after his good showing in the Australian Open earlier in January. I think it was at Ballarat last year that IM Stephen Solomon told me in passing that Nakauchi was about to break through in a big way. It seems Stephen's prediction was right! In the under 16 top seed Oscar Wang found himself under pressure early, but fought back with an impressive run scoring 6.5/7 at the end of the tournament to overtake Punala Kiripitige and win this section. The under 14 was all about the Willthgamuwa brothers moving up divisions and much talk was whether either could win (many thought one of them would). But both were pushed back by Tom Maguire who gave away just 2 draws to win the title on an impressive 8/9. The under 12's was (predictably) the most competitive section ending in a 4 way tie for first. The play off was won, perhaps surprisingly, by Kerry Lin. I say 'surprisingly' because Kerry had only managed to finish =9th in the under 10's which was won convincingly by Kevin Willathgamuwa with a round to spare. The under 8's was also won convincingly by Christopher Lim, who also moved up to compete in the under 12 event where he finished on half points, a very good performance for a 6 year old!

The girls events were bundled into 2 divisions and the titles went to Nicole Chin (under 18), Zhi Lin Guo (under 16), Chloe Chin (under 14), Fiona Shen (under 12), Emily Lin (under 10) and Kamryn Durden (under 8). All the results are available on the tournament website.

The effort by all the players was excellent as there were some pretty grueling schedules and they managed to upload their games (965) after playing them. The coaches were working flat out to help their students, either with technical advice or moral support. My favourite coaches moment was sitting near to Jim Cannon who was working with some under 8 girls and having them in hysterical laughter over something or other. Good work Jim, let's make the game fun first and produce winners once the kids love the game!

Actually, that's left me in such a good mood that I'm going to leave the critical parts of this report till a later blog post. Congratulations to all players who put in such a great effort, and especially to the new Champions.

Australian Junior's and Double Chins

The Chin sisters on board 1 in the under 18 girls

Sorry, but I couldn't resist the title! The penultimate day of the Australian Juniors saw some sorting out happen. In the girls under 18, the top seeds have risen to the head of the event, with Nicole Chin (right in the picture above) having a 1 point lead going into the final round. In round 7, she played her younger sister Chloe (left in the picture above) who is also playing well and currently in joint third. I'm not too sure who is in which position at the different age groups (U-18, U-16 and U-14) but all will be revealed tomorrow.

In the boys events, things have generally become clearer. In the under 18's Gene Nakauchi is now a point clear of Yi Liu who is himself a point clear of Yi Yuan and Pengyu Chen. The under 16 tournament is led by Oscar Wang who is half a point ahead of Punala Kiritipige who is a further point clear of the rest. Tom Maguire won both his games in the under 14's today and has taken control of the under 14 event, a full point clear of both the young Willathgamuwa brothers. And in the under 12's Denny Han has a clear point lead from a pack of 5 players!

The under 10 and 8's girls had to play 4 games today, and there was actually 1 draw, spoiling a perfect set of results. Those 2 girls who drew with each other, Cassandra Lim and Emily Lin are currently that half point ahead of the field. There are 2 more games tomorrow for these girls which should be a nerve tingling experience.

Tom Maguire (right) clear leader of the under 14 boys

Tomorrow should be pretty exciting as a number of minor places are up for grabs, and no one has actually won a title. There may be play offs to determine champions, and then there will be the prize giving, which is what all the kids want to be a part of. There is a combination of trophies and cash prizes, though there has been some debate as to whether cash prizes are appropriate, especially at the younger age groups. I don't remember winning any money prizes in junior competitions, but being elated to walk away with a trophy, or better still, a book prize! Then again, we are talking pre computer and mobile phone days. In fact colour TV hadn't been around too long in my house when I started playing junior chess, and Fischer was still World Champ, though only just! Anyway, enough old-man talk, here are the trophies.

A Quick Australian Junior 2013 Post

Ok, it's late, and I'm exhausted so this will be brief. First the weather has taken a turn for the worse here, which is great for chess enthusiasts!

That large white block of cloud above the North East of Australia is Tropical Cyclone Oswald which is heading South towards where we are on the Gold Coast about half way up the eastern coast. Today there was plenty of grey clouds, and a fair amount of showers though nothing particularly heavy. What we get over the next few days is anybodies guess!

Anyway, with this weather there's no excuse to go outside and play, so chess is the order of the day. So, starting with the oldest, a draw on top board secured Gene Nakauchi's overall lead in the tournament, but helped the rest to close up. Yi Yuan and Yi Liu are half a point back and Thomas Pinnock (who is the next to tackle Nakauchi) a further half point down. Top seed Oscar Wang has finally taken the lead in the under 16 section. He is a point clear of 3 players, Punala Kiripitige, Martin Jack and the still impressive Clint Therakam who must really go down as the man of the whole Australian Juniors. Today Clint notched up another upset win against George Carolin-Unkovitch who is rated about 550 points above Therakam!

The under 14's might well be the closest of the lot, and it is unbelievably competitive. No one has reached 4/4 and a group of 4 players sit at the top on 3.5. However, there are a further 10 players within a point of these, so anyone that starts to accumulate points from now is going to be close to the top at the end of the tournament. To be honest, no one player has particularly stood out for me yet, so tomorrow might be a big day in establishing an order for this event. There is an outright leader in the under 12 in Kevin Song of Queensland. He is closely followed by a group of 5 players headed by top seed David Cannon. However, David hasn't played the most convincing chess and will hopefully find his full strength over the next full days.

From round 3, David had gotten into a horrible mess as black. If Max Phillips with white had played 43.Rxf7 Kxf7 44.Qc5, the game would probably have not lasted much longer and we would have had an upset. However, White played a blunder, 43.Ne2? and David took his chance with 43..Rxf2 44.Kxf2 Rf6+ and white's king has no good squares and black wins the knight and soon after went on to win the game. David has been pushed hard in most of his games, which I suppose comes with the territory of being top seed!

The girls under 18 event has a clear leader in Rebecca Strickland who has convincingly moved to 4/4. She is half a point ahead of Nicole Chin who is half a point ahead of 3 more players. This field is spreading out, but I'm not sure of the sections that the girls are qualified for, so it's difficult to know who is leading which event as the under 18's, 16's and 14's are all together. I'll try to get to grips with this and work out who is trying to win which section tomorrow. The younger girls are also bunched together in under 10's and 8's. These start tomorrow and have the onerous schedule of 3 games tomorrow, 4 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. There are going to be some very tired girls on Saturday evening!

And finally here are the winners from the lightning events!

Under 12's champion was Kris Chan from Victoria who scored an amazing 10/11, while the under 18 championship was won by Yi Liu of Queensland with a perfect 11/11. Congratulations to these 2 speed specialists. Full results can be found on the tournament website.

Australian Junior Championships: Major titles resume

Can you spot white's threat? Upsets happen, and this one came from the Under 12 Championships where one of the top seeds was taken down by a player rated 600 points below them. However, it shows how tough and competitive these events are. Of course white threatens Qd8 mate, which was stopped by the check 27..Qe5+. This is fine, but as a spectator alarm bells are ringing as focus can easily be lost at the under 12 level. White blocked with 28.Be4 and, yes you guessed it, black decided to win himself the pinned bishop. The game tragically finished 28..d5 29.Qd8# 1-0 Cholan-Yap Australian Under 12 Championship 2013.

After the excitement of the problem solving and lightning events yesterday, the main events began again today. There are titles to be decided for U-18, U-16, U-14, U-12 in open divisions and every age group in the girls only divisions. In fact starting with the girls tournaments, there has once again been a low turnout for the girls championship and even at 11am when the chess was due to start, there was still some debate as to what format was going to be used. In the end there are just 2 tournaments, an U-18 (20 players) and an U-10 (14 players) though I believe there will be champions in all age groups from U-18 down to U-8's. In fact, I don't know this for sure, but when I do I'll confirm it. The older girls started their event today, while the younger ones start on Friday and use the 3 games per day format. It is a bit difficult to tell who is competing in which age group, and I know some of the girls were disappointed that they didn't end up playing their preferred time control as the U-18 and 16's were due to play 90+30 while the U-14 and 12's were to play 60+30. In the end the older girls missed out and the 60+30 time control has been used. So far there have been no top seed casualties, but they all start to meet tomorrow for the main sorting of these events.

The boys tournaments which started today are the U-14 (35 players) and the U-12 (63 players) making them 2 of the biggest sections of the Championships. Both these events look amazingly competitive and I am hard pressed to pick a winner in either section. The format of 2 game per day for 4 days and 1 game on the fifth day will also lead to stamina issues toward the end of the tournaments, or even on the second games of the day. Already there were a number of players who didn't look so good half way through the afternoon game. The top seed in the U-14's, Rishi Dutta was held to a draw by Gary Lin rated 300 points below him, for example. In fact, in this section there are only 6 players on a perfect score including, ominously, both the Willathgamuwa brothers. However, it is early days yet. Actually, there is another (much) younger brother who will have 2 great role models if he decides to take up chess!

The under 12's is the biggest tournament in terms of participation and with 15 players rated over 1000 there is tough competition. Top seed is David Cannon who has been a junior champion before so knows what it takes to win the title. David started with 2/2 but the real fun starts tomorrow when the players rated above 1000 all begin to meet.

The under 16's and 18's resumed their events today. Punala Kiritipige was pulled back to the field by top seed Oscar Wang in the under 16's. There are now 2 leaders (Punala and Oscar) followed closely by surprise package Andrew Mather who is playing about 500 points above his 1312 rating to be on 3.5! Clint Therakam was also back to giant killing ways again today and he is one of 3 players a further half point back on 3. The top 3 players in the U-18 all won today and lead the field, Nakauchi 4.5, Yi Yuan 4, Yi Liu 3.5. It looks like one of these 3 will take the title and the top 2 play tomorrow.

Leader of the under 18's, Gene Nakauchi has played some very interesting ideas. Today against Jack Puccini he came up with an exchange sacrifice which caused his opponent no end of headaches.

Nakauchi as white played 25.Nxb3 and after the recature 25..Nxb3 had no hesitation in sacrificing the exchange with 26.Rxb3. Gene's queen side initiative and that massive protected passed pawn on b6 proved too much for Jack to defend.

Again the team at Gardiner Chess are doing a great job, as is arbiter Charles Zworestine and the Tornelo management system is working well at quickly updating results and storing the games that the kids themselves are putting into the computers.

Australian Junior's 2013 Day 2

Our great venue, Bond University on the Gold Coast

It's the middle day for the under 10's and under 8's while the older kids are getting into the swing with a double round of games today. In his introductory speech yesterday, Andrew FitzPatrick of Gardiner Chess spoke of the beauty of the surroundings. The tournament is being held at Bond University on the Gold Coast, and a walk round the campus promises beautiful views of the lakeland surroundings.

A university on a natural conservation area!

Great lakeland surroundings

Plenty of food and drink in the University Market Square

Colourful lakeland surroundings

Water fountain dominating the lake view

Bond University is the host and major sponsor of the event, and have provided excellent facilities for free. The playing area is a sports hall with air conditioning while the analysis rooms are spread around the sports centre. The main analysis rooms are in squash courts with carpeting put down. Apparently, the NSW room wasn't up to scratch because they moved to another room (though that sounds a bit soft to this "whinging Pom"!). There has also been some rumblings concerning the necessity of Charles Zworestine's pre round "readings from the book of Caissa", though this may be due to people seeing them before. Are they part of the Australian Junior tradition? Should they be?

As for the chess, things are going according to plan in the younger sections. Kevin Willathgamuwa of NSW is the player to beat in the under 10's, and so far no one has managed even to draw against him in the first 6 rounds. In the under 8's, Victorian Christopher Lim has proved equally successful and sits at the top of the table on 6/6. However, there are still 3 games to go and anything could happen in these tournaments with a number of players in with a chance.

Boards 3 and 4 in the under 10's hot on the heels of the leaders

Under 8 leaders, with unbeaten Christopher Lim in the red shirt

Top boards in the under 10's minus leader Kevin Willthgamuwa

The chess at the tournament has been easy and exciting to follow due to the use of the Tornelo management system and Andrew FitzPatrick's energy at uploading games live as they happen. The kids are then asked to upload their games to the system when they finish their games (though I have heard that some kids are being told not to do this by their coaches) so as to make the organiser's job easier in producing a pgn file of the event on its completion. So far, 204 games have already been uploaded by the kids themselves, along with some assistance from the team of arbiters and some parents.

The under 18's and under 16's had their tough day today with 2 games played and it left interesting standings. In the under 18's no one has made it to 3/3. Instead a group of 3 players are unbeaten on 2.5 while a big pack sits close behind. It is early days here but one of the favourites, Yi Yuan, lost a game today, and he'll have to find better form against the top players if he is to overtake them (Pengyu Chen, Gene Nakauchi and Yi Liu). The under 16's does have an outright leader on 3/3 with Punala Kiripitige winning all his games so far. Again it is early days, but this tournament looks wide open with some definite under rated players floating around. Take, for instance, local boy (well, Brisbane which isn't too far away in the scheme of things) Clint Therakam with a rating of 1191 finding himself on board 1 in the third round after wins against Eddie Han (1595), and Alex MacAdam (1720). Unfortunately his run came to an end when Punala beat him, but what a start to his tournament!

Under 16 top boards, giant killer Clint Therakam sits in the foreground on the right!

In this position from round 1, Clint Therakam as white tried to trick his higher rated opponent with 35.d7!? The game would probably have ended in a draw if black had played 35..fxe4 36.Qc4+ Kg7 37.dxc8=Q Qxc8 38.Qxe4 as pure queen endings are notoriously difficult to play, especially with little time on the clock. However, black fell into white's trap playing 35..Bxd7? Clint notched up his first scalp of the tournament with the snappy tactic 36.Qxd7! attracting black into a knight fork if he takes on d7 (Nf6+) so black kept his queen and soldiered on a piece down for a while, but in vain.