MCC Championships

The Melbourne Chess Club started its year with the traditional Club Championship. This year, President Grant Szuveges and his committee made a special effort to try to attract a big field for this, and their work paid off. The Club Championship has attracted around 60 players (over the past few years that number has been more like 40) and the top of the field is very strong. The perennial favourites for the event, IM's Guy West and Mirko Rujevic have this year been joined by MCC life member, GM Darryl Johansen and our newest life member, FM Bobby Cheng. And these players will be kept honest by a host of strong players. The full draw can be checked out on the MCC website.

The tournament is being run by the MCC, but the arbiter has come from Box Hill Chess Club. Most of the regular arbiters for the MCC are playing in the tournament, so we were very lucky to have Peter Tsai volunteer his time and expertise at the last minute. I have taken up the role of a sort of Director, as well as playing in the tournament.

The first round draw saw the usual ratings mismatches as the top half of the field was paired against the bottom half of the field. Saying that the top half certainly didn't have it their own way and there were a few casualties. The top boards are using carbon copies so we will reproduce some games from the event, and from round 2, the DGT board will be used transmitting the top game to the internet.

On board 1 Darryl came through without too much hassle, though Felix might have tried to sacrifice on g5 with his knight.

On board 2, a few people were wondering what was happening as it looked as if Guy had miscalculated a rook sacrifice. However, in the end he came through to win, though I'm guessing he'll be pretty happy to have done so.

Anatoli Sirota is returning to over the board chess after a long break and couldn't overcome Jim Papadinis. I don't have the score to this game, though. I do, however, have the score to the board 4 game where Mirko Rujevic should also feel very lucky not to have come away from the first round with a zero against Michael Addamo. I showed this game to IM Robert Jamieson who asked at one point, "Isn't white just a piece up...for a pawn?"

Joint Victorian Champion Chris Wallis had a fairly comfortable win against rising star Karl Zelesco.

Round 2 is to be played this coming Monday, the 14th February, and there are still some rating differences on most of the boards. Saying that, if round 1 is anything to go by, no one should be complacent in this event.