Victorian chess is at a bust time of year. The Victorian Championships and reserves are on the verge of starting, the Victorian Junior Championships have just finished, and we have just had a weekender at Croydon Chess Club, the Guy West Classic. Still the clubs move ahead with their own internal schedules, and the Melbourne Chess Club is no exception. On Monday nights, the MCC Grand Prix continues with the 7 round swiss Edwin Malitis Memorial. Now personally I never met Eddie Malitis, so I will take it upon myself to find some things out about the man and his relationship with the MCC during the course of the event.
The 3rd tournament of the year always has somewhat of a down turn in numbers compared to the 2 9-rounders that precede it, and this year was no exception. However, the tournament still attracted a field of probably more than was expected, especially seeing many of our higher rated regulars from Monday night (Mirko Rujevic, James Morris, Domagoj Dragicevic and Malcolm Pyke in the Championship, David Garner, Frank Lekkas, Roger Beattie and John Beckman in the Reserves) are participating in the State championship tournaments. We at the MCC wish all these players the very best of luck in their events, as well as newly returned Sylvester Urban playing in his first Victorian Championship after winning last year's reserve tournament, and Kerry stead and Sarah Anton who are masochistically playing in both the Victorian Reserves and the Malitis Memorial. Currently there are 30 players in the Malitis Memorial, including myself as player/arbiter, although I only played int he first round to even the numbers and should there be an even number to the field with more players entering, then I will happily withdraw and resume the task of arbiter and live blogger.
The field has Jesse Jager as its top seed, a number of Monday night regulars, and a few players newer tot he club, or at least to Monday nights. A few players took byes in round 1, but still 26 players competed. As usual, the majority of the games went according to rating, but still there were some giant killing feats. If Anthony Hain keeps giant killing, he will soon become a giant where others are looking to take him as a scalp. This round he took out experienced campaigner Richard Voon in a complex Poisoned Pawn Najdorf. Anthony's dad, Michael was also on the giant killing list. Michael needed the MCC Open to refamiliarise himself with tournament chess, and has started the Malitis Memorial off with a good win. Robert Frantzeskos is a new name to me, and a new name to Rad Chmiel who after their game described the unrated Robert as 'at least 1900 strength'. You can check out all the first round results at the MCC website, and here is a selection of games from the first round.
17. Rxb4 was both sound and winning, in short the best move! 16...Bc5+ would have been better than 16...Bb4
ReplyDeleteIs 17.Rxb4 winning? Perhaps black can try 17..Qc5+ 18.Kh1 Qxc3. Is white really winning here?
ReplyDeleteI do agree that 16..Bb4 is not as good as 16..Bc5+
That doesnt help because of 19.Bh5+! and after 19...g6 20.Qf2 causes too many problems
ReplyDeleteCan black just not close the line with 20..Nf4? I'm not saying that black is better, I'm just querying whether white is actually winning. White has some material hanging and is already material down so to me it looks double edged.
ReplyDelete21.Rxf4 is crushing, but nice try, the threats become very problamatic as the queen will have to retreat to g7 then Qd6 will be very powerful
ReplyDeletenice try? You've proved nothing yet? After 23.Qd6, white's position looks good, but I still don't see a win which is what YOU were claiming after 17.Rxb4. Remember, I'm not defending the black position here....I would hate to be black, but I still think that it's a big claim to say 17.Rxb4 is winning. Prove white can win if black plays 23..Qd7 :)
ReplyDeleteOk. 24.Qe5 and after 24...Rg8 (as your losing badly after anything else) 25.Bg4
ReplyDeleteok.....and? Basically, you are offering moves to anything I say without giving any ideas, plans or threats. I am saying that black is material ahead so white needs to justify his position. So, I am asking you to provide proof that 17.Rxb4 is winning....to back up your statement. So far we have gone 8 moves down a non-forced variation, and I still don't see a knockout blow for white. Provide the analysis and I'll happily publish it in this blog. :)
ReplyDeleteAll im saying is that so far this has been a fairly forced line, and Rd1 is now a major threat and i dont see a good responce,its hard to explain strategies in such a tactical position, but put simply how on earth can black get his peices out or more importantly, his king safe? i would love to analyse this game in more detail.
ReplyDeleteok, you have identified a threat in Rd1, but that will probably be answered by Rf8 trying to give up queen for rook and bishop, which will, in effect be queen for 2 rooks as black is already an exchange ahead. I've had a look at a few ideas involving black giving up the queen, but white seems to get the better of it, but maybe not enough to win.
ReplyDeletei have identified an even greater threat than Rd1! up until now i have been sharing what i was analysing during the game but now with new analysis i can see there is no 1 clear winning variation, rather it changes depending on what black does but in this current position there is a threat i did not see during the game but if we got this far on the board im fairly confident i would have, Qf6!! with new threat of bxe6, what can black do for that one? after this interesting dissution i finally decided to try what the computer thinks. i was fowwoling everything you said and at first i thought the computer was lying, it say that white is now 5 pawns up due to some kind of crazy zugzwang, each time black defends one threat he leaves another weakness, im not saying that the game is over but the threats seem to overwork the black peices defensive capabilities.
ReplyDelete