Malitis Memorial Round 2

The day before the second round of the Malitis Memorial Tournament I received a message to say that David Lacey had to withdraw from the event. It is regrettable that anyone has to withdraw and I hope that David is ok. But in one respect it made the tournament easier as we now had an even number of players, meaning that I could carry on my role as arbiter. However, on the day of the second round, Tristan Rayson-Hill joined the tournament and I was back in the field playing as a reserve if someone doesn't want a bye. This will be my role in this tournament from now on, fulfilling the role of stand by if the numbers become uneven. So hopefully next week, I'll be back to doing a live blog from the MCC.

As I was playing, I didn't get to see as much action as I would normally have seen. I did hear a draw offer on about move 7 in the game between Thai Ly and Anthony Hain. It was a Najdorf with 6.Be3 Ng4. Thai retreated his bishop to c1 and Anthony took his knight back to f6 and they repeated moves, though I don't think the same position was reached 3 times. There was a rearranged game in the draw. With David Lacey's withdrawal, and with Michael Addamo out of the country, Paul Kovacevic and Jim Papadinis agreed to play each other so they both got a game. The result was the second longest game of the night and a hard fought draw. The longest game of the night was once again played by Jack Puccini, who has no sympathy for his mum who comes to pick him up, and invariably ends up waiting for young Jack for hours. The one time she decides to risk turning up later, at say 10.30pm, he will no doubt finish by 8pm!

The top games had carbon copies, and I did my best to decipher the moves. I found it impossible in the game between Robert Franczeskos and Ari Dale which is a shame, as this looked the most interesting the back room. The full scores can be found on the MCC website.