Malitis Memorial Round 5 live

Round 5 of the Malitis Memorial tournament starts soon, with Ari Dale currently in clear first, facing his biggest challenge yet against top seed, Jesse Jager. Meanwhile there are interesting match ups through out the event. I particularly like the battle of the veterans on board 3, where Richard Voon and John Dowling play, though it is tough to beat sibling rivalry, so the match between McCart and McCart will be good.

From an arbiter's point of view, the tournament has become rather frustrating. I walked into the MCC tonight and was immediately hassled about pairings. I made it perfectly clear that this tournament would be run using a pairings program and I would interfere with the pairings absolutely minimally, and probably not at all. Still this doesn't stop some people from moaning, and after a while it can start to grate. It is no wonder that so many volunteers are short lived in their activities, with the amount of hassle they get, and I applaud all who work voluntarily for the good of the game :)

The first round has started, and we have one non-show in Jack Shanks, so it is an easy point for Thai Ly, though no doubt a bit frustrating for him. All the other games are under way and i will update some positions shortly. James Brennan had a bye this round, so there are still 13 games in progress.

1 hour into the games:

Interesting fact for the night....the role of James Bond was turned down, by among others, Prisoner and Danger man star, Patrick MacGoohan. What has this to do with chess? Absolutely nothing, but then again, so does a lot of the conversation that happens at the Melbourne Chess Club. However, there is also some interesting chess discussion as well. Pre tournament announcements included adverts of upcoming events, the Fitzroy Skittles on September 4th and the next Monday night event starting on September 12th, the City of Melbourne Open, a 9-rounder.

I've also had some time to kibitz over a position that occurred in one of MCC committee member's Paul Cavezza's games. But as the friendly chess continues to all comers to the club, the real stuff is happening in the tournament.

The board 1 game is a complex Grunfeld where white has fianchettoed on the king side. Board 2 is intersting with a QGA/Slav structure with a number of weak central and queen side pawns for both sides. Kerry Stead seems to have a winning material advantage against Michael Hain, being a piece up, as is Alex Kaplan against Tristan Rayson Hill. Anthony Hain is developing a nasty looking attack against Jim Papadinis from an Italian type opening. And th girls both have solid but passive positions with even material. Structurally, Charlotte Dilnutt and Sarah Anton are better in their games, while their opponent's Jack Puccini, and ian stone have the greater dynamic chances in the short term. Finally, it looks as if Rad Chmiel has found a nice tactic to break through Ruben Nowak's defences. I'll get some concrete positions now.

 Board 1: is the white pawn strong or weak? The MCC welcomes IM James Morris into the house. Regarding this position Morris said "White is better, the d-pawn is huge" 

 Anthony Hain as white has a massive looking attack against Jim Papadinis.

A mess on board 2 as Michael Addamo and Justin Penrose both have weaknesses.

Rad Chmiel was the first winner of the night. I'll get his break through against Ruben Nowak as it was pretty nice. The battle of the McCart's is heading Roger's way, at least if his extra queen has anything to do with it!

In this position, Rad uncorked 1.Bxe6! and won soon after.

Alex Kaplan hasn't been having a good tournament, and was "thrilled" with his win tonight. Maybe this will kick start his tournament. Roger McCart has won his game, even though Richard did get a pawn back for the queen!

I've just been kibitzing the top board game with James Morris and Paul Cavezza. Ari has an extra piece for 2 pawns, but Jesse has a lot of threats. A tough position for both players.

Kerry Stead has won, after Michael Hain miscalculated some exchange sequences and lost a piece. Justin Penrose seems to have a mass of pawns while Michael Addamo has some knights and his queen near Justin's king. Is it a winning attack or has he sacced too much? Anthony Hain is an exchange up in the endgame but is making slow progress against Jim Papadinis. Peter Fry has dropped a pawn to Robert Frantzeskos, but the position is anything but clear. And Charlotte Dilnutt has 2 pawns advantage against Jack Puccini, but young Jack is trying to create some king side threats.

Frantzeskos-Fry with black to move.

The games are getting to critical point now. Jesse Jager has just walked out after a win against Ari Dale. The final position I saw looked like:

Typically, there have been a number of games where one side has found themselves material down, and tried to create threats against their opponent's king. White was too much ahead here, and the threats were not great enough. Jesse as white won.

Michael Addamo has chosen the same strategy as Ari in his game as white against Justin Penrose. How much white has in this position will be seen over the next few moves.

Another interesting position is on board 6 where Paul Kovacevic has a massive pawn on e7, but it can't quite get any further. It is tying James Martin up at the moment. Who will be able to coordinate their forces over the next few moves?

Jim Papadinis has made a miracle comeback against Anthony Hain and won the endgame an exchange down. Anthony forgot that in the endgame, the king can still be a target. I am sure Anthony missed some knock out blows earlier, but there are many players who will know how hard it can be to put Jim Papadinis away.

10.30pm

Looks like we might get an early night as there are only 2 games left. Philiip Drew won against Gary Bekker. Gary never really got going in a Sicilian where they castled on opposite sides. Paul Kovacevic won his game, and the girls had a good night, with Sarah drawing against Ian Stone, and Charlotte winning against Jack Puccini.

The 2 games left are between Voon and Dowling and Addamo and Penrose. Michael has an exchange for a host of pawns, and both kings look a bit dodgy. Richard is a pawn down against John Dowling, but John is down to just 2 minutes and will be playing on his increment soon. Both of these games could go either way.

It's all over, with John Dowling and Michael Addamo coming out victorious. This leaves Jesse Jager as sole leader half a point clear of Ari Dale and Michael Addamo.

Thanks for following this blog, I'll be putting some games up in the next couple of days.