Melbourne Clubs Round Up

As this blog is essentially a personal thing, I tend to focus mainly on local chess which I am familiar with and which means much to me. So here's a brief round up of what's happening around Melbourne at the moment.

Frankston Allegro on July 20th

Sorry to plug my own club first, but hey that's life! Melbourne's newest chess club, Glen Eira Chess Club has been closed for a couple of weeks but will reopen on this Friday, 19th July with a social night and some blitz. Soon after that we want to start with some long play round robin events and our aim is to build our membership. To help with this we have a brand new venue, the excellent Carnegie Library. Like before, we will run a junior club from 6 pm - 7 pm and then an adult club after that. We welcome all comers to our friendly little club! (Coffee rating of the neighbourhood is 4/5 with some really good cafes in Koornang Road)

The club that has been my home for the past 5 or so years, the Melbourne Chess Club, has started a new Monday night FIDE rated tournament, the 7-round Malitis Memorial. Congratulations go out to IM Mirko Rujevic for dominating the last event, the City of Melbourne Open, and he is playing in this event as well. The MCC is the only club open 7 days a week in Melbourne, so there is plenty for everyone whether you are a Grand Master or a beginner. The allegro tournaments on Saturday afternoons maintain their popularity. Going back to the Malitis Memorial, the first round happened last night and the top 2 seeds, Rujevic, and Malcolm Pyke overcame tricky juniors (Finley Dale and Jason Chew) to start their tournaments off with wins. However, there were plenty of upsets on the night, though as players improve rapidly it is almost harsh to call their victories upsets when their rating may be well below their actual playing strength. I don't really want to get too much into the first round, but I would like to wish Tom Kalisch a good tournament return to the MCC :) (Coffee rating of the neighbourhood 5/5 with some of the best cafes around Melbourne)

Downies Auctions recently sold these for $75. Was it an MCC member who bought them?

Box Hill Chess Club have their Tuesday night tournament starting tonight. In fact it should be underway as I write this. The Winter Cup is a 7-round swiss and is supposed to be run at the same time as the Box Hill Masters which is a usually a 10 player round robin event. However, I haven't seem anything about this which is a shame as I have fond memories playing in it, and I truly believe that there aren't enough round robin events at the moment. Box hill Chess Club do have 'Grades' tournaments starting this Friday, and possibly this is taking over from their Masters event, though I don't know. (Coffee rating of 4.5/5 though Maling Road's Post Office Cafe is a 10/10 by itself)

Noble Park Chess Club is gradually taking centre stage in Victorian Chess as their tournaments keep attracting large and strong fields. Noble Park are currently running their Masters event which is a 10 player round robin which is pretty strong. Top seeds are FM Chris Wallis and FM Dusan Stojic but these guys will have their work cut out to win this very tough event. Alongside this a challengers event is being run, with the winner guaranteed a spot in the following year's Masters. This promotion based system is really good for chess development, and Noble Park should be applauded for using it. (Coffee rating hmmm...no comment :D)

Further from the centre of Melbourne, this Saturday sees an impressive looking allegro being held at Frankston Chess Club. Like other suburban clubs such as Croydon and Hobson's Bay, Frankston is quietly doing the right things by their members, which is basically listening to what the people want and growing in stature because of it. All these clubs have a friendly atmosphere, and while all the players are fiercely competitive during the games, the clubs definitely cater more for people who prefer a social atmosphere. Although I won't be able to go to the allegro this Saturday, it already looks to be shaping up to be an excellent event. Meanwhile Croydon Chess Club have just run their annual weekender and what an amazing success it was! Croydon Chess Club have decided to run 1 weekender a year and run it well. The tournament had a capacity of about 50 players and the number was reached with an IM and 4 FMs in the field. In the end, John Nemeth and FM Dusan Stojic, both of Noble Park CC, shared first placed on 4.5/5. On the other side of town, Hobson's Bay Chess Club have now announced their annual weekender, the Best in the West tournament. This has always been a popular event, and it is good to see it happening again this year. Hobson's Bay CC have had to deal with the recent death of their influential member and organiser, Peter Caissa who will be sadly missed by the whole Victorian chess community. I'm sure that this year's Best in the West will be a fitting tribute to Peter.
(Coffee ratings: Frankston/Croydon no data available; Hobson's Bay 3/5 Altona has some ok coffee, though when the tournament was in Yarraville I'd have pushed things up to 4/5)