Newcomer Tom had his first night at the club tonight, and played many games with Peter Hiller with the results shared. Peter has been away due to work commitments, but is still able to come occasionally.
Flood Cup
Round 4 results:
Phillip Kirkman 0 Tony Howes 1
Brian Thomas 1 Ray Adams 0
Kieran Lyons ½ Marty Chadwick ½
Cameron De Vere 1 Garvin Gray 0
Andrew Robinson 1 Stuart Wilson 0
Russell Lyons ½ Debbie Jenkins ½
Mark Taylor 0 Mick Waters 1
Ellis Markson 0 Shane Martin 1
Tim Johnson 0 John Curran 1
Tonight witnessed several unusual happenings. Four knight sacs occurred on the knight, with the executors being Ray, Garvin, Mark and Stuart, none of whom ended up on the winning side of the ledger. Stuart’s was the only knight sac that was unintended and ruined a game that he was doing well in. The other big story was of Phil’s first loss with white since the 1993 Flood Cup. Several players seemed to be below par tonight, but this just makes for a more interesting tournament, with good games being a feature of the lower as well as the upper boards.
On Board One, Tony with black dominated the position early on to force Phil's pieces into a cramped kingside corner. Tony strengthened his grip my controlling the diagonals and was able to force Phil to concede a rook for a knight. Prior to losing the exchange Phil had a bishop pair against a knight pair, but despite this he could not counter effectively and was eventually checkmated at 12:20am in the last game to finish. Maybe this will be Tony’s year at last?
Tony’s main contender now will be Brian Thomas and he was in action against Ray on Board One. Ray's effort against Brian ended a little sooner than expected and was the first of the night to finish. Sacking his knight to win a pawn and rook appeared to be a tactical win initially, but when Ray overlooked the only move that would trap his queen in the corner, the sting went out of his game and he resigned soon after.
The Olympic Champion Kieran Lyons got the better of the opening exchanges with Marty and managed to attack early with Marty struggling a tempo behind. However, her attack hit a brick wall due to a simple counter-attack by Marty and for the next ten moves the game was played on his terms. From that point Marty could have (and should have) won, but a clumsy move near the end ensured that a draw was a fair result for two players who were clearly playing below their best.
Debbie seemed to be playing under the pall of a bad hangover wrought by her previous two games. Early into this game she made an uncharacteristic tactical blunder that left her down a piece. Despite this, she battled on in the hope of securing a sneaky draw and deep into the endgame, she was still a piece and a pawn down. Russell had a clearly winning endgame but allowed Debbie’s knight to harass him until he conceded his bishop and was forced to share the points.
On Board Four Garvin looked to be well compensated for his knight sacrifice by quickly going four pawns up. However, Cameron donated the piece back in favour of some effective counter play. This enabled his rook to cause havoc in Garvin's rearguard. The victory was hastened when Garvin erred to go the exchange down with his king trapped.
Andrew was a long way in front of Stuart positionally throughout the opening but couldn’t break down the defences. It seemed that Stuart would launch a kingside counter-attack led by his pawns when he disaster struck at move 21.
Mark did perhaps the most effective knight sac tonight to open up Mick's kingside defences. Shortly after there appeared to be the opportunity to win the knight back on f6 but Mark chose to retreat and the opportunity was lost. From that point Mick launched an extremely potent attack down that kingside flank to force checkmate in the corner.
Ellis and Shane played the second longest game of the night with Shane pushing through for victory in the end.
Tim had a queen and a rook against John’s R+R+B+N, but John’s forces were well co-ordinated and when Tim made a blunder it only hastened the inevitable.
Flood Cup: Current standings
All players to play 7 games
|
No. |
NAME |
POINTS |
PLAYED |
|
1 |
Tony Howes |
4 |
4 |
|
2 |
Brian Thomas |
3.5 |
4 |
|
3 |
Phillip Kirkman |
3 |
4 |
|
4 |
Cameron De Vere |
3 |
4 |
|
5 |
Andrew Robinson |
2.5 |
4 |
|
6 |
Kieran Lyons |
2.5 |
4 |
|
7 |
Marty Chadwick |
2.5 |
4 |
|
8 |
Ray Adams |
2 |
4 |
|
9 |
Mick Waters |
2 |
4 |
|
10 |
Garvin Gray |
2 |
4 |
|
11 |
Shane Martin |
2 |
4 |
|
12 |
Stuart Wilson |
2 |
4 |
|
13 |
Debbie Jenkins |
1.5 |
4 |
|
14 |
Russell Lyons |
1.5 |
4 |
|
15 |
John Curran |
1 |
4 |
|
16 |
Ellis Markson |
1 |
4 |
|
17 |
Mark Taylor |
1 |
4 |
|
18 |
Tim Johnson |
0 |
4 |
|
19 |
James Hiller |
0 |
3 |
Flood Cup 2006 results in detail
Standings after Round 4 (from Swissperfect)
No Name Feder Loc Id Rtg Total 1 2 3 4 1 Howes, Tony QLD 4134680 4 12:W 6:W 5:W 3:W2 Thomas, Brian QLD 4160124 3.5 16:W 0:D 13:W 8:W3 Kirkman, Phillip QLD 4147416 3 4:W 9:W 8:W 1:L4 De Vere, Cameron QLD 4539936 3 3:L 19:+ 9:W 10:W5 Chadwick, Marty QLD 4206545 2.5 7:W 13:W 1:L 6:D6 Lyons, Kieran C QLD 4163613 2.5 18:W 1:L 14:W 5:D7 Robinson, Andrew J QLD 4156911 2.5 5:L 15:D 16:W 11:W8 Adams, Ray QLD 4130045 2 11:W 10:W 3:L 2:L9 Waters, Mick QLD 4194343 2 19:W 3:L 4:L 17:W10 Gray, Garvin QLD 4167113 2 14:W 8:L 17:W 4:L11 Wilson, Stuart QLD 4140685 2 8:L 16:W 15:W 7:L12 Martin, Shane QLD 4537254 2 1:L 14:L 18:W 15:W13 Jenkins, Deborah QLD 4206405 1.5 17:W 5:L 2:L 14:D14 Lyons, Russell QLD 4166321 1.5 10:L 12:W 6:L 13:D15 Markson, Ellis NSW 2407296 1 0:D 7:D 11:L 12:L16 Curran, John QLD 4198322 1 2:L 11:L 7:L 18:W17 Taylor, Mark QLD 4537184 1 13:L 18:W 10:L 9:L18 Johnson, Tim QLD 0 6:L 17:L 12:L 16:L19 Hiller, James QLD 4184255 0 9:L 4:- 0:L 0:
Quote of the night
“James spends his Fridays having ‘social drinks’ ” – Peter on his errant brother
“What else is there to do?” – Tim’s reply to the question: “would you be coming to chess next Friday if it was on?”