The 2003 Pre

In preparation for the annual Ballarat Begonia tournament, the newly baptized Spielvogel tournament made a good start on the first formal clubnight of the year. A turnout of eighteen refreshed and pretty keen competitors turned up for the first round.

Incidentally, Nathan Spielvogel, used to be a very active and strong Ballarat player and prolific administrator over many years from the 1890’s until the 1940’s when he was the president of the club. Spielvogel was even an ‘inter-colonial’ player in his heydays when he represented Australia in matches (by telegraph!) against England.

The last round (6) perhaps was a bit of an anticlimax. On the top board Peter Lumsdon was very quickly on the back foot against Simon Rutherford, and the game was over very quickly in Simon's favor, making him the winner of the tournament. At the second board, also Jing made short work of John Lavery when the latter gobbled up a poisoned pawn in the opening with disastrous consequences. Jing became outright second, confirming his position of 'danger-mouse' of the club. The van Riel-Andrews game was a comedy of errors: after van Riel blundered a full piece, Charlie Andrews returned the favor immediately by giving away a wholesome queen. All this happened soon after the game had started...! The only battle of substance and duration was between Kevin Perrin and Geoff Davis in which Geoff missed a win at the end and had to agree to a move repetition. The other games more or less followed their natural courses except for the win of James Eldridge against Rob Bailey demonstrating that the former has much improved, lately.

S Rutherford (4.5) v P Lumsdon (4) 1-0
J Jia (3.5) v J Lavery (3.5) 1-0
G Davis (3.5) v K Perrin (3.5) ½-½
B van Riel (3) v C Andrews (3) 1-0
J Madden(3) v S Stewart (3) 0-1
Stewart, C (2) v Cook, P (2.5) 0-1
Bailey, R (2.5) v Eldridge, J (2) 0-1
Young, D (2) v Abson, J (2) 0-1
Menzal, A (0) v Lenne, P (2) 0-1
Sargisson, O (1.5) v Bailey, M (1) 1-0
Frangakis, J| 0:0 |BYE
Schreenan, M | 0:0 |BYE

11|Shreenan, M (17) 1:0 BYE
12|Frangakis, J (13) 0:0 BYE

Detailed results from Round 4 were:

1-3. S.Rutherford, J Jia, G Davis 3½pnts; 4-5. J.Lavery, P.Lumsdon 3pnts; 6-7.B van Riel, K Perrin, R.Bailey 2½ pnts etc

The two top boards both drew after some long fights in which positions changed slightly only so that the results were fair. These players remained at the top with a group of five players at half a point behind. Simon Rutherford showed the difference in rating by gradually overrunning Patrick Cook in a winning attack.

All the other games at the end went more or less as expected and according to seeding, but not without a Houdini escape by Clint Stewart when Judd Madden overlooked a mate in tow in a winning position. And not without stiff resistance by James Eldridge, John Abson, Rob Bailey and Owen Sargisson against their respective opponents.

Patrick Cook - Simon Rutherford
Pre-Begonia rnd 3, 13.02.2003

1.b3 Nf6 2.Bb2 d5 3.e3 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 c6 6.0-0 Nbd7 7.d4 Be7 8.c4 0-0 9.Nbd2 Ne4 10.Nxe4 Bxe4 11.Bd3 f5 12.Be2 Bd6 13.g3 Qf6 14.Nd2 Qh6 15.Bf3 Rf6 16.Bg2 Raf8 17.Qe2 Bxg2 18.Kxg2 g5 19.f4 Rg6 20.Qf3 Nf6 21.fxg5 Rxg5 22.Rh1 Ne4 23.Rad1 f4 24.Nxe4 dxe4 25.Qxe4 fxg3 26.h4 Rf2+ 27.Kg1 Rgf5 28.Bc3 g2 0-1

Detailed results from Round 3 were:

Perrin, K (9) -van Riel, B (2) ½-½
Jia, J (8) -Davis, G (10) ½-½
Cook, P (3)-Rutherford, S (1) 0-1
Lavery, J (5)-Bailey, R (12) 1-0
Sargisson, O (14)-Andrews, C (4) 0-1
Abson, J (18) -Lumsdon, P (6) 0-1
Stewart, S (7) -Eldridge, J (19) 1-0
Lenne, P (20) -Stewart, C (15) 0-1
Young, D (16) -Madden, J (11) 0-1
Frangakis, J (13)-Shreenan, M (17) 1-0
Bailey, M (21) -Menzal, A (22) postponed

Round 2

Before the start of the second round another four late entrants turned up, one of them the highly regarded (=highly rated) Simon Rutherford. The current competition beats all the records of the club both in numbers and quality. In addition some new members showed up following the newspaper article of Jing Jia in the Ballarat Courier.

Jing won very nicely from Charlie Andrews, first demolishing Charlies pawn structure in the opening and after capitalising on the many weaknesses in the ensuing position. Just after white opened with 1.e4, Jing discovered that one of his knights was damaged and picked it up to replace it. When Charlie, jokingly, insisted: 'touch move', Jing was initially taken aback and confused not sure how serious Charlie was. However his face cleared to a grin when he realised that the touched knight was the one to start the Aljechin opening, lately one of his favourites. With fatal consequences for Charlie...

Peter Lumsdon, in a beautiful, attacking position blundered a piece against Kevin Perrin and lost. Judd Madden, who had 'luck' to draw the number 2 and 3 seeds in his first two rounds, again played very strongly (against Patrick Cook), to lose his way only in the endgame.

The van Riel-Stewart game was a very tense and balanced game until the very end, when Scott made a serious mistake. Because yours truly didn't have enough time to make notes on other interesting games, we have to do with snippets of the game of the same yours truly....

Proceedings in the first round did not go smoothly for some of the fancier players. A sign that the gap between the ‘established’ favourites and the others are gradually narrowing. This newly developing trend will undoubtedly add to a healthy competitive atmosphere in the club.

The first victim of this ‘knocking-on-the-door’ brigade was second seed Patrick Cook who escaped an unavoidable loss by offering a draw to Rob Bailey, who up till then had played a very strong game. Rob’s only mistake was accepting the draw..Also the club’s ‘escape artist’, 3^rd seed Charlie Andrews, escaped a certain defeat (against John Frangakis) in a position where he was a rook up against two advanced passed pawns (see diagram). Having played admirably so far, John overlooked the required tactics in time trouble, and lost. Other rapidly improving players Judd Madden (against Bas van Riel) and Clint Stewart generated many complications and strong resistance before finally loosing their respective games.

In diagram 1, black had just played Bc5? Under time pressure white missed the unexpected win and played 1. Nc6? instead of 1.Rc6! Black now has to cope with too many threats in addition to the promoting pawns: eg. Nxc2, Rxc5 and Rc8.

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 c5 3.e3 cxd4 4.exd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Bd3 0-0 7.Be3 d5 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.h3 Bd7 10.a3 Rc8 11.g4 Qa5 12.0-0 Ne4 13.Bxe4 dxe4 14.Nxe4 f5 15.Qxa5 Nxa5 16.Nc5 fxg4 17.Ng5 Bb5 18.Rfe1 Nc4 19.Nce6 Nxe3 20.Rxe3 Rxc2 21.Rc3 (see diagram 2) Rcxf2 ? Rfxf2 would have given black a virtual winning position. He is still OK though after the text move.22.Nxg7 (Better would have been Nxf8) Bc6? But now black is lost. After 22…Rf1;23.Rxf1,Rxf1;24.Kg2, Kxg7; 25.a4, Rf5! and black would still have advantage) 23.Rxc6 bxc6 24.N7e6 R8f5 25.hxg4 1-0

Pre-Begonia Swiss 2003
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	Total	Standing
1.Rutherford,Simon2270	½		1			1		1	1												1		5½	1
2.vanRiel, Bas 1810				1	½		1	0	½		1												4	3-7
3.Cook, Patrick 1738	0					0					1	½		1	1								3½	8-9
4.Andrews,Charlie 1719		0			0			0					1	1				1					3	10-13
5.Lavery, John 1684		½		1				0		0		1			1								3½	8-9
6.Lumsdon, Peter 1675	0		1						0	1						1		1					4	3-7
7.Stewart, Scott 1669		0								0	1				1		1		1				4	3-7
8.Jia, Jing 1600		1		1	1					½								1					4½	2
9.Perrin, Kevin 1556	0	½				1				½		1							1				4	3-7
10.Davis, Geoff 1550					1	0	1	½	½											1			4	3-7
11.Madden, Judd 1377		0	0				0									1			1	1			3	10-13
12.Bailey, Rob 1335			½		0				0				1	1					0				2½	14-15
13.Frangakis, John1307				0								0	0F				1			0F			1	19-21
14.Sargisson,Owen1224			0	0								0		½							1	1	2½	14-15
15.Stewart, Clint 1184			0		0		0											0		1	1		2	16-18
16.Young, Darren 936						0					0							0	0		1	1	2	16-18
17Shreenan,Michael934							0						0				1	0		0			1	19-21
18.Abson, John 908				0		0		0							1	1	1						3	10-13
19.Eldridge, James 894							0		0		0	1				1						1	3	10-13
20.Lenne,Patrick										0	0		1F		0		1					1	2	16-18
21 Bailey, Mitch	0													0	0	0					0	1	1	19-21
22 Menzel, Adrian														0		0			0	0	0	000	0	22