ACF NEWS: AUSTRALIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS 2007-2008

Three bids for the Championships were received, one from Chess victoria, one from Parramatta Chess Club and one from Peter Parr. At its meeting on Monday 23 July, the ACF Council considered the bids and made a decision that was dependent on certain contingencies. Subsequently, Peter Parr withdrew his bid as the proposed venue, the NSW Bridge Centre, is not available. A formal announcement will be made as soon as remaining relevant matters have been resolved.

ACF EVENTS 2008-2009
The ACF is also inviting expressions of interest from State Associations and others wishing to conduct one or more of the following events on behalf of the ACF:
2008/9 Australian Open Championship - normally late December/early January;
2009 Australian Junior Championship - normally in January.
Note: the Australian Schools Teams Championships will be held in South Australia as agreed in Canberra last December.

Expressions of interest should be submitted as soon as possible to the ACF Secretary Jey Hoole at Jey.Hoole@affa.gov.au with a copy to ACF President Gary Wastell at gwastell@netspace.net.au .
A full formal bid is not necessary at this stage but will need to be provided in due course. There is already one expression of interest for the Open Championships and a possibility for the Juniors so things are looking up.

ACF OFFICE BEARERS
The ACF Council re-appointed all Office Bearers except for the following:

• Publicity Director
• Editor Email Newsletter (content)
• Olympiad Appeal Coordinator
• Ergas Training Squad Coordinator
• Selections Coordinator (Juniors)

The ACF is seeking expressions of interest from anyone wishing to fill any of those positions. Please contact ACF Secretary, Jey Hoole jeydh4@hotmail.com or Jey.Hoole@affa.gov.au or ACF president, Gary Wastell gwastell@netspace.net.au as soon as possible if you are interested.
I am continuing to act as Newsletter Editor but only for a limited time, say the next couple of issues, so a new Editor is urgently needed. The need for persons to occupy the other positions is self-evident. A proposal for an arrangement to deal with publicity is being considered. Volunteers for the other three positions are needed.

WORLD YOUTH AND ASIAN JUNIOR TEAMS
n our previous issue I asked for expressions of interest in the organisation of the teams going to the World Youth Chapionships and Asian Junior Chapionships respectively. Ideally, there would be a management team but at least a Team Manager is needed. There have not been any responses. I'd be grateful if anyone interested, presumably parents of the contestants, would let me know urgently if they are interested. My e-mail address is denis.jessop@netspeed.com.au . 

WORLD YOUTH AND ASIAN JUNIOR TEAMS

MYER TAN AUSTRALIAN CHESS GRAND PRIX

Coming Events

BEST IN THE WEST 2007
{Class 1 Australian Chess Grand Prix Tournament}

HOBSON BAY /YARRAVILLE CHESS CLUB

DATE: Saturday August 4th and Sunday August 5th

VENUE: The Church, Hyde Street, Footscray, corner Lawson Place near Napier
Street. Melways ref 42D6

PRIZES: 1st prize $450
2nd prize $150
Rating prizes-$100 {dependent on entries }
Rating categories- U1900,U1700,U1500

TIME CONTROL: 60 minutes plus 30 sec per move.

SCHEDULE: payment unpaid players 10.00-10.20am Saturday
Rd 1: 10.30am Sat
Rd 2: 2.00pm Sat approx
Rd 3: 5.30pm Sat approx
Rd 4: 10.30am Sun
Rd 5: 2.00pm Sun approx

ENTRY FEES: $60 seniors, early $50
$50 concession {pensioners/full time students}, early$40
$40 juniors {u18 as of 1/1/2007}, early $30
GM,IM,FIDE master - no entry fee if early notice

ENTRY DATES: Entries received before Wednesday 1st August receive the early entry discount. Entry after this date is full fee. Entries may be accepted at the venue but players so entering may be paired with other such entries for round 1.

CONTACT: Jake Kostrzewa mob 0409722332
Mark Salanowski
{03} 9379 7586 after hours
17 Richardson Street ,Essendon, Vic, 3040
Email : msalanow@bigpond.net.au

Completed Grand prix events

Lidums Checkmate Weekender

Last issue we published the full results.Here now is a report from the Arbiter IA Charles Zworestine.

2007 Lidums Checkmate Open Report by DOP Charles Zworestine

Inspired by a nice sponsorship kick from Justin Freytag, this year's Lidums Checkmate Open reclaimed its place as one of Australia's top two-day weekenders. The 100 players it attracted comprised 51 in the Open event, and 49 in the Under 1600 event. Both events were played at the standard weekender time controls of one hour plus 10 seconds per move from the start (Fischer). The Open event was very strong, with 9 titled players – in order, GM Ian Rogers, GM Dejan Antic, GM Darryl Johansen, IM Mark Chapman, IM Andras Toth, IM Guy West, IM Leonid Sandler, WIM Anastasia Sorokina and WIM Narelle Szuveges – together with Trevor Tao, Sam Chow, Dusan Stojic and James Obst. All bound to lead to an exciting event – and it did!

Open Event

The top board game in Round 1 was already very exciting, with James Morris giving Ian Rogers all he could handle – he failed to get Ian’s king in a mating net but should still have drawn their rook and opposite coloured bishop endgame, but sadly for James he lost his bishop for a passed b-pawn and ended up losing the endgame. Other first round upsets were Sykes drawing with Chapman, Zulfic with Zaric and Edgar Mdinaradze defeating Anastasia Sorokina. Ian was much more convincing in Round 2 against Neil Wright, while Dejan Antic beat Ilia Zvedeniouk; but Darryl Johansen only drew in a rook ending with Zhigen Lin. Then in Round 3 Ian won a pawn to a knight fork to beat Sam Chow, Antic beat Sandler, Toth defeated Dusan and Trevor Tao beat James Obst, leaving these four as joint leaders on 3/3. More upset draws were scored by Zaric with West, and Ronald Scott in a long fighting game with Mark Chapman. Then Trevor kept rock solid to draw with Ian in Round 4, leaving Antic as outright leader on 4/4 going into Sunday after his advanced passed e-pawn won him his game against Toth. Darryl drew a topsy-turvy game against Ronald Scott where random tactics floating round meant Darryl could not cash in on an extra piece; time pressure meant they ended up in a drawn queen and pawn ending…

Our top two seeds played on Sunday morning, with Ian Rogers getting White for the first time ever against Dejan Antic – and making the most of it! He won a long game where a positional advantage led to Dejan sacrificing the exchange for a pawn, with Ian eventually winning Dejan’s passed d-pawn and the game in a time scramble. A knight fork winning a rook in time pressure saw Trevor Tao beat Darryl Johansen to share the lead with Ian on 4.5/5, while James Morris upset Leonid Sandler and Dusan Stojic did likewise to Mark Chapman. Round 6 then set up an exciting finish, as Ian Rogers’ draw with a solid Guy West enabled Antic to catch him again by winning two pieces for a rook to beat Trevor Tao. The two leading GMs were joined in the joint lead on 5/6 going into the last round by Sam Chow (beat Dusan) and Andras Toth (lucky to win a game that should have been drawn against James Morris); while Leonid Sandler suffered another upset loss, this time in a queen ending two pawns down against Giang Nguyen… Sam Chow and Andras Toth then both did the right thing by the retiring Ian Rogers in the last round: Sam drew a balanced game with Antic, while Toth missed a draw and lost tactically to Ian! West beat Obst to share second with Sam and Dejan, while Dusan beat James Morris and Ron Scott upset Trevor Tao to share fifth with Andras. More upsets in the last round, as Darryl (drew with Giang) and Mark Chapman (drew with Neil Wright) were both kept out of the prizes.

Checkmate Under 1600 Event

This 49 player event was a truly national one, with 6 interstate visitors – 4 from Victoria, 2 from Queensland. Top seeded Victorian Elliott Renzies lost already in the first round, victim of a mating attack by local Anthony Miller. Round 2 then saw another upset, as fourth seeded CAQ President Howard Duggan walked into a Bxf7+ tactic to lose to local junior Matthew Borg. (Beware those juniors, especially tactically!). As we shall see, it did not seem to bother him…

By the end of Round 3, we had only four joint leaders on 3/3: Fabian Ivancic (upset second seed Pavel Turcaj), Tom Milton (did likewise via tactics in time pressure to third seed Gavin Haydn), Sophie Eustace and Matthew Borg. Fabian and Tom then drew in Round 4 to leave Matthew outright leader after he won an exciting game against Sophie; their bishop vs knight ending had passed pawns all over the place! A new day on Sunday then saw Fabian overtake Matthew for the outright lead on 4.5/5 by winning an aggressive game against him; Tom could not join him, as his draw with Renzies left him in a group of 6 players on 4/5. Three of these six then became joint leaders on 5/6 going in to the last round: Howard Duggan (beat Fabian in an ending), Gavin Haydn (checkmated Andrew Sag) and Tom Milton (beat Matthew Borg). And of these, it was Howard who completed a great fightback from his second round loss to win the event outright on 6/7, attacking and tactically beating Gavin; sadly for Tom he lost in the last round to Queensland junior Lachlan Pedersen-Lee, who thus shared second on 5.5/6 with unrated local Rapula Regoeng (who beat Fabian in the last round).

Let me close by saying thanks to the organisers for a fantastic tournament, not just from a chess point of view but socially as well! This is a very friendly event, helped along by a very nice dinner which was organised again for the Saturday night. It is good to catch up with people we do not see at chess events very often, such as Evelyn Koshnitsky and Daniela Nutu-Gajic (both of whom turned up as spectators). Sponsorship will be provided again next year, so the event should go ahead in the same format. So I can only say, come to Adelaide: you won’t regret it!

Geelong Open

Final standings of top 5 players were:

4.5 - IM G.West, FM D.Hamilton
4- IM L.Sandler, D.Hacche, M. Pecak

NSW July Weekender

OTHER COMPLETED EVENTS

Australian Young masters and Associated Events

Full results table »

OTHER NEWS

ASTC Web site

The web site for the Australian Schools Teams Championships is now functional, albeit still under further construction - see www.caq.org.au/astc/index.htm .- the site can also be accessed via the link on the CAQ home page at www.caq.org.au .

Chess Association of Queensland Inc

Queensland Interschool Chess Championships

Call for tenders

CAQ invites interested parties to tender for a licence to organise and conduct interschool team tournaments for secondary and primary students in regional centres throughout Queensland, and annual state finals for qualifying teams from the regional tournaments, commencing 1 January 2008.

The licence is issued for a three-year period and is subject to the following conditions:-

1. Payment of an annual licence fee (currently $1000 per year)
2. Qualifying tournaments shall be open to as many schools as possible
3. There is no limit on the number of teams schools may enter
4. The licensee must demonstrate suitable expertise and infrastructure to perform the task
5. The licensee is permitted to seek corporate sponsorship, on condition that, if sponsorship of more than $5000 is obtained, 20% of the total amount shall be paid to CAQ
6. The licensee is expressly forbidden from seeking government grants
7. Performance reports shall be submitted to CAQ at specified intervals
8. If performance is considered by CAQ at any time to be unsatisfactory, the licence may be cancelled and issued to another party

The highest or any tender will not necessarily be accepted

Tenders should be emailed to the CAQ Secretary at secretary@caq.org.au to reach him not later than the closing date of 31 August 2007.

UNTIL NEXT TIME...

Denis Jessop
Editor
33 Cargelligo Street, Duffy, ACT 2611
Phone: 02 6288 1935
Mob. 0418 278 324