The 3rd Kingston Invitational got underway on a baking hot day at Tiffin Boys' School this afternoon. As well as the extreme heat, those travelling to the venue for the 3.30pm start had to cope with a gridlocked town centre which added an hour or even more to some journeys of those arriving by road, and it seems the rail services weren't great either. (I'm assuming no one arrived by river though that is a feasible option in this suburb of south west London through which the River Thames flows.) It's fair to say that organiser Stephen Moss feared the worst as the clock ticked round to the half hour. But his worries proved unfounded. His opening address, followed by chief arbiter Lance Leslie-Smith's technical briefing, meant that clocks were started only a little later than scheduled at 3.40pm and within another five minutes all 21 boards featured two players. An added bonus was air-conditioning in the playing room, which is not something to be taken for granted in the UK.
The Barden Cup will be presented to the under-16 player with the best score.
Named after (who else?) Guardian chess columnist Leonard Barden, with his permission.
Incidentally, if you're wondering why this daily report is appearing on my personal chess blog and not on Kingston Chess Club's excellent website, it's a purely technical thing. The organiser's computer malfunctioned a few days before the tournament and he hasn't had a chance to remedy it. Rest assured, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
This year's Kingston Invitational is being run for the first time as a Swiss, which meant the usual first round pairing of top vs bottom. If you wander over to the chess-results.com page expecting to see a monotonous series of 0-1, 1-0, 0-1, 1-0, 0-1 digits in the results (or vice versa), you're in for a surprise as there were quite a number of giant-killing performances this afternoon, as those sporting 2200+ ratings struggled to beat their supposed inferiors weighing in around Elo 2000.
Top board saw Conor Murphy overcome Alistair Hill
That said, the 2023 Kingston Invitational winner, IM Conor Murphy, was not one of them. His opponent, Battersea Chess Club's Alistair Hill, soon found himself in trouble when his knight was trapped behind enemy lines and unable to help defend against the Irish IM's kingside attack which soon crashed through. View the game on LiChess.
Board four was the scene of a surprise as Oxford University player Jem Gurner defeated IM Graeme Buckley. The titled player is known as a risk-taker but he pushed his luck a bit too far when he surrendered a piece for a kingside attack which had insufficient venom. But the game featured one inexplicable moment: when White played 33 Bxc5, why didn't Black reply 33...Bxc5 34 Qxc5 Qg3+ and Black must win. A scoring error somewhere?
14-year-old Elis Denele Dicen defeated FM Roland Bezuidenhout on board 5
The next board saw an extraordinary number of swings of fortune as the sole female competitor, WCM Elis Denele Dicen won against FM Roland Bezuidenhout. The South African player went in for a very timid Réti set-up with White and it took him until beyond move 40 to emerge from a grovelly position against his tenacious 14-year-old opponent. Eventually a chance came to attack for White to attack on the kingside but White hesitated and Black found a powerful move threatening the exposed white king. I've no doubt the brisk time limit now played a significant part as fleeting chances came and went for both sides. Two or three times White missed chances to play a g4-g5 pawn push to attack the black king but, irony of ironies, when he finally played it, it turned out to be a blunder losing material. A tremendous performance from the 14-year-old player of the black pieces whose fighting spirit and determination finally paid off.
"Sorry I'm a bit late!" Zain Patel seems to be saying to Daniel Gallagher.
Zain Patel was the last competitor to arrive, having spent more than an hour stuck in the Kingston traffic with his mother, but he looked none the worse for the ordeal as he shook hands with his opponent and got the game underway. On move 12 Black snaffled his opponent's a-pawn with a knight - "pawn snatching at the expense of development," the old-time chess primers would have called it, but it seemed to work out rather well, though it was touch and go in the opening. Let's look at the game, which was very entertaining.
Tom Villiers seemed doomed to be the victim of yet another giant-killing when he lost the exchange in the middlegame against Balahari Bharat Kumar leaving him with a hopeless position. But a misstep by the 15-year-old allowed Villiers to give up his queen for rook and knight simply to stay in the game. Villiers also had two extra pawns which made a draw the likeliest result. On move 56 Black's last pawn was exchanged off leaving Black's lone queen to defend against rook, knight and three pawns (though two were doubled). In theory the draw was still attainable - it remained the analysis engine verdict for some time after - but in practice the defence of such positions where the opposing king can be shielded from a long series of checks is next to impossible. White could now continue playing with no fear of defeat and Black eventually cracked. At 82 moves this was the longest game of the round.
George Zhao, British Under-12 Champion, scored an excellent victory over Peter Lalic.
Another big surprise unfolded on board 12 where CM Peter Lalic succumbed to the newly-crowned British Under-12 Champion, George Zhao. Lalic met the 11-year-old's Queen's Gambit with 2...e5 and the game followed theory until move 11 where Zhao opted to capture a stray a-pawn, much as we saw Patel do above, though, with the queens already off, the pawn was less 'hot'. Initially Black had sufficient compensation for the pawn but a careless 14...Be7 allowed a neat combination which turned the extra pawn into a solid plus for White. Not long after, White netted a second pawn and set up an unstoppable phalanx of three connected pawns on the queenside. Thereafter Black's attempts at counterplay were easily quelled. This is the first time I've seen a game of George Zhao's and I am mightily impressed by what I've seen. Here is a link to the game: look out for a very classy series of moves by his light-squared bishop, particularly the precise 18 Bf5! in a position where I'd bet most 11-year-olds, indeed all ages up to and including 71-year-olds like yours truly, would simply snap off the c7-pawn.
Robin Haldane (White) defeated Clive Frostick. Beyond Haldane is Stanley Badacsonyi, who beat Billy Fellowes, and beyond Badacsonyi you can just make out George Zhao who beat Peter Lalic.
Two players of pensionable age met on board 14 where the more senior but lower rated Robin Haldane defeated Clive Frostick. I wouldn't classify this as a surprise, however, since Haldane seems to have been underrated for the best part of half a century. The game was decided by a senior moment on move 20 committed by the junior partner, leading to an exchange of major pieces and the loss of a pawn and allowing White to show off his impeccable endgame technique. (Note: Robin Haldane is only playing as a filler so is not in the second round pairings but might return later in the event should he be needed.)
Mark Josse was another victim of a lower-rated opponent, namely Ewan Wilson. An injudicious exchange of pieces by White allowed Black to exploit the weakness of the white queenside pawns in an endgame. Black allowed White one fleeting chance to achieve a perpetual check on move 33 but White missed it and was soon lost. Link to the game.
Will Taylor of Kingston CC scored a 'home' win against Tim Seymour
The seventh and final success for the lower-rated opponents in round one was achieved by Kingston CC's very own Will Taylor against Tim Seymour of Surbiton. As an old-time King's Indian Defence addict myself I would have been glad to see White's slow-motion development unfold before me, rather than the usual high-speed pawn storm that used to pen me into my back two ranks and cause me much suffering. As a rule of thumb you should never allow a KID-ologist an even break or suffer the consequences. Black, playing with the freedom of a man who had expected a long term of KID imprisonment but had unexpectedly beaten the rap, engineered a temporary exchange sacrifice which guaranteed him complete control of the dark squares on the kingside, and that was enough to ensure victory.
That's it for now. Round two starts at 1000 BST on Tuesday 13 August, with round three at 1530 the same day. Follow the action live at Lichess.org and find the latest results at chess-results.com. Also look out for me on X/Twitter for regular comments - @johnchess - and also @KingstonChess.
No comments:
Post a Comment