African Youth congrats

The 2016 African Youth championships took place from 22nd to 28th August 2016 in Port Elizabeth. Congratulations to the KZN medal winners at the tournament!






Yanti Nunnan    - 1st girls under 8
Aarti Datharam - 1st girls under 10

                                     Charlotte Millard
                                     - 3rd girls under 10

Here is a link to the full results of the under 10 girls section and from there you can browse to the other age group results.

Ethekwini Open entry

The Ethekwini Chess Association will be holding the annual Ethekwini Open on the weekend of 3rd/4th September 2016 at the Open Air School in Durban. Further details are in the entry form.

Uthungulu Youth champs

The annual Uthungulu Youth championships were held on 20th and 21st August 2016 at Hoerskool Richardsbaai. Only the best players, who had already been selected for the team for the SA Junior Nationals, were invited to play. The tournament was then used to decide on their board order.

Here is a selection of photos, courtesy of Lisa Griffiths and her trusty cellphone:

Under 10: 1st Arav Surujhlal, 2nd Ayanda Shangase, 3rd Wian Diedericks

Under 12 players: Philidile Madela vs Nomphilo Ntuli

Hannah Gounden, board 1 of the u12 B team, plays Olwethu Chili

Under 14: Liam Moonsamy (1st) vs Mongezi Shoba (2nd)

Under 16: 2nd Sandile Mdunge, 1st Mthobisi Sibiya, 3rd Manelisa Sithole 

Uthungulu under 18 team

I watched the end of an interesting game in round 5 between Sandiso Damone and Siyanda Khumalo. This was the position with each player having about 10 minutes left on his clock:

Sandiso Damone (to move) vs Siyanda Khumalo

Black threatens mate in 2 so 1.Qd6+ Kb7 is forced, and now Sandiso chose 2.Qd5+ instead of  2.Qd2 which looked promising. Since Black cannot play 2.Qd2 Re1+ 3.Kf2 R7e2+ 4.Qxe2 etc he would have to try and double his Rooks on the 7th rank with 2.Qd2 Re2 3.Qd5+ Kb8 4.Qxc4 Rb2! and it looks like a draw after 5... Ree2 follows. After 2.Qd5+ Ka6 3.Qa8+ Kb5 4.Qd5+ Siyanda should have taken the draw with 4... Ka6 5.Qa8+ Kb5 etc, but instead he chose to escape the checks with 4... Ka4? Do you see the refutation? Sandiso quickly sacrificed his Queen with 5.Qxe4! and the game ended with 5... Rxe4 6.b7 Re8 7.a6 Kb3 8.a7 Kxc3 9.b8=Q Rxb8 10.axb8=Q and White won.

Detailed results for each age group section were as follows:
under 10,
under 12,
under 14,
under 16,
under 18 & 20.

ECA trials 2 results

The second Ethekwini Youth Trials took place at the Open Air School from 6th to 8th August 2016. Here are the final results after 7 rounds for each section:

under 18 & 20 combined,
under 16 age group,
under 14 age group,
under 12 age group,
under 8 & 10 combined.

The selectors met on 9th August to agree on the squads for this years National team championship. The Ethekwini squad will consist of 2 under 8 teams, 1 under 10 team, 1 under 12 team, 2 under 14 teams, 2 under 16 teams, 2 under 18 teams, 1 under 20 team and 1 girls only team.

I append the names of those in the squad as per the Ethekwini Chess Association website, together with a copy of the ECA selection policy.

Uthungulu Fun

On 30th and 31st July Uthungulu held a 7 round fun tournament. There was an open section and a junior schools section. Part of the fun involved the leaders in the junior section wearing a crown! There were also some lucky draw prizes sponsored by South32 and the Uthungulu Municipality. Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Hoping to get a prize from the lucky draw

Youngest player Kirthan Naidoo was 2nd in under 10

Wearing the crowns - Gabriel Gounden vs Bryce Vorster

Wearing the crowns - Tlhoni Tsotetsi vs Simphiwe Majozi

Table 29 - Uvash Harrilall vs Arya Singh

These were the final results of the open section and of the junior section of the fun and money tournament.