A one day rapid tournament was held on 24th September in celebration of Heritage Day. The field in the A section was small, but that meant there were lots of upsets and no easy games! Joseph Mwale was a convincing winner, with 5 points from his 6 games, followed by Wanda Khanyile and Cyril Danisa. Sachen Pather scored the most upsets. Here is a diagram from his 5th round game against Wanda, where Sachen blundered a Rook in the opening, but then his opponent relaxed too soon:
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| Wanda Khanyile (to move) vs Sachen Pather |
In this position, White is up 2 pieces, but his King is obviously in great danger. Outside the hall, Joseph opined that Black has a winning attack, but both Lindo and myself thought that White could safely return some of his treasure.
Wanda thought for several minutes, then played 1.Be2, and the game continued 1...Nxc2+ 2.Nxc2 Qa5+! 3.Kf1 Nd2+ 4.Ke1 Ne4+ 5.Kf1 Nd2+ 6.Ke1 Ne4+ and the players agreed a draw. No sooner had they done so, when the kibitzers pointed out the Queen sacrifice 4...Nf3+ 5.Kf1 Qe1+ leads to smothered mate!
The position is well worth analysing. Joseph punted 1.Qg7 as the only defence, but my computer busts his suggestion with the beautiful Queen sacrifice 1...Qxc2!! since 2.Nxc2 Nxc2+ 3.Ke2 Rd2+ 4.Kf3 Rxf2 is mate. It seems that 1.Rc1 was best, but still better for Black!
Here are the
results of section A and
results of section B.
