SA Junior team championships

The South African junior team championships for 2017/18 were held at the Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg from 3rd to 8th January 2018. Detailed results for all the sections can be found on chess-results.com, for example, here is a link to the results of the under 20 A section. There were more than 250 teams with about 2 500 players taking part in the team event, which was divided into multiple sections in each age group, from under 8 up to under 20. For purposes of this report, I will note the sections and summarise the results of team KZN:

Firstly, our Ilembe district sent 4 teams. They finished 7th in the u10C section, 3rd in the u12C, 5th in the u14C and 4th in the u18C section.

Our King Cetshwayo district sent 6 teams. They won a magnificent 2 golds and a silver! Their golds came in the u10C section and u12D section, with silver in the u16C section. Their other teams were 7th in the u12D, 4th in the u14C and 6th in the u14E section.

The Ethekwini district sent the most teams, which were all competing in the A sections of each age group. They were 2nd in the u8A, 3rd in the u10A, 3rd in the u12A, 5th in the u14A, 3rd in the u16A, 4th in the u18A and 5th in the u20A section. Considering that the results were better in the younger age groups, this bodes well for the future. Perhaps the most disappointing result was the u16A, which won a gold medal last year, and could have won gold again, had all the top players been available.

Lastly, I must mention that Joseph Mwale won the very strong blitz event with a perfect score of 7/7, showcasing once again his talent at blitz.

Photos and videos from the event are available on Facebook.

SA Schools Winter Games

The South African Schools Championships took place in Durban for the second year in a row. The Winter Games is an event organised annually by the Departments of Sport and Recreation, together with Basic Education. There were over 2 000 participants from all over South Africa, taking part in sports such as soccer, rugby and volleyball, as well as the more intellectual game of chess.

Play commenced at Brettenwood High School on Monday 10th July and finished after 7 rounds of hard fought chess on Thursday 13th July 2017. Here is what the school hall looked like at the start of play on Monday, and when the hall was set up for the prizegiving:

There were no under 13 chess players this time, which reduced the numbers to 252 players. Each province had a team of 28 players, split equally between the under 15 and under 18 age groups, with separate boys and girls teams. Only the top 6 scores were added together to get the team rankings. The top seeded teams in each group were Gauteng and Western Cape. These two teams dominated the field, with Western Cape eventually taking all the team gold medals, and Gauteng all the team silver medals. Here is a photo of the gold medal winning squad from Western Province:

The contest for the bronze medals was extremely close, with Mpumalanga (u15 boys), Eastern Cape (u15 girls), Free State (u18 boys) and KwaZulu-Natal (u18 girls) all taking home medals. Possibly the most under-rated team was that from Mpumalanga, who won more than their share of medals in the rating categories. Team KZN were close to the medals in all age groups and can be pleased with their overall result:

Results were published daily on chess-results.com so I have only given the team rankings below:
under 15 boys, under 15 girls, under 18 boys, and under 18 boys.

Thanks to Leon de Jager for supplying all the photos, and to all the organising team who helped make this event a success.

Fun in King Cetshwayo

King Cetshwayo district organised a fun tournament over the weekend of 24th/25th June 2017. Many of the children took the opportunity to dress up in chess themed costumes:

Yasthi Naidoo had a Queen hair accessory

Keane Reddy & Paityn Reddy won the best dressed prize

Liam Naidoo, the Rook, with Paityn Reddy

Lisa Griffiths forwarded me the following message from one of the parents, Justin Moodley, who decided to play in his first tournament, together with his kids:

Somebody once said, "The measure of a man is not how  he starts but rather how well he finishes". This is what I have inculcated in the every day living of my kids. Today was just that day, when I came to realise, I was not only going to swallow those words but digest it too. My name is Justin Moodley, husband to a wonderful and inspiring wife, Jean. And not forgetting father to my wonderful, disciplined and hardworking kids, Jamie and Jurina, who are very much involved in chess. When my kids asked me to enter the King Cetshwayo tournament dated for the 24th & 25th June 2017, little did I realise that they were not joking. I won't forget their words which convinced me; "Dad you play reasonably well, if you win or lose it does not matter, just play to have fun". Guess what, I did just that, at first I was a bit nervous as I was the only wild card entry from the Dads category. So what did I learn from every encounter when I participated; At times I felt as though every bit of oxygen was slowly being sapped out of me, BUT somehow a little voice within me kept telling me never to give up. Game after game, in order to succeed, that's what our kids have to endure at the Provincial District level or the National level. I encourage all parents, be it Mums or Dads that can play chess, just join in the game and have fun. You are never too old to do the extraordinary, by sharing in your child's dream. Today for me was one of the greatest moments that will never be forgotten but cherished, NOT only did I participate for the first time in a chess tournament with both my kids, they also coached me whilst faced with their own challenges. Through it all they both succeeded in finishing 2nd in the under 12 & under 14 age category. My message to all kids; in a game of chess you cannot always expect victory but you can always plan for defeat. Best regards, Justin Moodley.

Justin Moodley, seated on the right

The final results were as follows: under 10, under 12, under 14, under 16 and open sections.

Mandeni vs Dolphins

Siphamandla Nkosi reports from Ilembe: A fierce battle took place between the Mandeni Chess Club and the Dolphin Coast Chess Club at Salt Rock Library on Saturday 1st July. We were very happy to have Angelo Daniel, Isaiah Daniel and Trishul Jainarain from Umhlanga Chess Club join us. The club tournament played over 5 rounds of 60/60 standard was won by Mandeni Chess Club, scoring 34 points to 29 points. Here are some of the pictures taken by Mandeni Head Coach Siyabonga Gumede:

Lastly, here are the results of the High School section and the Senior Primary section.

ECA Trials results

The 2nd Ethekwini Youth Trials took place from 3rd to 5th July 2017, at Gordon Road Girls School. I fear that we will not be invited back there again, after all the littering that took place. Player numbers were up on the 1st Youth Trials held in March and it looks like Ethekwini will have some competitive teams at the SA National team championships, to be held in January 2018.

The SAJCC website http://www.sajcc.co.za/ indicates that Birchwood will be the venue once again.

Here are the final results for each of the age groups:
under 8 & 10,
under 12,
under 14,
under 16,
under 18 & 20.

More results/photos

Here is a brief report on some recent tournaments.

The King Cetshwayo district championships were held over the weekend of 20/21 May 2017. The adult section was won by their head coach, Mlungisi Mbanjwa, with a perfect score of 7 out of 7. The top lady was Penny Dlamini who tied for 4th place with 4 points. The age group sections were well attended, with 160 enthusiastic youngsters participating, hoping for a place in the King Cetshwayo district youth teams. Sorry, no photos as yet. I'm also waiting for team selections to be announced. Here are the detailed results for the tournament:
adult section, under 18 & 20, under 16, under 14, under 12, and under 10.

The same weekend of 20/21 May 2017 saw their neighbours in the Ilembe district hold their Youth trials at Umhlali Preparatory School. There were 4 age groups and a total of 88 players. Again, I am waiting for the teams to be announced. Here are the detailed results for the tournament:
under 16, 18 & 20, under 14, under 12, and under 10.

A one day tournament was held in Pietermaritzburg on 27 May 2017. The boys were put to the sword by a 15-year old girl, Dayaan Parthiephal, who won the Kings tournament with a full house 5 out of 5. Here are the detailed results and some photos sent to me by Raindree Chetty:

Prize winners, Dayaan is in the middle, Raindree is 2nd from right

Recent results/photos

I've got several recent tournaments to report on. The first event was the annual KZN open, organised this year by Erick Takawira, president of the KZN Chess Association. The KZN open was held at Northlands Primary School from 27th to 30th April 2017.

The A section was FIDE rated and was won by Joseph Mwale. Joseph started out like a house on fire with 6 wins, clinching the title with a round to spare. The key game was against IM Mabusela in round 5, when Mabu blundered a piece against him. Joseph lost in the last round to second placed Brighton Mthunzi, who was joined on the same score by the leader of the Hyenas pack, Stephen Skosana. I have posted all the games (in PGN) onto chess-results.com and you can also find all the usual statistics there.

The B section was limited to players rated below 1500. Sizwe Ndlovu was a convincing winner, and I don't think he will be rated below 1500 for much longer!

On Saturday 29th, in the afternoon, a keen field of 70 players tried their luck at blitz chess (5 minutes each). Here are detailed results of the KZN blitz championship. As can be seen, Joseph Mwale scored a full house 9 out of 9. He was dead lost - on the board - in at least 3 of his games, but Joseph treats the clock like an extra piece, and won all his "lost" games on time. Second place was shared by 4 players, namely Lindokuhle Xulu, Tshediso Mpya, Wandamuzi Khanyile and Charles Pwere.

There were two rapid tournaments held in KZN on Saturday 6th May 2017. The first of these was the Durban High School rapid cup, which was won jointly by Jason Subke and Sayen Naidu. Here are the detailed results of the DHS rapid cup.

The second rapid, played in the Saint Lucia town hall, was the stronger event, with 3 KZN champions in the field. It was won by Erick Takawira, ahead of Joseph Mwale and Wanda Khanyile (Wanda held Joseph to a draw, but lost to Erick). Here are the summary results from the St Lucia event.

My thanks to Sandile Ngcongo, who organised the Saint Lucia event, for the following photos:

Players at the Saint Lucia rapid

Erick Takawira

Joseph Mwale

Sizwe Ndlovu

Erick with Sandile Ngcongo

SA Junior champions

The 2017 SA Junior Closed chess championships ended recently, with 14 national age group champions being crowned at the closing ceremony on 11th April. My thanks go to Chess SA for inviting me to be an arbiter at this prestigious event, held at the Kopanong Conference Centre in Benoni from the 5th to 11th April. There were 280 players and a team of 8 arbiters, led by Michael Bornheim, to look after them. We had very few issues and I think the event ran smoothly, apart from a few glitches with the DGT boards. These were the latest wifi DGT boards and this was their first outing. One problem was that so many people were using the Kopanong wifi.

Three of the 14 national champions were from KZN! We won two gold medals in the open sections, Kaedan Govender won the under 8 open title, and Naseem Essa was the under 14 open champion. We had hoped for a similar result in the girls sections. I was surprised that Arti Datharam, who received a trophy as South African under 10 player of the year for 2016, finished out of the medals in the under 12 girls. Instead it was her little sister, Archana Datharam, who won the third gold medal! Archana is now the SA under 10 girls champion. Lastly, Charlotte Millard won a bronze medal for her 3rd place in the under 12 girls. Congratulations to all of our medal winners!

Archana Datharam stayed on board 1 for the whole tournament,
scoring 10 points from her 11 games

Kaedan Govender, seen here with his proud parents, did even
better, drawing once and winning all his other games

Naseem Essa, back on board 1 after an early upset, scored 8.5 points
from his 11 games, and won the gold medal in a playoff match

The above photos are just some of the many that Gys du Toit published on Facebook. To see more of his wonderful photos, go to https://www.facebook.com/gysdut/photos_albums.

The detailed results and most of the games can be found at the chess-results.com website.

Pietermaritzburg Kings

The second tournament of the year in Pietermaritzburg takes place at Alexandra High School on Saturday 27th May. Details can be found in the entry form below:

You can contact the organiser, Raindree Chetty, by email at chettyraindree@gmail.com or phone her on 084 625 9610 for more details.

Here are the results of the first tournament, the Pawns tournament, which was held on Saturday 25th February 2017.

King Cetshwayo 3rd anniversary

The King Cetshwayo district chess association celebrated the third anniversary of its formation over the weekend of 1st/2nd April this year. It was the start of the school holidays, and a new record of 192 players took part in the celebrations! As a large number of players only entered on the morning of the 1st, the organisers had to frantically find another twenty tables and chess sets to squeeze into the hall of Richards Bay High School.

The first day proceeded smoothly for the top seeds, with the only major upset being the draw between Nikash Baboolal (1165) and Samkele Mzimela (500) in the first round of the under 16 section. Samkele also scored upsets in rounds 3, 4 and 5. He went on to finish 3rd in the under 16 section and is clearly a player for the selectors to watch.

On both days there were lucky draws for prizes and everybody got to sample the birthday cake on day 2. Here is a photo of the participants with the birthday cake (click on the photo to enlarge):

The top female players in each section were recognised at the prize giving. See the photo below, from left Luyanda Biyela (under 18 - 4th), Jurina Moodley (under 12 - tied for 1st place on 6 out of 7!), Ntando Dlamini (best adult), Zhime Ntombela (under 16 - 12th), Lisa Griffiths (chairperson), Kiara Pillay (under 14 - 7th), Sibongakonke Singa (under 20 - 5th).

Lastly, here is a photo of Mongezi Shoba, from Nkandla, who finished 2nd in the under 16 category:

In conclusion, here are the detailed results for each of the four sections:
under 10 & 12 group,
under 14 age group,
under 16 age group,
under 18, 20 & adults.

Ethekwini Open report

The 2017 Ethekwini Open was the biggest event of this year's chess calendar in Durban, with a very strong FIDE section and a well attended open section. It took place over 4 days, from 18th to 21st March 2017, with just 2 rounds being played per day. Special guests were GM Sipke Ernst from the Netherlands and IA Chanda Nsakanya from Zambia.

The open section attracted 125 entries and was intended for players rated below 1900. It was played at 90 minutes per player for the game. The top two seeds were Jason Subke (1862) and Clive Mthunzi (1831) and they both reached 4 out of 4 with little trouble. However, Jason could only draw with Mpho Mshope in round 5, so he was half a point behind when the top two duly met in round 6. A tough positional game saw Jason a pawn down in a Rook and pawn ending as time ran short -

Subke vs Mthunzi, Black to move

and this is how the game ended: 1...Re4+ 2.Kd3 Re1 3.Rxd5! (after a long think, he had to see his 6th move here, if 3.Kd2 Re7 4.Rxd5 Kg8 is slightly better for Black) 3...Rd1+ 4.Ke4 Rxd5 5.Kxd5 Kf6 6.h6! (the only move) and the players agreed a draw. They both won in the 7th round, so the final placings were 1st Clive Mthunzi on 6.5, with a 3-way tie for 2nd place between Jason Subke, Ayanda Gumede and Mpho Mashope on 6 points from 7 games.

Clive Mthunzi with Sayen Naidu

Jason Subke with Sayen Naidu

Prizes for the open section were presented by Sayen Naidu, a former winner of the tournament in 2008. Here are the full results of the open section.

The FIDE section was very interesting, with 7 titled players competing. Obviously grandmaster Sipke Ernst was the favourite to win, but who would finish second, and who could take a draw from him? The standard FIDE time control of 90 minutes plus 30 seconds increment was used, but Sipke played very fast and had all his opponents under pressure. I was very impressed by his willingness to discuss his games and explain his moves afterwards.

All of the games in the FIDE section - 97 games (PGN) - were captured by me, so you can replay the moves at your leisure. I will just highlight some of the moments from Sipke's games:

Johannes Mabusela played 8.b4 here vs Sipke Ernst

"Where did I go wrong?" asked a baffled Mabu. Apparently 8.b4 was incorrect for 2 reasons, the first is that White has nowhere to castle, as the Q-side has big holes and the K-side lacks defenders, the second reason is that the c4 square becomes weak. The game is very instructive.

The closest anybody came to a draw against him was in round 6. It looked like Corno was better for much of the game, and this was the critical moment when the endgame was lost:

Corno Klaver vs Sipke Ernst, White to play

White could sit tight here, with a probable draw, but saw a little combination: 43.c5 Rxc5 44.Rxc5 dxc5 45.Bxf7, which was immediately refuted by 45...Kxf7 46.Kxe5 c4!. The GM knew that the pawn ending was a win for him, as he recognised the 3-2 pattern on the Q-side. Lesser mortals have to calculate the variations!

The most brilliant game of the tournament was unquestionably Sipke's win against Joseph. Here is the game with some variations added with the help of my favourite chess engine!

The start of round 5, Sipke Ernst vs Joseph Mwale

Here are the final results of the FIDE section and some photos supplied by the chief organiser, Erick Takawira, who did a lot of hard work behind the scenes.

Adrian Chappell 3rd place with 5/7 was a surprise

WIM Jesse February with WCM Karmishta Moodley

GM Sipke Ernst with IA Chanda Nsakanya

The Ethekwini Open floating trophy

1st Ethekwini Youth Trials

Ethekwini Chess Association held its 1st Youth Trials for 2017 over the weekend of 25th/26th March 2017. A total of 125 players took part in 5 sections divided by age. Sadly, this will be the last event to be hosted by the Open Air School, who have been very supportive of chess in Ethekwini over the past year. The venue for the 2nd Youth Trials on 25th/26th May 2017 has not yet been announced.

Here are the detailed results for each of the 5 different age groups:
under 8 & 10,
under 12,
under 14,
under 16,
under 18 & 20.

King Cetshwayo Open

The King Cetshwayo Open was held over the weekend of 25th and 26th February in Richards Bay. A total of 158 players competed in 4 sections over 7 rounds. Here are the detailed results:
under 10 & under 12,
under 14 only,
under 16 only,
under 18, 20 & adult,
and some photos from the prizegiving:

Kirthan Naidoo was 1st under 10, his mother Maggie is on the right 

Top under 12 players, Keane Reddy, Mvuselelo Zulu and Arav Surujhlal

Nonthandazo Mkhize was 3rd in the adult section

JR Mthembu Memorial

The first JR Mthembu memorial took place over 2 days, on 18th and 19th February 2017, at the Open Air school in Durban. JR was well known in Durban as a teacher, arbiter and organiser of chess activities. I never knew his first name as everybody just called him JR! He taught chess at the Gordon Road girls school for many years. Some of JR's best known pupils were Tasnim Amra, Cheshni Jeena and Kriti Lalla, who all became female South African champions in their age groups.

The tournament was a close contest, with Henry Oliver leading all the way, until he took draws against Sayen Naidu and Joseph Mwale in the last 2 rounds. Henry came within a whisker of defeating top seed Joseph Mwale in the last round, when he had a completely winning Rook and pawn ending. With 6 seconds left on the clock, he claimed G4 and Joseph had little choice but to accept the draw offer. These two players were joined by unrated Joseph Ambali on 5 points out of 6.

The B section was won by Thacian Reddy, who defeated second placed Archana Datharam in a crucial round 5 encounter.

Here are the section A results and the section B results.

Some interesting endgame positions that caught my eye were:

from round 2, with White to move

White tried 1.Rg3, hoping for 1...Rxg3+ 2.Kxg3 with a drawn pawn ending, and resigned when Black played 1...Kf4. Possibly 1.Kh2 was a better try, although 1...Rb3 looks winning. Why did you resign, asked the spectators? After 1.Rg3 Kf4 2.Rxf3+ Kxf3 3.b5 Black said he intended 3...e3 4.bxa6 e2 5.a7 e1=Q with mate on g3 or h1, and nearly fell off his chair when he was told that 6.a8=Q is check, so White wins! On reflection, simply 3...g4+ forces 4.Kh4 when it is Black who queens with check and wins the game. The next position was even more instructive:

from round 4, with White to move

This came from one of the father-son pairings that my pairings software liked. The game ended with 1.Ra8 a3, draw offered and agreed. Again the kibitzers wanted to know, doesn't Black win after 2.Rxa3 Kb2 3.Re3 c1=Q 4.Rxe4 etc. Indeed, but a little home analysis convinced me that there was a draw by either 2.Ra7! or even 2.Ra6. The point is that 2.Ra7 a2 3.Rxa2 Kb1 4.Rxc2 Kxc2 5.Ke3 is drawn. Even more interesting is that 2.Ra5 fails to draw, because the King can zigzag backwards by 2...Kb2 3.Rb5+ Kc3 4.Rc5+ Kb3 5.Rb5+ Kc4 and one of the pawns will queen.

ECA 1st rapid GP

The first event in the Ethekwini rapid series took place on 4th February 2017 at the Durban Jewish club. Top seed Joseph Mwale secured 1st place by defeating his closest rivals, Wanda Khanyile and Lindo Xulu, in rounds 4 and 5, before coasting to an early draw against Cyril Danisa in the last round. He was followed home by a group of 5 players on 5 points out of 6. Here are the detailed results.

The last game to finish on one of the top boards showed how nervy rapid chess can be:

Black to move and draw

With less than a minute left on the clock, Black started thinking and I expected 1...Rxf4+ 2.Rxf4 Bxf4 3.Kxf4 hxg5+ 4.Kxg5 with a draw. However, Black played 1...Bxf4 and was so surprised by 2.g6! in reply that he resigned! The funny thing is that 2...Rf6 3.Rxf4 Rxf4+ 4.Kxf4 is only a draw, despite what your chess engine might tell you, as the black King gets stalemated in the corner.

SAJCC 2016

The annual chess extravaganza known as the SAJCC took place this year from the 15th to the 23rd of December, at Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg. If I'm not mistaken, 260 teams took part, which is apparently a new record, with close to 2,300 participants ranging from the under 8's to the under 20's. The numbers were so large that two playing halls had to be used, with about 800 players aged 16 to 20 in OR Tambo hall and 1,500 youngsters in the larger Terminal hall. The arbiting team worked from early on the 15th until 1 am on the morning of the 16th so that everything was ready for the opening ceremony a few hours later.

Chess SA president Eldo Smart opens the 2016 SAJCC in Terminal hall

Here is a summary of all the team results (docx format, 13 pages long) which was prepared by the arbiting team. It can be seen that gold medals in the Championship (A section) went to:

under 08 Western Province (Ethekwini 3rd),
under 10 Tshwane (Ethekwini 5th),
under 12 Western Province (Ethekwini 3rd),
under 14 Western Province (Ethekwini 2nd),
under 16 Ethekwini (WP 2nd, Joburg Metro 3rd, Tshwane 4th)
under 18 Western Province (Ethekwini 4th),
under 20 Tshwane (Ethekwini 5th).

The gold to Ethekwini in the under 16 division was the only blot on the Western Province and Tshwane clean sweep! This was an incredibly close division - 3 of the top 4 teams were equal on match points (they won 5 matches each) and, if this section had been decided on match points, then Johannesburg Metro would have been the winners, as they won all their matches. It all goes to show how important it is to have strength in depth, when game points are the key number.

Our gold medal team, from left: Anele Danisa, Mayilan Chetty, Kiashen Maharaj, Cayden Pather,
 Dayaan Parthiephal, Sachin Reddy, Zahra Kara, Cailin Chetty, Joseph Mwale (coach),
Chad Millard, Ayanda Gumede (manager), absent - Ananta Reddy.

The team event was followed by the Wild Card tournaments, for those players who had not already qualified for the Junior Closed in 2017. Notable KZN successes were:

under 12 1st Mayaskar Nair
under 14 2nd Abhay Prithipal
under 16 =3rd/14th Chad Millard, Lance Leslie-Smith, Cayden Pather
under 18 4th Shivar Gopaulsingh
under 20 1st Jivorn Reddy, 2nd Truwen Reddy

An Inter Regional team championship was held at the same time as the Wild Card event. It was won quite convincingly by the "A-team" from Tshwane. Sadly the Ethekwini team failed to perform, after being seeded 4th they ended up in a disappointing 15th place. I was an arbiter for this event and have now captured all 308 games (PGN) - there are some great games.

Ethekwini League

The Ethekwini League took place in the last quarter of the year and was divided into two sections. The top 8 teams played a round robin in the A section, which was a success for the top seeds, Umhlanga Chess Club (rated 1878 on average), who won 6 and drew 1 of their matches. In second place was Durban Chess Club (1701 average), who beat the second seeds from Glenwood Chess Club (1876 average) in round 3, by the smallest of margins. Glenwood took 3rd and 4th places in the A section.

Teams consisted of 6 players and the board prizes were won by Joseph Mwale (Umhlanga), Cailin Chetty (Durban), Henry Oliver (Durban), Desmond Rooplal (Durban), Sayen Naidu (Glenwood) and Sizwe Ndlovu (Beier). I was playing board 1 for Durban and came within an inch of the gold medal, losing on time when a piece up against Joseph Mwale.

Umhlanga Chess Club went on to represent Ethekwini at the SA Club Championships team event, held near Bloemfontein in early December. They had a disastrous start, defaulting their first round match because of a car accident, but recovered well to find themselves playing the eventual winners, Chess Excellence A, in the last round. They beat Chess Excellence over the board, but then found themselves defaulted on 3 boards, because they were in the wrong board order!!

The B section of the League was played as a Team Swiss event. Initially 13 teams entered, which meant there had to be a bye. Surprisingly, this was given to the second seeds in the first round! The B section was marred by an excessive number of defaults, particularly by the student teams - either they were involved in the "fees must fall" protest or they were writing exams. In the end, Glenwood Chess Club C team were convincing winners, followed by Durban Chess Club B team.

Thanks go to the Open Air School for use of their hall as the playing venue, and to Divesh Sookdeo who was the arbiter. Here are the A section results and the B section results. Further details can be found on the chess-results website.

SAPS championships

SAPS Chess Association held their annual championships from 6th to 14th October 2016, at Misty River, just south of Johannesburg. I was present as the arbiter and travelled to and from the venue with the KZN team. There were 10 teams of 10 players (6 male and 4 female), one from every province, plus a team from Head Office, so that a 9-round team round-robin could be played.

Marc Petersen plays Hlayisani Mthombeni in Western Cape vs Gauteng,
in the background is Lesiba Phahlane, gold medallist on board 1

It soon became evident that Gauteng (the defending champions) were the team to beat. Head Office came close to drawing their match, as did Western Cape, but in the end Gauteng emerged victorious in all of their matches. In second place was Eastern Cape, who relied on their ladies to win most of their matches!

Eastern Cape won the silver medals with Brian Salters on board 1, and
Rico Schutte on board 2, also seen is Cornelius Mojapelo (Limpopo)

KZN was the team with the lowest average rating, and were only able to draw one of their matches. Nevertheless, the team remained in good spirits, and won the prize for best team spirit. The match between KZN and Northern Cape was a real nail biting encounter, as the scores were level after 9 games had been completed, with just board 1 to decide the match. Both sides missed chances for a win and this exciting game is given below:


Before the team event, there was a 9-round individual championships, and a 7-round blitz championships, so a lot of chess was packed into the available days!

Leandra Ryneveldt won the prize for the biggest upset,
here she is playing Leonardina Mogongwa from Gauteng,
next to her is Devina Le Roux who scored 9/9 for her team

Here are the results files for each of the events:

Individual championships
all rounds detailed results
tiebreaks (all players)
tiebreaks (female only)

Blitz championships
all rounds blitz results

Team championships
summary by team
composition of team results
tiebreaks for board prizes

Lastly, here are the games that were entered for the best game prize, together with some brief annotations by myself.

Heritage Day open

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:

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.