Ethekwini Open results

We must congratulate IM Johannes Mabusela on another success in KZN. This time he won the Ethekwini Open, held over the weekend of 3rd/4th September 2016.

Mabusela is congratulated by Mbongeni Sithole

Mabusela started off with a draw in round 1! Mlungisi Mbanjwa from Richards Bay proved a tough nut to crack, so Mabusela offered a draw with time running short. Thereafter, he followed up with 5 wins in a row. The only time that he was perhaps in trouble was in his 5th round game against 2nd seed Joseph Mwale. Here is the score of his 1st round game:


Thanks to Khetha Mngadi for posting this game and photo on Facebook.

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

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.

SA Schools Winter Games

Chess was one of the 9 sporting codes that took part in the "South African Schools National Winter Games Championships 2016" in Durban in July 2016. The other sporting codes were football, hockey, jukskei, kho-kho, netball, rugby, tennis and volleyball.

Chess was played from the 10th to 14th July at Glenwood High School. There were 9 provincial teams of 7 players in each of 6 age group sections i.e. a total of 378 chess players for all these groups. There were even larger numbers in other sporting codes. I have seen reports of 7 500 competitors, so this was a massive sporting event!

I thought that Ronald King did a great job as chief arbiter. The organising committee asked that the event be played as a combined team and individual event. For the first 5 rounds, the tournament was paired as a normal Swiss. Then for the last 4 rounds, players were not allowed to play against their team mates, as the organisers wanted to establish which province had the best team. They also wanted to know who were the best individual players. I didn't know that Swiss Manager could do this, but Ronald somehow managed the task after spending many hours on his computer!

For those interested in the results, here is a link to the final results of the under 13 boys section. From there you can browse to all the other age group results.

I was present at the chess as a talent scout, for the under 13 boys and girls. Originally there were supposed to have been 2 talent scouts, and it would have been a lot easier to pick 3 boys and 3 girls, rather than 5 of each, on my own. I was given until Wednesday afternoon to finalise my reports, which meant that I only had games from the first 6 rounds to consider. Talent identification is as much about future potential as it is about present ability, so I must now wait 3 years to see if I was any good at talent spotting!

The following tactical episode deserves its own diagram:

Fihla vs Mazibuko, round 3, under 13 boys

In this position Black could try 27... Rc8 28.Re1 Qc2 keeping everything under control, instead he played the tempting 27... Nc3 forking Queen and Rook. Imagine his shock when White replied with 28.Rxd6! Both major piece are untouchable because of the back row mate, so play continued 28... Ra8 29.Qc1 and now the incredible 29... Qxe3!! really impressed me. Since 30.Qxe3 Ra1+ results in mate, the game went 30.fxe3 Ne2+ 31.Kf2 Nxc1 and Black has regained the piece, as well as keeping his extra pawn. Unfortunately he blundered on move 40 and eventually lost the game.

PS. Here is my annotated games file (PGN, 87 games) from rounds 1 to 6 of the under 13 boys and girls sections, which has the games that were considered in talent identification.

ECA June youth trials

The first Ethekwini Youth Trials tournament took place at St Anthony's in Greyville from the 27th to 29th June 2016. There were 225 players and 7 rounds of 90/90 chess were played over the 3 days.

Here are some photos from the event:

View of the tournament from the stage

Kaedan Govender won all his games and a large trophy

The under 14 section was closely contested, with 57 competitors. In the end, 3 players tied for 1st on 6 points out of 7. Seen below are Jaedon Naidu and Sachen Pather receiving their trophies from Dinesh Nair.

Sizwe Ndlovu did very well in the u18 section

Here are the final results for each age group:
under 08 section,
under 10 section,
under 12 section,
under 14 section,
under 16 section,
under 18 section,
under 20 section.

KZN District championship

It was perhaps no surprise that Ethekwini won the inaugural KZN District championships, held over the weekend of 24th to 26th June 2016. Much more interesting was the battle for the silver medals, which was won by the Uthungulu district after narrow wins over their chief rivals from Amajuba, who took the bronze medals, and the Ilembe district, which finished in 4th place.

The full results have been published on the chess-results.com website, here is a link to the team results summary.

Here is a game with a very nice finish, sent to me by coach Spha from Ilembe:

Some photos from the prizegiving (more photos in a separate post):

Team Amajuba with their bronze medals, Gugu Mkhize centre front.
KZNCA chair Erick Takawira centre back. 

The top players on each board, most of them had blue Ethekwini shirts!

KZN schools trials

A 5 round rated tournament was held on the weekend of 4th to 5th June 2016 to select players for the upcoming National Top Schools tournament (due to be held in Durban in July). A total of 388 boys and girls took part in this event which was held at the KZN Badminton Hall. The organisers have sent me the results which were as follows: under 13 boys, under 13 girls, under 15 boys, under 15 girls, under 18 boys, under 18 girls.

Uthungulu May swiss

Uthungulu Chess Association held their third tournament of the year from 28th to 29th May 2016, with 159 players vying for places in the Uthungulu team. The guest of honour at the prizegiving was Mr Thami Mchunu from the Uthungulu Sports Confederation who presented the trophies and gave some encouraging words to the players. A big thank you also goes to the Parents committee who designed and sold bright red T-shirts as part of their fund raising efforts.

Lisa Griffiths and Thami Mchunu present best junior female player trophy to Tiara Peters

Youngest player Kirthan Naidoo in his Uthungulu T-shirt

Under 18 prize winners Lundi Shoba, Siyabonga Sithole and Sibongakoke Mazibuko

Here are the final results for each age group, including the open division:
under 10 results, under 12 results, under 14 results, under 16 results, under 18 results, under 20 results, and open section results.

Mabusela wins KZN open

DCC chairman Desmond Rooplal congratulates Mabusela on his victory

The 2016 KZN open was won by visiting IM Johannes Mabusela from Tshwane, with the fine score of 7½ points out of 8. In 2nd place was Wandumuzi Khanyile from Richards Bay, with 7 points. Here are the final results of the 2016 KZN open.

A more detailed report, including photos and some annotated games, can be found on the Durban Chess Club website. I have now captured the games played on the top 10 boards for viewers to download.

Uthungulu Anniversary photos

They say that pictures speak louder than words, so here is a selection of photos from the celebration of the 2nd Uthungulu anniversary, held on 12th March 2016. My thanks to the parents committee who put together all the decorations and organised treats for everyone, and to Sue Dee Vorster for all the photos:

 

Lastly, here are the results of the Anniversary tournament:
under 10 & 12 results;
under 14 results;
under 16 results;
under 18, 20 & open results.

Uthungulu Summer open

The Uthungulu Summer open took place over the weekend of 27th/28th February at Hoerskool Richardsbaai, whose hall provided an excellent playing venue. Seven rounds of 60/60 standard chess were played, and a total of 169 chess enthusiasts took part in 4 sections, split by age. My thanks to Lisa Griffiths for supplying the following photos:

A view of the playing hall at Hoerskool Richardsbaai

Thandukwazi Mthethwa vs Aneliswa Mpungose 

Liam Deonarain vs Penny Dlamini

Gabriel Gounden defeated Tlhoni Tsotetsi to win the under 14 section

Hannah Gounden vs Mackenzie Gouws

Keane Reddy (winner of under 12) plays Ayanda Sibisi

These are the detailed results for each of the four sections:
open, u20 & u18; under 16; under 14; u12 & u10.

Congratulations go to all of the age group winners:
Open - Nhlakanipho Makhanya, 7 points.
Under 20 - Qiniso Dlamini, 4 points.
Under 18 - Siyabonga Sithole, 5 points.
Under 16 - Nhlakanipho Ndlovu, 6 points.
Under 14 - Gabriel Gounden, 7 points.
Under 12 - Keane Reddy, 7 points.
Under 10 - Arav Surujhlal, 5 points.

Uthungulu championships

This event was held from 24th to 25th October 2015 in Richards Bay.

Sorry, no photos, but here are the results of the
under 16, 18 and 20 age groups,
under 14 age group, and
under 10 and 12 age groups.

SAPS Championships

I was invited to be the arbiter for the annual SAPS chess championships, held from the 10th to 15th October 2015. This year the event took place at the Port Edward Holiday Resort, about an hour and a half's drive from Durban. The resort has an interesting history, as the buildings were originally funded by collections made from police officers during the 2nd World War. For many years it was open only to members of the Police, but for the last 20 years it has been open to the public. Their large hall was just the right size for 100 or so chess players.

The first event to take place was the individual SAPS championship, held over 9 rounds at the standard 60/60 time control. There were 68 entries in the open section and 33 entries in the ladies section. This was immediately followed by the teams event, with a team from every province, plus one from head office in Pretoria - a 9 match round robin. The playing schedule was challenging, with 3 rounds on day 1, followed by 4 rounds a day on days 2, 3 and 4. The pace then eased off with the final 3 rounds on days 5 and 6.

As part of my duties, I was the judge of the "best game" prize for the individual events. This was my choice:


The event was well organised and there were very few incidents that required my intervention. Something that was new to me was the presence of two blind players (Bonnie and Melvyn) who used braille boards and special clocks. They both dictated their moves onto tape. One of Bonnie's opponents was not properly familiar with chess notation, so I had to organise an assistant for the sighted player! Another interesting incident occurred in one of Melvyn's games, where a Rook was on b8 on his braille board, but on a8 on the standard board. With the Rb8, Melvyn was winning a pawn, so this was critical. Unfortunately Black's scoresheet was completely illegible, and I was happy when Melvyn sportingly agreed to play on with Ra8. The game ended in a draw.

The top two seeds managed to avoid playing until round 9, which saw this exciting finish:

Rico Schutte vs David Maloba after 32... Qe6

Play started with the Rook sacrifice 33.Rxc6! f4 34.Rxa6? f3+ 35.Kh2 Qa2! 36.Ra8+ Kh7 37.Qd8 Qxf2+ 38.Kh3 Qg2+ 39.Kg4 Rg6+ 40.Kh5? and ended with the pretty Rook sacrifice 40... Rg5+! 41.hxg5 Qh3 mate. If the first Rook is taken, with 33... dxc6, then 34.d7 Rf8 35.d8=Q Rxd8 36.Qxd8+ Kh7 is about equal. So Black counter attacked. Rico should have played 34.Qd8+ Kh7 35.Rc8 fxe3! 36.h5! when Black's King is about to get mated (but my computer says Black can sacrifice his Rook to get a perpetual check!) At the end, Rico had to try 40.Kf5 Qh3+ 41.Kxe4 which is extremely hairy, but at least there is no forced mate.

Here are the final results of the open section and of the ladies section.

The team championships required every team to have a minimum of 4 ladies amongst their 10 players. Failure to meet this requirement resulted in a number of defaults on the bottom boards. Gauteng was one of the teams with only 9 players, yet they won by a large margin despite this handicap! Their top 3 men all won board prizes. There was a certain amount of discussion on how any ties would be decided, as this had not been spelt out by the LOC. My feeling was that every board should count, so we went with game points, followed by match points, as recommended by FIDE. Head Office, Eastern Cape and Western Cape had a thrilling contest for 2nd place. The last game to finish decided 2nd place in the team championships. Fittingly, this was the battle between the SAPS Chess chairman, Thabo Nonyana, and blind player, Melvyn Lucas, from Cape Town.

Thabo Nonyana vs Melvyn Lucas, after 38.Rxb7

By this time we knew that White had to win this game, so that his team would score 7-3 and overtake Eastern Province on tie-break. Hence after 38... Qxc5+ 39.Kh1 Nf2+ 40.Kh2 Ng4+ the King must come forward with 41.Kh3. Melvyn had less than 5 minutes here, and he went astray with 41... Qe3+? 42.g3 Qf2? threatening mate, but White got his punishment in first, by 43.Rxf7+ Kxf7 44.Rb7+ Ke8 45.Qe7 mate. The key idea for Black is to put his Queen on the h1/a8 diagonal, thus 41... Qd5! 42.Rxf7+ Kxf7 43.Qh4 Nf6! and Black has the better chances.

Lastly, here are the results of the team event, together with all of the board results.

SA Club Teams results/games

No report was received from the organisers.

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

PS. I received a box of score sheets from the organisers and have captured all available games. PGN files are available here for all 168 games played in the A section, which was FIDE rated, and for 151 games played in the B section (many score sheets were missing).

Mayoral Cup report

Report by Sandile Xulu and Keith Rust, photos by Sifiso Xulu: The inaugural Ethekwini Mayoral Chess Cup took place at the City Hall on Saturday 3rd October 2015. Players came from all over the province of KZN and even from Gauteng to play. We also had a group of orphans from the Abalindi Welfare Society in Matikwe who participated in the tournament. Our youngest player of the tournament – Kaedan Govender, just 6 years old – won the Mayor’s Cup in the under 8 years category.  The other age category winners who went home with a Mayor’s Cup were Naseem Essa, Keith Khumalo and Thato Moremi.

Trophy winners with the Mayor, Cllr. James Nxumalo

Prize winners in the 9 to 12 years category

Surprisingly, the winner of the main prize in the Open Category, where everybody was competing for glory, was 16 year old Thato Moremi, all the way from Johannesburg, who won the tournament with a score of 6.5 out of 7. Thato defeated top KZN players Erick Takawira, Joseph Mwale and Lulama Qobo, keeping his nerve in some tough positions. Here is the finish of his game against Qobo:

Moremi vs Qobo

Play continued with 1...Kg4 and now Thato produced the winning variation 2.Qf4+ Qxf4 3.gxf4 Kxf4 4.a4 Ke3 5.Ke1 g5 6.a5 g4 7.a6 h4 8.a7 g3 9.hxg3 hxg3 10.a8=Q and Black had to resign. Mbongeni Sithole was the only player who managed to get a draw against Thato.

Thato walked away with the main Trophy, a gold medal and a cash prize of R2 000. Lulama Qobo, Joseph Mwale and Ntando Zwakala shared the runner-up prize of R1 000 as they tied on 6 points each.

Most importantly, and on behalf of the organizing team of Sakhisizwe Legacy Society, we would like to pass our gratitude to the Mayor, Cllr. James Nxumalo for his presence. Both players and spectators alike were excited to witness the Mayor playing chess and interacting with the children. The Mayor’s speech was encouraging and carried a message of wisdom. We also thank the Ethekwini Municipality for opening doors for chess at the City Hall. After the tournament, the Natal Trial Singers – Iscathamiya group – entertained us with their moves on stage and sweet African sounds.

The organising team Andisiwe Silangwe, Dumile Mbuthuma and Sandile Xulu with the Mayor

Our appreciation must also go to SAB as one of our sponsors, their contribution and campaign message which says “No to Under Age Drinking” was indeed well projected. Thanks to Sakhisizwe Legacy Society and all our other sponsors – KZN Chess Association, SmartMoves Project and Caring for the Earth Org for their contributions to this event.

Here are the final results.

KZN Top Schools results

The 2015 KZN Top Schools Team Championship was held at the Old Mutual Sports Centre (UKZN) in Durban, from Saturday 12th to Sunday 13th September 2015. Thank you to the Department of Sport & Recreation for sponsoring such a successful event.

Some photos from the team championships follow:

Here are the results and the winners for the following sections:
under 13 girls - Ilembe;
under 13 open - Ilembe;
under 15 girls - Ilembe;
under 15 open - Pinetown;
under 18 girls - Ilembe;
under 18 open - Umlazi.