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.

New tournaments

There were several new events announced in September:

1) The 2017 Ethekwini Chess League started on 3rd September and should finish by the end of October. No fewer than 25 teams entered the league, with defending champions Umhlanga Chess Club being the top seeds. Each team has to have 6 players for each match. The league is happening once a week on Sundays at the Open Air School in Glenwood, and the tournament can be followed on chess-results.com (tnr300689).

2) The uShaka Marine World sponsored a doubles tournament on 16th September. I don't have any photos or results from this event, but here is a copy of their flyer:

3) On 23rd September, the Zululand district is hosting their annual open tournament in Vryheid. It will be a full day of 7 rounds of rapid chess, played at the NRS Primary School in Vryheid. For more information, here is the tournament brochure, which has contact details for the organisers, Nathi Masuku and Eugene Barnard.

4) Ethekwini is holding its Heritage Day Open on 23rd and 24th September. This will be a 60/60 rated Swiss held over 6 rounds, the venue being the Open Air School in Glenwood. For more information, here is the tournament brochure, which has contact details for the organisers, Ayanda Gumede and Mbongeni Sithole.

5) The Ethekwini Youth championships are to be held from 3rd to 5th October, at the Open Air School in Glenwood. This will be a 90/90 rated Swiss held over 7 rounds, for invited players only. Here is a tournament brochure which has more information.

6) An Inter District team championship is planned for the weekend 29th September to 1st October. It will be similar to that held in June 2016 at Coastlands, with teams selected by each of the 11 districts in KZN. The event is being organised by KZN Chess Association, and I will publish team lists and match results on chess-results.com.

Ethekwini Youth Squad

The Ethekwini Youth selectors met recently, and have announced the squads for the annual South African Junior Team championships, to be held in January 2018 at Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre near Johannesburg. Here are the squads (names in alphabetical order). All these players are requested to attend a training workshop on Sunday 20th August, from 9 am to 1 pm (at Open Air School).

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.

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.

ECA Youth Trials July

Ethekwini Chess Association has just released the entry form for its second Youth Trials of 2017. This event will be held at Gordon Road Girls School from 3rd to 5th July 2017. It will consist of a seven round Swiss for each age group, with time control of 90 minutes per player per game. For more information please contact Ayanda Gumede (076 285 0020).

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

Chess and maths

It is well known that world champions Emmanuel Lasker and Max Euwe were also mathematicians, but I was quite surprised to realise that I have played chess against five professors of mathematics, namely Peter Dankelmann, John van den Berg and his father Johan, Michael Henning and Max Euwe. I don't believe I have played any other professors! I have also played against a number of actuaries, who are also very good at maths. Is there a connection between chess and maths? Both are based on problem solving. Chess players make extensive use of logic and pattern recognition skills, as do mathematicians. I think this is the reason that playing chess appeals to many mathematicians.

There is a school of thought that says that teaching chess to children is a good thing, as it also teaches them skills that can be used in other fields, such as mathematics.

In Ms Msomi's classroom at Kati Primary, Mandlazini Village, near Richards Bay

"Master Moves Kids" provides chess lessons that are linked into the school syllabus. It is supported by donations from many of South Africa's biggest companies. In the picture above, the pupils are learning about files by placing coloured stickers on a chess board. They are also learning about chess notation, number sizes, bar charts and co-ordinates at the same time!

There are lots of possibilities to learn whilst also having fun with chess. Take for example the piece values. When we exchange pieces, you have to add up how much each piece is worth and then say which is greater. Do we win or lose if we trade two minor pieces for a Rook? One final example, how do you move a Rook from a1, so that it touches every square on the board only once? My immediate reaction was the lawn mower method, but there is another, more elegant, solution. Think about it!

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.

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.

Queen of Katwe

I recently attended a special screening of the movie "Queen of Katwe" together with a group of young chess enthusiasts from the INK (Inanda, Ntuzuma, Kwa-Mashu) areas. This screening was sponsored by Durban Metro Chess Academy, an organisation that promotes chess in the townships. DMCA was set up many years ago by Bongani Mgaga, a leading chess player in the Ethekwini region. Thanks must also go to Desmond Rooplal, chairman of the Durban Chess Club, who raised most of the funds for the movie tickets for the children.

The Disney movie is based upon the true story of Phiona Mutesi, a young female chess player from the Katwe slums of Uganda. The movie trailer on YouTube and this movie review from the Cape Times will give you a good idea of what to expect from the movie.

You can't get much worse off than being in the slums of Katwe, so it is a remarkable story. Phiona starts off playing chess to get a free mug of porridge, then finds that she is actually very good at the game. After several months her coach, Robert Katende, scrapes together the entry fees and she wins her first schools tournament, at a very posh school in Kampala. The contrast between the school and the slum is stark. I was a little puzzled that Phiona had a pen and notation sheet at her board, as she was illiterate at that time. Some time later, having been taught to read by Katende's wife, she starts reading Kasparov's "Test of Time" by the light of a paraffin lamp.

Quite how Phiona goes on to represent Uganda at a youth tournament in Sudan, and subsequently at the FIDE World Chess Olympiad in Russia, is never really explained. As many chess parents can tell you, competing overseas is extremely expensive, so where did the money come from? Was there a private donor involved, or did the Ugandan government provide funding? Also not mentioned in the film is that Phiona met her chess hero, Garry Kasparov, at a 2013 seminar in New York.

cover of "Queen of Katwe", published in 2013

As a chess player, I like to check that any chess boards are set up correctly (they were) and that any positions shown are realistic. This movie passed with flying colours, with a smothered mate, a pawn promotion combination and several moves of a Queens Gambit recognisable. Even the parts of the game between Phiona and her Canadian opponent at the Chess Olympiad matched the positions in my chess database. Well done to Robert Katende, who was the chess consultant on this movie.

The movie was well received by the children, who laughed at some of the situations Phiona found herself in. Perhaps they had been in or had seen similar situations in the townships of Ethekwini? Hopefully this movie will inspire them in their future.

LSEN tournament

The Open Air School in Durban recently hosted an LSEN (Learners with Special Educational Needs) chess tournament. The event was sponsored by the KZN Chess Academy and by Dr Abdul Ballim. Below is a cutting from our local newspaper, the Berea Mail:

The tournament was won by Dylan Thaver, who will lead an LSEN team from the eThekwini region to the National youth team chess championships being held in December. This is believed to be the first time that an LSEN team will play in the National team championships.

Dylan Thaver being congratulated by Mbongeni Sithole

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.

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.

2nd Ethekwini trials

These are scheduled to take place from the 6th to 8th August 2016. There will be 7 rounds played at 90 minutes per player per game. Further details are contained in the entry form.

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.