The 2014 JZ Chess event took place in Nkandla on 19th December 2014 on a blazing hot day. I was quite interested to see that the presidential security team were at the venue before the arbiters! About 9 am everybody had to leave the venue so that the bomb sniffer dogs could check the marquee. We then re-entered through a SAPS security checkpoint, everybody went through a metal detector and bags were X-rayed. The playing venue was a large marquee on the sports field, where all the chess boards were set up. It took a while to get power sorted out from a mobile generator and get all the players names entered onto the pairings computer. Lots of players entered the open section on the day and extra boards had to be set up in the marquee. We had about 140 players in the open section and another 120 players in the junior teams event, which filled the marquee to capacity.
We played 4 rounds at a leisurely pace in the junior teams event, and it quickly became apparent that the hosts from Nkandla had fielded a very strong team. They won all their matches, scoring 34.5 points out of a possible 40, a full 10 game points ahead of everybody else!
The open section was running a little bit behind schedule, and we had to play round 5 at blitz speed in view of the imminent arrival of President Zuma. At about 4 pm a massive storm hit Nkandla and I don't know how the players managed to play their round 5 games, as it was so dark in the marquee. The arbiters table was near the door and got flooded, so we had to add up the top placed finishers on a manual basis! The organisers then provided some flood lights so that we could see the prize giving and the presidential speech, which took place around 5 pm. I believe it was shown on TV by the SABC later that evening.
After successfully drying off all the equipment, I have compiled the results, which were as follows:
JZ Chess Open 2014 results
JZ Junior Team Challenge results
