KZN open turns 50

The Durban Chess Club started organising the annual Natal Open swiss in 1967. The event was renamed as the KZN Open from 1994 onwards. A history of the competition and its winners can be found on the Durban Chess Club website. Over the years it has been won by five South African champions - David Walker, Frank Korostenski, Mark Rubery, Charles de Villiers and Daniel Cawdery - as well as GM Amon Simutowe and IM's Craig Pritchett, George Michelakis and Johannes Mabusela. My name first appears on the list of winners in 1977, a long time ago - nowadays I am the chief arbiter! This year the event will be hosted at Northlands Senior Primary School in Durban North, from the 30th April to the 2nd May. To enter the tournament, here is a link to the online entry form, or you can download an entry form (pdf).

Junior Closed, Bloemfontein

The annual SA Junior Closed Chess Championships took place at Eunice Girls High School in Bloemfontein this year. Their main hall was used for the older players, from under 14 to under 20, with an adjacent hall used for the younger players. I was present as the deputy chief arbiter and was responsible for the main hall, where the players behaved so well that the arbiters had little to do!

I even had time to watch some of the games ...

The event was well organised by Chess Free State, who found accommodation for their numerous visitors at the Wag n Bietjie hostel on the UVS campus. I traveled there with fellow arbiter Divesh Sookdeo and KZN coach Sayen Naidu on the 19th March and we returned to Durban on the 27th.

KZN was quite successful at the event. Prizes were given to:

Kaedan Govender - tied 2nd in under 8 boys with 8/11 (no photo).

Archana Datharam (on left) tied 2nd in under 8 girls with 8/11.

Her sister Aarti Datharam dominated the u10 girls, with 10 wins and a draw.

Charlotte Millard (on left) was 3rd in the under 10 girls.

Jaedon Naidu - tied 3rd in under 12 boys with 7/11 (no photo).

Our most successful age group was the under 14 boys, where Cailin Chetty won gold with 9/11, just half-a-point ahead of his rival Naseem Essa.

Naseem was leading until disaster struck on Thursday

The final KZN medallist came in the under 20 boys section, where Nashlen Govindasamy tied 1st with Roland Bezuidenhout on 9.5 points. Bezuidenhout won the gold on tiebreak.

Our top u20 player Nashlen Govindasamy

Games played on the top 10 boards for all the different age groups were captured and published on the chess-results.com website. However, the capturers gave up very quickly when they couldn't read the score sheets eg. Nashlen's score sheets seemed to give them a lot of trouble! I visited the games capturing room and was able to capture all the moves of every game played in the under 20 boys section for the first 10 rounds. I was not able to check the last round as I was busy with the play-offs. Anyway, here is a PGN file of all the games from the u20 boys section.

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.

Junior Closed information

The organisers of the SA Junior Closed in Bloemfontein at the end of March have just published their 1st circular for the 2016 SAJCCC. More details on the tournament rules and a list of invited players can be found on the SAJCCC 2016 website which is now live.

All KZN players going to the Junior Closed are asked to contact Divesh Sookdeo who is our regional representative. He is responsible for player registration and needs to know if players are staying at the hostel, and if any player has a disability. The deadline to register is 20th February, so players need to contact Divesh by the 19th February.

iLembe's golden girls

As previously reported, the under 15 girls team from Khayalemfundo School in Mandeni were crowned as Top Schools chess champions in Pretoria in December 2015.

Their story has now been published in the Stanger Weekly newspaper of 10th February 2016: "On Friday (5th February 2016), officials of the iLembe Department of Education, KwaZulu-Natal Chess Association and the Department of Sport and Recreation paid an unannounced visit to the school to congratulate the pupils on their outstanding achievement."

 President of KwaZulu-Natal Chess Association, Sandile Xulu, heaped praise upon the school chess coach, Siyabonga Gumede, and the girls on their outstanding feat. He also presented each of the seven girls with a chess set and a chess clock. Click on this link for the full article on news24.

Games from Cape Town

The SA Junior national team championships and wild card events took place from 4th to 10th January 2016. The organisers published PGN files of games for 21 selected events (7 team, 14 wild card) on the Chess-Results.com website.

Most of the games from the A section of the teams event were in the 7 PGN files that I collected. Where a game was missing, I have added in a blank game header with the published result. Note that the under 20 A section was played on DGT boards and these games were broadcast live on the Tshwane chess website and can be downloaded from there. My file contains the scores from the DGT file where these differed from those on the Chess-Results website.

Here is my PGN file for A sections of team event (1736 games/results).

For the wild card events, the organisers published 14 PGN files, basically the top 10 boards of each age group. There were numerous missing or unreadable scores. Where a game was missing, I have added in a blank game header with the published result. I have also added in all results for the top players who were selected for the forthcoming Junior Closed in March.

Here is my edited PGN file for all 14 wild card events (1136 games/results).

Kenny Solomon masterclass

Just over a year ago Kenny Solomon became South Africa's first grandmaster, by winning the African individual chess championship held in Windhoek. Kenny currently lives in Venice and plays in a lot of open tournaments in Europe. He is a regular at the Gibraltar Masters open and was this year invited to do a video presentation on two of his best games, followed by answering questions about chess in South Africa. The video, titled Masterclass GM Kenny Solomon, is about 70 minutes long, and gives a fascinating look at his chess philosophy and his love for the game. I highly recommend this video!

SA Inter Region champs

The South African Inter Regional team championships were held at the Sports Hall on the upper campus of the University of Cape Town, from 8th to 10th January 2016. This was at the same time and the same venue as the Junior Wild Card championships. A strong field of 21 teams of 4 players (plus optional reserve) entered the event. Among those playing were new SA champion, IM Daniel Cawdery, 3-times SA champions FM Nicholas van der Nat and IM Watu Kobese, FM Donovan van den Heever and IM Johannes Mabusela.

We travelled to the upper campus of UCT many times from the student residences
on the lower campus. Devils Peak and Rhodes memorial are in the background.

The championships turned into a two-horse race between Tshwane A and Western Province A. With both teams scoring 22 game points, the title went to Tshwane on match points.

Sadly, KZN could only find 3 players willing to take part in this event, namely Joseph Mwale, Lulama Qobo and Sachen Pather. They borrowed 2 Cape Town based players to make up an "Ethekwini" team. Joseph defeated the formidable Watu Kobese in 80 moves in a sensational first round upset, and he went on to win the board prize with his score of 5 out of 5 on board 1.

The top boards were broadcast live on the Tshwane Chess website and I found some other games on Facebook. After adding in the board numbers and ratings, here is a PGN file of all the games from this event (results given where game scores could not be found).