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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Ethekwini Open entry

The Ethekwini Chess Association will be holding the annual Ethekwini Open on the weekend of 3rd/4th September 2016 at the Open Air School in Durban. Further details are in the entry form.

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.