AusJCL Application Procedure for Selection for 2012 International events

Following on from my previous blogpost (see here), please note that junior chess players intending to play as a member of the Australian U16 team(s) for the World Youth Chess Olympiad U16 2012 will have to submit an application via the AusJCL website. This requirement applies for all current members of the AusJCL WYCO U16 Training Squads.

AusJCL and 2012 Putra-Johns JETS_Call for Applications

Updated (11.02.2012) list of applicants for AusJCL 2012 Putra-Johns JETS:

Applicants (in no particular order)

Jack Puccini
Michael Kethro
Ege Girgin
Amelia Mendes
Martin Jack
Glen Qi
Tom Slater-Jones
Qi Le Kong-Lim
Jason Chew
Regan Crowley
Tristan Krstevski
Alex MacAdam
Vishal Bhat
Emily Lin
George Carolin-Unkovich
ZhiLin Guo
ZhiXin Guo
Max Chew Lee
Alanna Chew Lee
Ethan Derwent
Matthew Pyper
David Cannon
Kris Chan
Luis Chan
Kevin Song
Bazli Karattiyattil

AusJCL and 2012 Putra-Johns JETS_Call for Applications

Just a quick update and clarification before GM Ian Rogers and/or myself gets inundated with emails querying the list of names.

GM Ian Rogers has a backlog of email applications yet to be forwarded to me and also applications by post which he will endeavour to forward to me via some means. He and Cathy are overseas at the moment.

AusJCL and 2012 Putra-Johns JETS_Call for Applications

This is the list of applications for 2012 AusJCL Putra-Johns JETS to date. If you have submitted an application and your name does not appear, please contact either GM Ian Rogers or myself.

Applicants (in no particular order)

Jack Puccini
Michael Kethro
Ege Girgin
Amelia Mendes
Martin Jack
Glen Qi
Tom Slater-Jones

News on Australian Juniors

I have been mildly chastised sometime back to blog more on Australian junior results. Well I found a better way. Let me refer you to the AusJCL President Dr Charles Zworestine's excellent report on the juniors at the recent 2011-2012 Australian Championships in Geelong, Victoria (see here for unofficial fiunal standings or here for official results).

Juniors Star in Geelong!

A report on juniors in the 2012 Aus Champs/Reserves by Charles Zworestine

It was the youngest Australian Championships in history – but there were only 9 players still classed as juniors (Under 18) in a 30 player field in the 2012 Australian Championships. Many more played the Reserves, the Under 2150 supporting event that attracted a total of 76 players. Of these, 21 were juniors – although one (Joshua Bishop) turned 18 during the event. How did they all fare? You probably already know that GM Darryl Johansen struck a blow for the oldies with a surprise win in the Championships; but who were the leading juniors, and did they wreak the usual havoc or were they somewhat put in their place by the older generation?

Well, leading the way was Justin Tan, whose 6/11 featured an early draw (in Round 3) with Stephen Solomon from a position of strength. He also drew with IM Khamparia and fellow junior IM James Morris. Khamparia ran out of pawns to complement his extra piece; while Justin and James swapped into an even rook endgame. A good finish then saw Justin draw with Junta Ikeda in Round 10 from a pawn plus, and defeat the higher rated Andrew Bird in Round 11 via aggressive pieces winning an exchange. Well done Justin – he is certainly going places...

Just half a point behind Justin on 5.5/11 were four juniors, ranging from the already established Bobby Cheng and James Morris to the 2011 Arlauskas medal winner Yi Liu and 10 year old Anton Smirnov. Bobby’s best win was against Khamparia in Round 4, winning a piece cold early on to leave him on 3/4; sadly the rest of the event was a bit of a struggle for Bobby, who drew his individual game with James in Round 9 in a balanced, hard fought battle that ended in a drawn queen ending. By then James had also frittered away a good start where he beat Khamparia in Round 2, powering his way through complications to emerge a pawn up and win a rook and opposite coloured bishop ending; then drawing a game where he had a rook and three extra pawns for Vlad Smirnov’s bishop and missed clear winning chances in Round 4. Apart from that, his best result was hanging on to draw with Moulthun Ly in Round 5 despite his weak pawns. Yi began with a typical upset, beating Bobby in Round 1 in a knight vs bishop ending a pawn up; his other good result was using aggressive pieces and two beautiful bishops to engineer a neat finish and upset James Morris in Round 8. As for Anton, he beat Bill Jordan in Round 4, winning an ending with extra pawns; displayed great fight to draw a rook ending a pawn down against Mike Steadman in Round 7; and finished well with draws against Wallis and Dragicevic.

Next on the junior list in the Champs was Gene Nakauchi; his 5/11 featured a recovery from a poor start, and a fighting draw with Chris Wallis in Round 8. Scoring 4/11 was bottom seed Karl Zelesco, a very creditable display that featured a recovery from 0/4 and an excellent last round attacking win against Mike Steadman (see game below). Beginning very well was Laurence Matheson, who drew with Darryl Johansen and Domagoj Dragicevic in his first two games but then struggled to finish on 3.5/11. At least he took half a point off the tournament winner... Bringing up the rear was Pengyu Chen, who was a little unlucky to finish last after several promising positions ended with him drawing five games and losing the rest to end up on 2.5/11.

Zelesco, Karl - Steadman, Michael, 2012 Aus Champs Round 11, Board 12 08/01/2012
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 dxe5 5.Nxe5 a6 6.g3 Qc7 7.d4 cxd4 8.Qxd4 Nc6 9.Nxc6 Qxc6 10.Bg5 h6 11.0–0–0 Bg4 12.Bxf6 Bxd1 13.Bg2 Qxg2 14.Nd5 0–0–0 15.Nb6+ Kc7 16.Be5+ Rd6 17.Rxd1 Qc6 18.Nc4 f6 19.Bxd6+ exd6 20.Ne3 h5 21.Nd5+ Kd8 22.Nf4 Kd7 23.Re1 Kc7 24.Ng6 Rg8 25.Qe3 d5 26.Nxf8 1–0


To the Reserves now, where the outstanding performance was definitely that of second placegetter Ari Dale on 8.5/11 (just half a point behind tournament winner Justin Penrose). There were no great expectations for Ari when he began with 4.5/7; but he won his last four games in a row, including superb upset attacking wins against Wenlin Yin and Frank Lekkas in the last two rounds (see game below). Narrowly behind Ari was Kinto Wan, whose 7.5/11 featured draws with Wenlin and Allen Setiabudi and a win against Michael Addamo. Then came five juniors on 6.5/11: Michael Addamo, Matthew Bennett, Max Chew Lee, Zachary Loh and Wenlin Yin. Michael, the highest rated of the five, struggled early but won his last three games; while Matthew drew with Ari, Kerry Stead from a won position and Sam Dalton. Max began brilliantly, with a desperate fighting Round 1 draw with Ari followed by a draw with Stead and wins against Omar Khaled, veteran Richard Lilly, Allen Setiabudi and Sam Dalton. Zachary warmed up well for the Australian Juniors with draws with Michael Sugrue and Ari and a last round win against Ben Ingram; and Wenlin was right up there on an undefeated 5.5/7 after beating Sam Dalton, but sadly lost three out of his last four despite beating John Dowling.

Lekkas, Frank - Dale, Ari, 2012 Aus Reserves Round 11, Board 2 08/01/2012
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 dxc4 7.d5 Ne5 8.Qd4 h6 9.Qxe5 hxg5 10.0–0–0 Bd7 11.Bxc4 Qb6 12.f3 Qc5 13.Bb3 g6 14.Kb1 Bf5+ 15.Ka1 Bg7 16.Ba4+ Kf8 17.Qe1 b5 18.Nxb5 Rb8 19.Rc1 Qxd5 20.g4 Be6 21.Nc3 Qa5 22.Qg3 Rb4 23.Nge2 Nd5 24.h4 Nxc3 25.bxc3 Qxa4 0–1

A good score of 6/11 could have been even better for Kyle Gibson and Joshua Bishop; especially Kyle, who beat the higher rated Nigel Barrow, Dennis Wan and Zachary before losing his last two. Josh went largely according to rating, but lost any chance of a better score when he lost to Ian Rout in Round 10. Reaching 50% were Megan Setiabudi and Leteisha Simmonds, the former starting especially well with a draws from positions of strength against Kerry Stead and Nigel Barrow and wins against Rad Chmiel and Johan Visser. Draws with Kinto Wan, Ian Rout and Zachary followed; while Leteisha’s best results were draws with the higher rated Antoniazzi and Dennis Wan. On 5 points were Jason Chew (draws with Colin McKenzie, Buciu and Skeltys), Jack Puccini (drew with Skeltys and Antoniazzi, beat McKenzie) and 8 year old Kevin Willathgamuwa (drew with Peter Fry, Patrick Cook and Zoran Babic). Then came Martin Jack 4.5/11 (drew with Lilly); Alanna Chew Lee, Finley Dale and Rowan Willathgamuwa (drew with Cook) 3.5/11; Thomas Ebeyan 3/11 (drew with Fry); Thumula Gamage 2.5/11; and Amelia Mendes 2/11 (drew with Mary Wilkie, more than 1000 points higher rated than her!). Phew – what a good effort by all the juniors!

The report was originally published in the AusJCL bulletin which is edited by the excellent Simon Dale.

If you are interested in subscribing to the bulletin, here is a message from Simon:

To subscribe to this FREE bulletin please send an email to the bulletin editor, Simon Dale (scd@thecrag.com), titled 'AusJCL bulletin subscription request' OR subscribe directly to the AusJCL Google Group:
http://groups.google.com/group/ausjcl

Please note that Google Groups do not allow me to add you directly, so I have to invite you to be part of the group, whereby an invitation email will be sent to you which you must accept before you become part of the group.

OR you can read it on the AusJCL website (here) when it is published there.