After a long summer holiday we finally started our first rounds of the competition.
In the Beginners/Intermediate Group Ritvik, Seth and Noah proceeded as they ended the previous season: in great form, winning both of their games.
Wo Hang started off well with a win against Suneh but lost against Ritvik in round 2. Suneh, on the other hand recovered in round 2 from his first round loss by winning in the longest game of the day against Arjun, one of our new members who had won his first round game against Maximilien. Maximilien in the second round regained ground by winning from Arjun’s brother, Gobind, another new member. Earlier in the first round Hop Hang, another new member, had tricked Gobind into opening up his black king side which was exploited by the white queen coming in and checkmating the black king from nearby. But the second round Hop Hang stumbled against Noah who, as mentioned earlier, had won both games.
Many more thing happened on the 10 boards in this group over a timespan of just 90 minutes and it will surely be an interesting competition moving forward as other new players, like Ada and Nathan who tried their first competition game ever, drawing against each other, will gain more experience.
Beginners/Intermediate Group Standing after 2 Rounds
In the Advanced Group newly promoted Joshua did well against Bryant in a fast game with a big trick. Koji impressed by consistently winning 3 games in a row. The most spectacular game was probably that between Miguel Angel and James N who threw in an interesting 2 pawn sacrifice in a bishop end game against Miguel Angel which forced a stalemate.
Miguel Angel with white captures the pawn on a3 and after James N promotes on c1 Miguel Angel has to take the queen on c1 stalemating black … if only he seen g4+ …
Although Koji is the man to beat now, all players will gradually gain back their form – it is a long way to the end. Exciting!
Advanced Group Ranking after 3 Rounds
