Wednesday 24 September 2014

World Youth - at the half-way mark

So far we have completed 6 of the 11 rounds, with today being a welcome rest day for the players and officials. At the half-way mark, our leading KZN player is Shivar Gopaulsingh (from Chatsworth) who is playing in the under 14 boys section. Shivar reached 3.5 points from 6 games with a win over Endre Machlik, rated 1902 (from Norway). In the Durban GM open, being held alongside the World Youth championships, we have 5 players on 3 out of 6, namely Qobo, Subke, Xulu, Moodley and Zuma. I will give some photos and games from the boys under 14 section, where I am an arbiter.

Birds eye view of boards 11 to 49 in the under 14 boys section
Kevin Schroeder (2250) from Germany, he lost this Bishop ending
 in round 6 vs his Lithuanian opponent Paulus Pultinevicius (2026)
but won this position with the White pieces in round 4. Black is forced to play
42... Kb6 after which 43. Qd8+ Kc5 44. Qc8+ clinched the game (of course,
he saw the simple trap 43. Rb2 "winning the Queen" is met by Qxb2+ here)
Paulius Pultinevicius of Lithuania, successful vs Schroeder, but this
photo is from his loss against Aram Hakobyan (Armenia) in round 4


Adham Fawzy (2119) from Egypt had a 70-move battle versus fellow Egyptian
Adham Kandil (1927) in round 6, with Kandil winning in the end
Top seed Roven Vogel (2434) from Germany has been battling to beat his lower rated opponents
Carlos Dias (deputy chief arbiter) and Giuseppe Buonocore (section arbiter, boys under 14)
meet about a defective clock, Salikh Ayupov (1489) from Kazakhstan just ignores them
To end off this report, here is an exciting game from round 6: