Lidums Australian Open Chess Championship Mount Buller Dec'04 - Jan'05

Visiting Italian WGM Elena Sedina has won the Australian Open Chess Championship, 2005.

Needing a win in the final round to be certain of holding off GMs Kengis and Hecht Elena took a short (16 move) draw with IM Carlo D'Amore and had a nerve-wracking wait for the other games to finish.
Playing with the white pieces, Darryl Johansen's pawn on a7 proved to be too powerful for Edvins Kengis but Hans Joachim Hecht fought hard for the win before, a pawn down, he settled for a draw with IM Ennio Arlandi on move 92.

Final standings:
Sedina 8.5
Hecht, D'Amore, Johansen, 8.0
Kengis, Arlandi, Dragicevic, Jordan, Pecori 7.5

This has been an exciting event from start to finish and our congratulations go to Elena, the first woman to win an Australian Open.

Following is a round-by-round report on the event.

As expected, there weren't many upsets in Round 1 when the top half of the field played the bottom. It was interesting to see strong players make unnecessary blunders they wouldn't have considered against lesser opponents and I haven't included many games for that reason. You can find them on the Mt Buller site if you want to play through them yourself. One particularly interesting game was Angela Song's valiant struggle against GM Hans Joachim Hecht, but the biggest upsets of the round were Rengan Vijayakumar's (1239) win against Max Illingworth (1839) and Damien Arkins' (1435) defeat of Richard Voon (1908).

The grandmasters got to strut their stuff in Round 2, and their winning styles couldn't have been less alike. Edvins Kengis didn't have to do anything fancy, he just pinched the odd pawn here and there from Dusan Stojic till resistance would have been useless.   With both kings exposed, Matthew Sonter seemed to be enjoying his tactical exchange with Darryl Johansen till a zwischenzug (Bxc7+) spoiled the fun with a threatened mate in 2.   Hans Joachim Hecht and Matthew Pyke enjoyed material equality (only a pawn and a piece had been exchanged) but Hecht's total domination of space ended the game in 22 moves.

In Sydney a demolition company owns the personalised car number plate KEB00M. It could just as reasonably belong to Jason Hu who did an amazing demolition job on David Smerdon in Round 3. Jason didn't seem to notice the 558 rating points between them and David was left, uncharacteristically, with no options.

Maybe it was asking for trouble, but Bill Jordan opted for the Italian Game against IM Carlo D'Amore in Round 4. D'Amore must have loved it. He quickly equalised, won a pawn, then tied Bill's pieces to the back rank. In the same round there was an interesting end-game tussle between Silas Frank from Victoria and Raymond Song. Personally I don't believe Raymond is only 10 years old. I think he's a 25-year-old IM with short legs. Somebody else who's looking like an IM in the making (up from his present FM) is George Xie but even he got into trouble in this round. Edvins Kengis managed to pinch a piece from under Her Majesty's nose when George overlooked a knight fork if he re-captured.

(The Rapid-Play Championship was held over the weekend (between rounds 4 and 5) and joint winners were GMs Darryl Johansen and Edvins Kengis with 7 points each. Two play-offs were needed to decide the title. The first was drawn; the second went to GM Kengis who is the 2005 Australian Rapid Champion. Sally Hu (rating 1044) was the only female competitor and with just one draw from seven rounds was declared the 2005 Australian Women's Rapid Champion.)

Ralph Jackson had a taste of Italian cooking in Round 5 when Elena Sedina turned his position into pasta. She sacrificed her white-square bishop on move 12 (Ralph declined), her black-square bishop on move 14 (he couldn't say No) and forced his resignation on move 18. GM Hecht must be wondering what sort of kids we've got in Oz. First he was held to a pawn after 60 moves by 12 year-old Angela Song in Round 1 then was forced to play for the draw against Angela's younger brother, Raymond, in this round. And they look like such innocent little kids, too!

Round 6 saw Ennio Arlandi and Igor Bjelobrk locked in an 85 move marathon in which Arlandi's bishop and two-pawn advantage proved too much for Bjelobrk's knight. By contrast check out the 25-move draw Elena Sedina perpetrated on Darryl Johansen. She sacrificed a knight on move 20, a rook on 21, and forced a perpetual check. And you thought draws were boring...

Another set of interesting draws can be enjoyed in Round 7. In the first, Arlandi queened a pawn, forcing Johansen to give up a bishop but he was unable to save his last pawn from Darryl's hungry king. George Xie, the exchange down against D'Amore camped in front of Carlo's last pawn and refused to budge, and Kengis came back from a two-pawn deficit against Igor Bjelobrk. But if the draws were interesting some of the wins were brilliant. Sedina's bishop locked the stable door before Domagoj Dragicevic's horse could escape and Domagoj resigned ahead of the approaching zugzwang. David Smerdon went into the demolition business himself in this round and Matthew Sonter had no answer to his Centre Counter. It was an exciting game but no more so than the Evans Gambit Aaron Guthrie used to beat Tony Truscott.

Round 8 and Elena Sedina made the Slav Defence look easy when she defeated compatriot Ennio Arlandi with the black pieces on board 1. Igor Bjelobrk surprised Aaron Guthrie with a pretty mate that materialised out of the complications, and George Xie was again the exchange down but his b pawn cast a long shadow (to quote Riley Driver) in his victory over Tomek Rej.

Carlo D'Amore's doubled rooks on the seventh were enough to win a piece and eventually two pawns against Igor Bjelobrk in their exciting Round 9 game. Bill Jordan. sacrificed a piece to queen a pawn but Edvins Kengis had the choice of either bishop or knight fork to stop it. And a rook down in his game against Ilia Zvedeniouk, Jason Chan offered his queen as well. Ilia wisely pushed a pawn and avoided the threatened stalemate.

Click on the link in the box at left of screen to view the games.

Immediately below this report is a list of competitors with their ratings and association, Below that is the final score table.

Visit the Mt. Buller web site. Click here.

            -- Report: David Evans