By Moulthun Ly
The Gold Coast Open for this year, brought in one of the highest turnouts ever in the event with over 50 players entered into the open division. It's always great to play this event each year, since its right after the end of semester. Also I've surprising missed out on playing this on numerous occasions before, which involved our earlier trips. Looking through the list of players, I noticed a lot of strong 2200-2300 players which would make life extremely difficult, in a small 6 round fide event.
Many of whom comprised of our Olympiad team, which I very much look forward to playing along side. I managed to hold comfortable advantages in my first two rounds and converted
Next up was a game I looked forward to, being on the black side against GM Zong-Yuan Zhao. Although it came in round 4 when both were tired and ready to call it quits. Still we played, and white solidly held some advantage with the positional pawn sacrifice e5! Although some later inaccuracy allowed black to equalize and consolidate the position and with no active plan for either a draw was quickly agreed.
The first game the following day, was against Max Illingworth. Where like Ian Rogers pointed out "was the most boring game in the entire tournament" but i would go as far to say in my life. Although the only one to blame for this is me, who "initiated" the eye-rolling exchanges after missing a very simple move from black to equalize. Well this meant I had no choice but to go into the last round with all guns blazing. Of all the people to get in the final round was Andrew, who had been on a roll for over 10 games straight. After a bad opening line, I found myself in unknown territory. However a somewhat unprovoked exchange by White giving up his bishop gave me breathing room. The 2 bishops quickly showed their worth and went on to win a long difficult rook endgame.
This left Zong-Yuan clear and deserving winner on 5.5/6 and myself closely behind on 5 level with several other players. It seems it ended abruptly, a few more rounds would have made things quite interesting indeed. The results can be seen on http://www.chess-results.com/tnr75787.aspx?lan=1
The Gold Coast Open for this year, brought in one of the highest turnouts ever in the event with over 50 players entered into the open division. It's always great to play this event each year, since its right after the end of semester. Also I've surprising missed out on playing this on numerous occasions before, which involved our earlier trips. Looking through the list of players, I noticed a lot of strong 2200-2300 players which would make life extremely difficult, in a small 6 round fide event.
Many of whom comprised of our Olympiad team, which I very much look forward to playing along side. I managed to hold comfortable advantages in my first two rounds and converted
Next up was a game I looked forward to, being on the black side against GM Zong-Yuan Zhao. Although it came in round 4 when both were tired and ready to call it quits. Still we played, and white solidly held some advantage with the positional pawn sacrifice e5! Although some later inaccuracy allowed black to equalize and consolidate the position and with no active plan for either a draw was quickly agreed.
The first game the following day, was against Max Illingworth. Where like Ian Rogers pointed out "was the most boring game in the entire tournament" but i would go as far to say in my life. Although the only one to blame for this is me, who "initiated" the eye-rolling exchanges after missing a very simple move from black to equalize. Well this meant I had no choice but to go into the last round with all guns blazing. Of all the people to get in the final round was Andrew, who had been on a roll for over 10 games straight. After a bad opening line, I found myself in unknown territory. However a somewhat unprovoked exchange by White giving up his bishop gave me breathing room. The 2 bishops quickly showed their worth and went on to win a long difficult rook endgame.
This left Zong-Yuan clear and deserving winner on 5.5/6 and myself closely behind on 5 level with several other players. It seems it ended abruptly, a few more rounds would have made things quite interesting indeed. The results can be seen on http://www.chess-results.com/tnr75787.aspx?lan=1
Congrats on your strong performance.
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