The Friendly Club!
The St George Chess Club prides itself on a diverse membership with a range of chess abilities. We foster a social atmosphere for players of all ages and abilities.
The club runs regular internal club competitions and participates in interclub tournaments. More information about the activities can be found from the calendar.
Club Games: 7:30pm Tuesday nights, Prince Edward Rooms, St George Leagues Club, 124 Princes Highway, Kogarah NSW
News
Round 4 of the 2024 Club Champs
Khishigbataar Bayasgalan, fresh from finishing as the top-scoring female in the Doeberl Cup, had her third win of the tournament, and maintains her Division One lead with 3.5/4. Close behind is John-Stuart Plant on 3, and Jeremy Plunkett has moved up to sole third on 2.5.
Division Two has three club veterans all in the lead on 3/4: Graham Saint, Michael Babic and Brian Allison. Ted Power still has chances, sitting half a point behind. In Division 3, Ramu Srinirasa now leads on 3/4, with Ghassan Beydoun on 2.5, and Volkan Soker a further half-point back. Division Four is the closest fought of all, with the leader, Sam Sharkawy only on 2.5, and then four players behind him on 2: Ashton Li, Robert Fenton-Lee, Kevin Liu and Darren Curtis. In contrast, Division 5 Five sees the biggest lead of all: Huey Teng, with the only perfect score of the tourney (4/4), leads Peter Swinton on 2.5, with Ralph Mitchell, Aaron Hu and Nihal Scammell all equal on 2. Stephen Manwarring and Ken Eldridge drew in Round 4, and thus became co-leaders of Division 6 (3.5/4), with Ethan Currie on 3 and Samuel Slingo on 2. It’s most youth in Division 7, with young Zach Lee leading the pack on 3.5; being him are Robert Roszkowski and Dimitrios Gourlas on 3 and Anujin Soo on 2.5.
Australia’s Biggest Ever Chess Tourney – Doeberl Cup 2024
Geoff Hyde (thanks to Charles for help and photos)
GM Hrant Melkumyan, far left, winner of the Premier Division. St George player, WCM Khishigbattar Bayasgalan, was the top scoring female. At far right is Rosemarie Doeberl, daughter of the original major sponsor of the tournament, Erich Doeberl.
Confirming the rising popularity of chess in Australia, the 2024 edition of the annual Doeberl Cup yet again broke the record for the greatest number of players in an Australian tournament – 413. Spread across five divisions, the Premier, Major, Minor, Mini and U1200, the top division attracted four GMs, eight IMs and 26 other masters of various stripes. Armenian GM Hrant Melkumyan completed a hat-trick of wins to take out the Premier honours yet again, with a score of 8/9. IMs Peng Chen and Arghyadip Das were second and third, both on scores of 7. St George was remarkably well represented in the Premier with five of the players currently contesting our Club Championships Division One in attendance; Cedric Koh was also playing. Top scores went to WCM Khishigbattar Bayasgalan and Cedric on 5.5. Khishigbattar was the highest scoring female player in the tournament – many congrats! Jeremy Plunkett and CM Daniel Melamed both scored 4.5, and Terrence Tang ended up with 3.5. For full results, of the Premier and other divisions click here.
In the Major Division, St George had two contrasting players: big tournament debutant Ted Power and veteran Mal O’Donoghue. Ted did very creditably, winning his last three games and scoring 4.5/7; Mal maintained his trademark sense of humour to go with his 3 points.
Kevin Liu and another big tourney novice, Ashton Li, both scored 3.5/7 in the Minor Division, just leading James Bullen on 3. While we had no representatives in the Mini Division, Samuel Slingo played in the U1200s, scoring 2.5/6. His real star turn however was in the Open Blitz Tournament, which is held on the Saturday night. Up against all the top players, Samuel scored 3 points! The Blitz was won by Australian GM Anton Smirnov.
St George was also well represented in the Arbiters, providing three of the nine in the team: IA Charles Zworestine, FA Nick Kordahi, and myself (NA). Despite the many thousands of games played, there were surprisingly few dramas, partly a result of the excellent work done by Tournament Director IA (and FM) Shaun Press and Chief Arbiter IA Alana Chibnall.
I was involved in what turned out to be quite an amusing adjudication. The White player complained that his opponent had initially agreed to a draw (by allegedly nodding his head) but had not sealed the deal, as it were, by then shaking his outstretched hand. The opponent denied nodding any sign of acceptance, and also pointed out that the White player had not added the = symbol to his score sheet, one of the required steps in making a draw offer. When I pointed out to the white player that it would be a bit strange for any opponent to change their mind so quickly, his response was that his opponent was trying to ‘mess with my head’. At this point I called over IA Peter Tsai who came to the same conclusions as me, and said the game should continue. But it was the conversations I later had with Peter about the accused Black player that really added spice to the story. Peter knows the player well, because the Black player is himself an International Arbiter. And not only that, he is one of the four Councillors on the Rules Commission of FIDE! The game ended in a draw anyway.
Upcoming Events at St George & elsewhere
Georges River Council’s Intergenerational Chess Tournament: Saturday April 20
A fun and free day of chess in the fresh air, at Kogarah Town Square, and it is literally for young and old! Full details here and you can register here. The tournament is a Swiss competition (6 rounds) with a time limit of 15 minutes per player, per game.
City of Sydney Rapid 2024: Sunday April 21
This is a one-day event, a seven round Swiss, and the time control is 15 minutes each per game plus 10 seconds per move. Held at the very comfortable, very reachable Sydney Academy of Chess. Full details here and you can register here.
Chatswood Checkmate Allegro: Sunday May 19
A new event on the NSWCA calendar: a 7 round Swiss with a time control of 10 minutes each per game plus 5 seconds per move. It will be held in the foyer of The Concourse, Chatswood’s prime entertainment venue. Full details here and you can register here.