DURBAN CHESS CLUB
NEWS ARCHIVE
News and Results from 2008

Annual General Meeting

The club's AGM took place on Thursday 27th November 2008.

This is the list of prize-winners.

Third Swiss 2008

The Third Swiss was decided in the last round when the games on the top two tables were both drawn. So Ashley Lewis and Jason Subke were joint winners with 4½ points from 6 games, just ½ point ahead of the field.

Here are the detailed results.

Darrell Mhlongo Memorial Blitz 2008

The annual Darrell Mhlongo memorial took place on 18th September 2008. Blitz chess was always his favourite! Many chessplayers who knew Darrell entered, with Ashley Lewis winning in the final.

Durban CC Rapid Open 2008

This open tournament took place over 7 rounds at the Durban Chess Club on Sunday 14th September. The time limit was 25 minutes per game, and the surprise winner was Lulama Qobo on 6/7.

Here are the detailed results.

Second Swiss 2008

The club's Second Swiss has just finished. In a hard-fought tournament the winner was decided in the last round, when Sure Mataramvura beat Bongani Mgaga. Sure's anti-Scotch defence 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Bd6 proved a hard nut to crack, and Bongani succumbed in time pressure to leave Sure the sole winner on 5½ points from 7 games. Somebody to watch in future is Rahul Beekrum, the only player to defeat Sure in this event.

Here are the detailed results.

Set Openings Swiss 2008

The Set Openings tournament in July was won by Bongani Mgaga with the score of 7 out of 8. In 2nd place was Keith Rust on 6½ points.

uShaka Rapid Chess 2008

This open tournament took place over 7 rounds at 25 minutes per game at the uShaka Marine World on Sunday 31st August. The sight of 72 chessplayers in the concourse attracted a lot of public attention. In the end the joint winners on 6½/7 were Bongani Mgaga and Jason Subke. Thanks to Durban Metro Chess Academy for organising an enjoyable event.

Here are the detailed results.

Reinderman Visit

Dutch grandmaster Dimitri Reinderman made a brief visit to Durban on Monday 14 July 2008, giving a talk to selected KZN junior players and their coaches. Instead of the expected pearls of grandmaster wisdom, Dimitri chose to poke fun at himself and showed us his 8 biggest blunders of the last 16 or so years. Some of them were pretty horrific. Consider, for example, this game from 1992, when he was still a junior player:

[Event "Young Masters"] [Site "Oakham"] [Date "1992.??.??"] [Round "7"] [White "Reinderman, Dimitri"] [Black "Volzhin, Alexander"] [Result "0-1"] [WhiteElo "2420"] [BlackElo "2370"] 1.e4 e5 2.f4 Bc5 3.Qh5 {as Dimitri remarked, this is the sort of thing that your coaches tell you not to do - the white Queen makes 5 moves in the opening, all to win a single pawn} 3...Nf6 4.Qxe5+ Be7 5.Qc3 Nxe4 6.Qxg7 Bf6 7.Qh6 Qe7 8.Be2 d5 9.Nc3 Nxc3 10.bxc3 Bf5 11.Nf3 Nc6 {he could play 11...Bxc2 but prefers to carry on developing} 12.Ba3 Qe6 13.0-0-0 0-0-0 14.Rhe1 {threatening 15.Bd3 winning a piece if the Queen moves, but 15...Be4 was a defence} 14...d4 {blithely ignoring the threat} 15.Bd3 Qxa2 16.Bxf5+ Kb8 17.Qxf6 $2 {of course 17.Bb2 was forced, but Dimitri was expecting 17...Qxa3+} 17...Qa1# {oops} 0-1

Afterwards Dimitri showed us a few endgames, and held a brief Question & Answer session. To the inevitable "How do you become a grandmaster?" his reply was "You must win lots of games!"

Durban Championships 2008

The annual club championships commenced on 27 March and ended on 12 June. After 7 rounds the newly crowned KZN champion Pratish Ramsurrup was leading with 5½ points from 6 games completed so far. He was followed closely by Bongani Mgaga, with 4 points out of 5 games completed. Their game from round 3 was adjourned with Bongani a pawn up, with good winning chances.

However, round 8 saw both leaders lose, with Pratish losing to Peter Dankelmann, and Bongani losing to Cyril Danisa. Incredibly both leaders slipped up again in round 9, with Pratish losing to Ashley Lewis, and Bongani to Jason Subke. The net result was that no fewer than 5 players could win the tournament, if they reached 6 out of 9!!

In the end we had a triple tie for 1st place between Mgaga, Lewis and Rust - the first such tie since 1964. With the next 2 players just ½ point behind, this was the closest race in years. Here are the detailed scores in the Championships section. Readers who want to know more about the newest champion should have a look at this page.

Defending champion Peter Dankelmann, who went undefeated last year, had a poor start to the event, losing in rounds 2 and 4. Here is his game from round 2:

[Event "Championship"] [Site "Durban"] [Date "2008.04.03"] [Round "2"] [White "Dankelmann, Peter"] [Black "Lewis, Ashley"] [Result "0-1"] [WhiteElo ""] [BlackElo ""] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 4. cxb5 a6 5. f3 axb5 6. e4 Qa5+ 7. Bd2 b4 8. Na3 d6 9. Nc4 Qd8 10. Ne2 e6 11. dxe6 Bxe6 12. Nf4 Nc6 13. Be2 Be7 14. O-O O-O 15. Be3 d5 16. exd5 Bxd5 17.Qd2 Bxc4 18. Bxc4 Qxd2 19. Bxd2 Nd4 20. Rfd1 Rfd8 21. Rac1 g5 22. Nh3 h6 23.Nf2 Nd7 24. Ne4 $2 {the losing move; afterwards we agreed that 24.Bxb4 was equal} 24...Ne5 25. Kf1 Nxc4 26. Rxc4 Rxa2 27. Nxc5 Bxc5 28. Rxc5 Nb3 29.Rc2 Ra6 30. Ke1 Rad6 {White is in zugzwang} 0-1

Players were divided into 4 sections, and here are the other section winners:

Section B  Desmond Rooplal 8/9;
Section C  Sandile Xulu 7½/9;
Section D  Priyanka Govender 6½/7.

KZN Unite Open 2008

The annual KZN championship Swiss took place over 8 rounds on the long weekend 26th to 28th April 2008. Over R10,000 of prize money was on offer, and attracted a strong field from outside KZN! The winners were Daniel Cawdery and Pratish Ramsurrup with 7 points. Daniel took home the trophy and title of Natal Open champion, whilst Pratish was crowned the Natal Closed champion - at 17 years old he is one of the youngest ever champions.

Here are the results. Thanks to our photographer Kurt Kin, we have a selection of photos from the tournament.

Durban Open Swiss 2008

This open tournament took place over 7 rounds at the Durban Chess Club on Sunday 16th March. Time limit was 20 or 25 minutes per game. Joint winners on 6/7 were Cyril Danisa and Jason Subke.

Here are the detailed results.

Ethekwini Open Swiss 2008

This open Swiss tournament took place at Northlands over the weekend of 29th February to 2nd March. A slightly smaller field than last year's record competed for the Ethekwini Motors trophy. The surprise leader was teenager Sayen Naidu, who started with a blistering 5/5, before easing off with 2 hard fought draws on the Sunday. The final result was a two way tie for 1st place on 6/7 between Sayen Naidu and Ashley Lewis.

Here are the detailed results.

Moss Kolnik Memorial Swiss 2008

The first Swiss tournament of the year ended with a two way tie for 1st place on 6œ/8 between Peter Dankelmann and Ashley Lewis. The key moment of the tournament came in round 6, when Mataramvura and Lewis, the leaders on 4/5, met each other. After Sure had outplayed his more fancied opponent, Ashley was forced to sacrifice material for some checks and an attack. As the spectators watched in disbelief, Sure blundered back his extra Rook, and Ashley won the game!

Here are the detailed results.


Home Page | Natal Champions | Durban Champions | News Archive (2004 to 2019)

Copyright © Keith Rust. All rights reserved.