DURBAN CHESS CLUB
NEWS ARCHIVE
News and Results from 2015

Annual General Meeting 26th November 2015

The club held its 122nd annual general meeting on 26th November. Desmond Rooplal was re-elected as the Chairman and Keith Rust as the Captain of Play. The new Treasurer is Nadean Gopaulsingh, who replaces Bongani Mgaga. Here is a list of all the prize winners.

Mhlongo Blitz Tournament 19th November 2015

The club's annual Darrell Mhlongo blitz was played on 19th November as a the double round-robin event and the clear winner was Desmond Rooplal. The event was originally scheduled for 24th September, but had to be postponed due to the church hall being fumigated.

Third Swiss October/November 2015

The Third Swiss was won jointly by Sayen Naidu and Cyril Danisa. Thanks to Nadean Gopaulsingh for acting as the arbiter in my absence. Here are the final results after round 6.

SA Club Team Championship 8th to 11th October 2015

The SA Club Team Championships took place at Glenwood Preparatory School in Durban from the 8th to 11th of October. The club entered 3 teams into the FIDE rated A section and 1 team into the B section of this event. Thanks go to Paul Curry who put in a lot of time and energy into organising our teams, with players chopping and changing on an almost daily basis. A notable upset occurred when our B team beat the A team in the first round! Another unexpected result was Jonathan Bentham's draw against IM Daniel Cawdery, who is currently SA's 2nd highest rated player.

Here are the results of section A and the results of section B.
Here are the A team results, B team results, C team results and D team results.

Problem from the Past

Three-times Durban champion Reginald Borders was well known throughout the world for his chess column in the "Natal Mercury", published between 1903 and 1930. He was also a notable problem composer, and organised several problem competitions via his newspaper column. I found the following problem by Borders in an article published in the "South African Chess Player" in 1960. The composition date was not given, it was probably around 1920:


White to play and win

This problem baffled Desmond! If you want a clue, then I can tell you that promoting to a Queen is only a draw. Once you see the idea, it is all forced and quite amusing. Here is the solution.

2nd John Blackburn Memorial results

The 2nd John Blackburn memorial was won by Joseph Mwale, who lost just one game, and finished a point ahead of the field. The event saw some big upsets as well as some miraculous escapes! Here are the final results after round 7.

Desmond Rooplal - Movie Reviewer

Desmond has written a two-part review of the new chess themed movie The Dark Horse, for the ChessBase website. Read the review, then chat to him about his background research. We can all learn something from these New Zealanders.

About John Blackburn (1933 - 2014)

The 2nd John Blackburn memorial swiss has just started and I have recently updated my page on the 7-times club champion. John's sister kindly donated a small suitcase labelled "chess games chronological" by John. It contained hundreds of games recorded in old-fashioned (often ambiguous) descriptive notation. Transcribing these has taken me many hours, partly because the games up to 1970 were written on a variety of scraps of paper, rather than in a proper score book - John didn't waste any paper! The following file contains Blackburn games from 1953 to 1972 (505 games/results). A second installment of Blackburn games from 1973 onwards will follow later in the year.

Rapid Chess June/July 2015

The club played an 8-round (2 rounds per evening) rapid tournament from 25th June to 16th July 2015, which was won by Keith Rust, ahead of Sean Arundel. Here are the final results.

Simultaneous Display 11th June 2015

Our new joint champions gave a simultaneous display on 11th June, but very few members pitched up to test their skills, so the lucky few got to play first against Cyril Danisa, then against Joseph Mwale. Before the games started veteran Solly Kharwa (aged 70) showed us some sleight of hand tricks, making a R5 coin appear and disappear, much to Cyril's bemusement! Solly was unable to confuse Cyril on the chess board, but managed to defeat Joseph, in one of the biggest upsets of the year.


Cyril Danisa giving simul, Solly Kharwa is on the left

Durban Championship 19th March to 4th June 2015

The annual club championships are now completed. Section A was closely contested, the eventual joint winners were Joseph Mwale and Cyril Danisa who each scored 5½ points from 8 games. Here is the final cross table.

Sean Arundel scored 5½ points from 6 games to win section B, with Henry Oliver in second place on 4 points. Here is the cross table - note that Craig Jooste completed 1 game before withdrawing due to a family bereavement, so his score is annulled.

Section C was a 9-round Swiss, here are the final results. Chad Millard was the clear winner with 7 points, followed by Mandla Mavundla and Jerry Zuma.

Raymon Pietersen (1955 - 2015)

It is with sadness that we note the death of Ray Pietersen in the early hours of Friday 15th May. Ray joined the club in 1981 and played in almost all the club's tournaments. He was always a gentleman at the chessboard and will be missed by everybody at the club. Ray was a difficult opponent to defeat, and his last game was a draw in round 8 of the current club championships. His funeral was held on Thursday 21st May at the Presbyterian Church in Frere Road, Glenwood.


Ray Pietersen vs Cailin Chetty, round 2, KZN open 2013

KZN Open Championship 25th to 27th April 2015

Durban Chess Club once again organised the annual KZN Open Championship, from 25th to 27th April 2015. With over R15 000 in prize money we expected lots of entries, but our usual visitors from Johannesburg decided at the last minute to stay at home and play in the Orion series. We were also disappointed by the response from local players. The championships were contested in two sections, with section B restricted to junior players rated below 1400. A more detailed report, with some annotated games, appears on my KZN news blog.

Joseph Mwale won the A section
Michael Fu won the B section
Here are the final results:
A section results after round 8
B section results after round 8.

GAMES DOWNLOAD: 2015 KZN Open (62 games played on top boards).

SA Junior Closed 3rd to 10th April 2015

Congratulations to Shivar Gopaulsingh, Cailin Chetty, Yadhav Noubouth, Eli-Jordan Govender, Mayilan Chetty, Khulekani Danisa, Chad Millard, Anele Danisa, Aaron Jude Naidu and Mayuri Chetty who were invited to this event in Pretoria. I was also invited as deputy chief arbiter.


PS. Well done Shivar, the new SA under 16 champion!

Fischer Memorial 7th March 2015

The club hosted a one day Open rapid tournament on Saturday, 7th March 2015 at Northlands Senior Primary in Durban North. The winner was Bongani Mgaga who scored 6½ points from his 7 games. The key game was his round 6 win against 2nd placed Joseph Mwale. Also on 6 points, but placed 3rd on tie-break, was Petros Ntombela. I have placed a more detailed report with some games on my blog. Here are the final results.

Moss Kolnik Memorial January to March 2015

This tournament is now completed. The clear winner was Joseph Mwale, who conceded just one draw (to Bongani Mgaga). Here are the final results after round 8.

Glenwood Open 28th February 2015

This annual rapid event was won by club member Joseph Mwale, with 6½ points from 7 games.

Load Shedding Problems

On 5th February Eskom unexpectedly moved from stage 2 to stage 3 load shedding, after losing a staggering 36% of their capacity. With stage 2 load shedding, Umbilo had lights on Thursday evenings, but with stage 3 the Umbilo area was left without lights from about 6pm to 9pm. Round 4 of the Moss Kolnik had to be postponed as a result of the load shedding. Update: Ethekwini Municipality revised their load shedding schedule from April, so this problem should not re-occur, unless the schedule is changed again.


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