DURBAN CHESS FUNDIS

Home page of the DURBAN CHESS CLUB (founded in August 1893) "who teaches learns" Last updated: 15th March 2019

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO MEMBERS
Please call Desmond on 083-788-8070 (or send him a whatsapp) BEFORE NOON on Thursday if you are unable to play a particular game. If he is not available, please email the club. It is extremely important that members communicate apologies before noon on Thursdays.
Members are expected to complete the club membership form and pay their subscriptions before the club championships start in March.

CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS STARTING IN MARCH 2019
The club starts its annual championships on 14th March 2019. The committee has announced that the Championship and Candidates sections will be FIDE rated, and will be played in 10 player round robin groups. The C section will be a Swiss section. The time control will be 90 minutes each with a 30 second increment. Here is a link for entries, pairings and results for all the sections of the Championships.

MOSS KOLNIK MEMORIAL JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
The club began its first tournament of the year on 10th January 2019. Jason Subke convincingly won the event, followed closely by Desmond Rooplal. Detailed tournament results can be found on chess-results.

NEW ARBITERS
Congratulations go to Riccardo Benedetti and Desmond Rooplal for scoring over 80% on the February 2019 Arbiters exam. They are now qualified as Regional Arbiters. Ryan Kippen also took the exam and passed as Tournament Supervisor.

AN EPIC BATTLE
On the 21st February, I saw the world record for the most moves in a game of chess broken. The top 2 programs, Stockfish and LCZero, just had a 362 move draw in their 86th match game! After 84 games the match was tied at 42 each, the equivalent of 7 human title matches. Those interested in this epic battle can find the games at the TCEC chessdom website.

The main point of interest is that Leela Chess Zero uses search methods that are radically different to the traditional alpha-beta search used by Stockfish 10, the highest rated program. Instead, as explained in this article by Stephan Platz, it is using Monte Carlo techniques, similar to those made famous by the Alpha Zero program. Footnote: Their 100 game match was won by Stockfish 10-9 with 81 draws.

SA JUNIOR CLOSED CHESS CHAMPIONSHIPS 2019
Chess SA has announced that their 2019 Junior Closed will take place at Kopanong in Benoni from 16th to 23rd March 2019. Congratulations to our junior members Daaruk Kumarasamy, Jorah Soojay, Keniesha Govender, Lesharn Govender, Charlotte Millard and Naseem Essa, whose names are on the list of qualifiers published on Thursday 10th January.