Knockout tournament with 15 minutes each per side, held on Thursday 21st January from 4-8pm at The Age Hume Library in Broadmeadows.

Surprisingly the number 1 & 2 Senior ranked Club players Govindan and Thein were upstaged by an unknown, a 16 year old student Anh Nyugen who won every match and took out the tournament undefeated (which caught me by surprise as well) with one of his scalps being a female International Chess Player also unknown to the club.

At the conclusion Govindan succumbed to the pressure of a passed pawn on the seventh rank back up by a rook placed on the eighth rank, the opening was Queen’s Gambit declined also
there was 20 seconds and 23 seconds respectively time left remaining on the clocks, so a very close game ensued and one I’m glad i didn’t have to play.

The Junior Winner, Omid, was very lucky as one of his upcoming matches ended in a stalemate in which he was a Rook, Knight and several pawns down to Harry who let him slip through the net, the match was replayed with a shorter time frame of 5 mins each per side and Omid managed to win that one and ended up in the final playoff with Thussan.

It was an interesting tournament to run and to watch with a wide range of people and players the library was humming with keen spectators as well, the Tournament surprised me as to how much interest there is out there with many eager to play, there was a large amount of people who didn’t show up but respectively there was a large amount of people who wanted to play on the day without prior registration, so we had to be a little flexible with it all but it all worked out in the end.

Final Results

Senior Group 16+

1st ANH NGUYEN (age 16)
2nd GOVINDAN THAROL (Adult)
3rd THEIN WEI (Adult)

Junior Group 6-15
1st OMID KHASRAWY (age 13)
2nd THUSHAN IDDAMALGODA (age 9)
3rd KUNJ DAVE (age 10)

Sub Junior Group <5
1st KALINDU GUNARATNE (age 5)