April 16th – April 20th 1997, Chess Ideas Club. 9 Rounds. 59 Players.
Under 18′s
As always the Junior Championships are the most exciting tournaments of the year. It was disappointing to see only 21 players (the same as last year). The tournament does take a long time, 5 days, but it is important that dedicated players are prepared to make this commitment as the National Championships are played over 12-14 days, with only one game each day.
Anyone of the top 4 seeds could have been picked to win the tournament, but the favourites seemed to be Michael Chow and Geoff Saw.
The first two rounds sailed on by without any real upsets. Gayanie Basnayake beat Raf Kaplan and Julian McDonald beat John Nemeth in round 2.
The third round was when the top players started playing each other. Joel McDonald did well, beating Edward Khoze (top seed) while Geoff Saw and Michael Chow had a gutless draw. It would have been nice to see a long fight between the two most likely to win the tournament.
Round 4 saw Chow beat Joel McDonald to keep a share of the lead. Julian McDonald (brother of Joel) kept up his good performance with a win over Domagoj Dragecevic. Gayanie Basnayake moved into the lead for the Girls’ title with a win over Dimitry Partsi.
Edward Khoze kept his hopes alive for the title with a win over Geoff Saw while all other games went according to plan.
Geoff Saw was put out of contention in the 6th round by McDonald. And Michael Chow put Khoze in the running for only a minor place after being down during the game and then coming back strongly. Still Chow was 1/2 a point ahead of McDonald and had now played all the top opposition.
Round seven just saw the top players cement their standings, all with wins over lower ranked players.
The penultimate round was a bit of a turnaround. John Nemeth did the impossible and beat Michael Chow. Joel beat his brother Julian to be half a point in front with only one round to go. The title was in his grasp.
McDonald played Sasha Soloveychik in the last round, and the pressure was on after Chow demolished his lower rated opponent. unfortunately for McDonald, Soloveychik played well,
and ultimately McDonald lost the game, giving back the title to Chow.
This is the 3rd year in a row that a Chow has won the Junior Championships, only the previous 2 years it was Joseph, Michael’s older brother. Joseph couldn’t play this year due to Year 12 study commitments. One wonders if Michael can beat Simon Rutherford’s record of winning 4 Victorian Junior Championships in a row?
Title Winners
Under 18
1st Michael Chow
2nd Edward Khoze
3rd Joel McDonald
Gayanie Basnayake
Under 16
1st Geoff Saw
2nd Julian McDonald
3rd Domagoj Dragicevic
Imogen Hamel-Green
Under 14
1st Sasha Soloveychik
2nd John Nemeth
3rd Dima Onufreichuk
Stephanie Kalkbrenner
Under 12
1 st Thilini Basnayake
2nd Chao Tan
3rd Gordon Lindberg
Melissa Alexander
Emily Rothfield
Ellie Webb
Under 10
1st Sam Chow
2nd Matthew Doidge
3rd Douglas Lindberg
Final Results U/18
1. Michael Chow 7.5
2. Edward Khoze 7.0
3. Joel McDonald 7.0
4. Geoff Saw 6.5
5. Sasha Soloveychick 6.0
6. Julian McDonald 5.0
7. John Nemeth 5.0
8. Domagoj Dragicevic 5.0
9. Dima Onufreichuk 5.0
10. Denis Bourmistrov 4.5
11. Richard Saw 4.5
12. Gayanie Basnayake 4.5
13. Raf Kaplan 4.5
14. James Doidge 4.0
15. Dimitry Partsi 3.5
16. Nick Kotros 3.5
17. Dominic Deacon 2.5
18. Imogen Hamel-Green2.5
19. Warren Howden 2.5
20. Steph Kalkbrenner 1.5
21. Sam Webb 0.5
Under 12 ‘s
Name
1. Thilini Basnayake 8.0
2. Sam Chow 8.0
3. Matthew Doidge 6.0
4. Chao Tan 6.0
5. Gordon Lindberg 6.0
6. Douglas Lindberg 6.0
7. Andrew Kladakis 6.0
8. Andrew Brett 6.0
9. Ruperto Lugo 6.0
10. Richard Lander 5.5
11. Chong Kee Koh 5.5
12. Kenny Fong 5.0
13. Melissa Alexander 5.0
14. Mark Leong 5.0
15. William Funnell 5.0
16. Reubban Muthusamy 5.0
17. Christopher Callas 5.0
18. Daniel Grinyov 5.0
19. Lance Truong 4.5
20. James Papa 4.5
21. Leonid Elikhis 4.0
22. Ira Grossman 4.0
23. Simon Mitchell 4.0
24. Paul Leong 4.0
25. Richard Machet 4.0
26. Liam Doidge 4.0
27. Miriam Hamel-Green4.0
28. Emily Rothfield 4.0
29. Ellie Webb 3.5
30. DamienBryson 3.5
31. Edwin Chow 3.5
32. Sally-Anne Richter 3.5
33. Dean Marcus 3.0
34. Daniel Bluzer-Fry 3.0
35. Scott Newnham 2.0
36. Paris Buttfield 2.0
37. Leah Myers 1.0
38. Peter Newnham l.0
