Bobby Cheng at the Interschool Tournament

I had a strange experience yesterday at the Bayside Interschool Tournament.

The tournament was very strong with Melbourne High, led by Bobby Cheng, scoring an impressive 27.5/28 to take first place.  I was trying to record some of the games on my iPad so as to publish them in “Knight Times” and was entering the moves for one of Bobby’s games.  It was quite interesting as Bobby had blown the exchange (for nothing) and was trying to fight back.  His opponent I gather was the sort of chap who focused on what he could attack, without paying too much attention to his opponent’s possibilities.  Bobby walked away from the board for a moment and his opponent quickly moved and pressed his clock.  Perhaps it then dawned on him that his move may be a blunder, so he pressed the clock back again and retracted his move!  Not a good idea, particularly when an arbiter is recording the game behind you on his iPad.

Needless to say I forced him to play the original move, and after 3 more moves Bobby had an easily won game.   He gave mate 4 moves later, so the attempted cheater got his just desserts.

This week’s puzzle is to work out, from the evidence that I’ve given you, what were the next 3 moves played in the game.   My friend “CheckNorris” often complains that my puzzles are too easy.  So from him, I want the next 7 moves to finish the game!

1rbq1r1k/pp2p1bp/2p1Pp2/6p1/2BPN3/5N2/PPP1Q1PP/5RK1 b – - 1 15What were the next 3 moves?

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Allen Yu v Luke Li in the final round

I’ve just come back from an exciting three days of chess at the Campaspe Downs Resort (near Kyneton) including the final of the RJ Shield for 2011 and the National Schools Open featuring teams from all over Australia and New Zealand.

Auckland Grammar brought across a very strong team of players over 2000 rating and ran out easy winners but Glen Waverley Secondary also did well to finish second and be the top Australian Team.  The full scores are available on the tornelo website.

At the other end of the room, on the bottom boards of the Primary Competition, play was not quite at the same level.  I watched one game (which I then included in my lecture on blunders) where, in 13 moves (for White and Black) White missed capture of a rook, a stalemate chance and allowed mate in one.  Black in turn blundered his rook, allowed a stalemate chance, missed mate in one then stalemated his opponent when a rook and pawn ahead.  It’s hard playing chess when you don’t look even one move ahead!

There was some good chess played on the top boards however.  My favourite game was Kingsley Chung v Allen Yu which will be published with Allen’s notes in the next issue of “Knight Times”.    I glanced at the game whilst walking past and ended up standing there for five minutes trying to work out all the complications.  Allen played like Mikhail Tal (fondly dubbed the “Magician from Riga”) to finish on top in the complications.   Here is a position from the game with Black to play.  He is ahead on material but the position is still a bit messy.  What is his next “killer” move that wraps up the game.

1k1r3r/ppp2ppp/2P5/7B/1b2p1Q1/2P1B2P/PP3PPq/2R1K3 b – - 1 17Black to play

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