Chess Day 2 (Report by Brendan Norman)

On September 30 we at Smart Dolphins Chess held another of our popular “Chess Day” events in Hornsby, a hub on of the North Shore and home of our Hornsby Junior Chess Club, and as expected the day was fantastic!

Senior Coaches: Ronald Scott and Myself

As with the first “ChessDay”, we began Chess Day 2 with some social games and then we had a group talk and the first lecture, given by SDC Senior Coach Ronald Scott on Endgame Technique.  Ron spoke about keeping your opponent’s pieces tied up while your own active and showed a great game by second World Champion Emmanual Lasker against American GM Frank Marshall.

The lecture was very instructive and students asked very intelligent questions about the plans and ideas in the game.

After this lecture students were much more knowledgeable about what to do when pieces “leave the board” and this was shown clearly later on in the tournament section of the day when I witnessed some very nice endgame play.

After the first lecture, we had a question and answer session where children could raise their hand and ask ANY chess question they like, to be answered by Ron or I.

We had questions from all range of players from “How does en passant work?” to “What should black do in the French against 3.Nd2″ and it was a pleasure to answer these questions and enlighten our young pupils.

Once all the questions had been exhausted, it was time for the tactical test, but this time we had a new idea!

Instead of the grueling individual exam-style tactical test from “Chess Day 1″, we decided to make it more fun (fun IS the idea of ChessDay!) and we delegated captains before creating a team competition where teams would solve tactical problems together…this was MUCH more popular!

Delegation of Captains

The tactics  competition was very lively and fun with the scores remaining very close until Louis Long’s team eventually won in the end (He is just TOO sharp! ).

Once our tired tacticians finished this competition, it was time for something more light.

I introduced Smart Dolphins Chess top  pupil Jerry Xu who played against all comers in a simultaneous exhibition, playing 15 games at once, while those not wanting to challenge Jerry could playing a supervised game online (our our HUGE projector screen) with the guidance of Senior Coach Ron!

  SDC leading pupil Jerry Xu takes on 15 opponents! 

While others played online (Students call out moves, Ron controls mouse)

Young Swara Tapaswi missed a combination which would have beaten Jerry and went on to lose

The final result for Jerry was 11 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses…not too bad at all against a field of strong kids!

Following this enjoyable period was our lunch break in which children ate their fill of sausage sizzles (or vegetarian sausages for those who don’t eat meat), thus replenishing their energy before the main event….the tournament!

Eating and Socializing: “Did you beat Jerry?…Nah, me neither!”

Round 1 is Underway with SDC Number1 Leiming Yu as black against  the talented young Stanley Tang, who held Leiming for most of the game before a mistake allowed Leiming to win.

The tournament continued as expected with top seeds winning their games mostly and beautiful chess being played on all boards, even by the younger kids.

I spoke to Ron actually about how I felt that ALL children had lifted their level during this event and we had seen very high level play throughout.

Stanley’s young friends discuss what happened in his game against Leiming

Winner of the last ChessDay, Jonathon Ginn (black) defends a Kings Gambit and gets into very hot water…

…before cooly evacuating his King to the queenside, co-ordinating his pieces and winning! Great defensive effort by Jono!

Louis Long, a very serious contender jokes and has fun during the “fun time”, but is “ice cold” and serious during tournament games…a lesson for learners!

The students seemed to really enjoy the tournament and although some didn’t score well (in a very tough field), they stayed brave and took their lessons calmly.

In the end, it seemed that Jonathon Ginn, Louis Long and Leiming Yu would be fighting for the tournament’s top spot and when Ginn and Long were matched up, it was sure to be a BIG game!

Ginn vs Long: a decisive battle 

In the game between Jonathon Ginn and Louis Long, Jonathon miscalculated a piece sacrifice which he thought was winning, and went into a position where he had lost a piece, but had a pawn and an exposed King to attack.

Louis defended well and entered an endgame which he converted into a win.

With this win and Leiming losing to talented Gaurav Singal, Louis took the clear lead and held it until the end.

Gaurav Singal

Mathew Aung

Besides the leading players of the tournament, ChessDay 2 had many talented players attending and in fact, I beleive that ALL of the players who came are talented, but some are simply less experienced than others….it was a real pleasure for us to hold this event.

Stanley wins a tricky endgame 

Approaching the end of Ginn vs Long

Another person I need to mention is Amy Fox, a year 2 girl with enormous passion for chess!

Amy has only been playing chess for a very short time but loves the game devotedly, even telling her mum that when shes changes school soon she will ONLY go to a school which has a chess programme!

Amy had a difficult time in the tournament, having to face a lot of big, experienced “sharks”, but still gave her 100% and tried to “throw everything” at her older, more experienced opponents…this is why she was awarded the “Greatest Effort Award”!.

Well done to Amy!

The leading finals scores in the tournament were:

Louis Long 6.5/7     1st and wins trophy, private coaching voucher and software

Jonathon Ginn 5.5/7                 2nd and wins trophy, and tournament chess set

Leiming Yu 5/7                  3rd  and wins trophy, and tournament chess set

Prizes!

We at Smart Dolphins Chess would like to thank all the parents for bringing their children to our Chess Day, our great helpers Xin and Ping for photography and kitchen duties as well as the children themselves for coming and having a great day, displaying great sportsmanship and giving their all… Thanks a lot guys, the next “Chess Day 3″ will be in the December Holidays (more info on this soon) and we hope you will join us again for an even greater event!