Tournament reports by Bas van Riel

Round 7 concluded the last classic tournament of the year. Om O'Carroll sealed the tournament's win by beating Jasan Barnett, who won the Reserves title this year. She finished with the amazing score of 6/7, half a point ahead of our other amazing junior, Paul Dao. Never has the club seen two juniors, of 14 and 11 years respectively, occupying the two top positions in a Classic tournament.

Om receives her prize and Jasan his.

Three players, Scott, Jamie and Bas on 4.5/7, shared third place at a respectable distance from the youngsters. Paul won a nice last game against Patrick. He predicted that it would be a French opening, Pat's pet opening with black, in reply to 1.e4. And French it was. Paul's home prep must have rattled Pat, as he misplayed his opening slightly when he made an unusual finger-fehler (mistake) on move 13. (see Diagram 1)

Diagram 1. Paul vs Patrick after 13...Bd6? (-0.9); 14.Rxe6+, Kf7(?), 15.Rxf6+, gxf6; 16.Bxd7, Rcd8; 17.Qh5, Ke7; 18.Bf5.. (+6.50) and white's attack and advantage would smell like 'roses'... However, Paul did not play 15.Rxf6, etc, but the weaker 15.Re2 (?), maintaining an extra pawn and a slightly better (+0.8 to +0.9) position. White patiently worked towards an attack against the weakened king's position, when he missed a nice combination (see Diagram 2), though his position was very solid and winning.

Diagram 2. Paul vs Patrick. 24..Qe7(?); Paul could have played 25.Bxh6!, Rxe2; 26.Ng5+, Kg8; 27.Qxg6+ (+11.0). Without suffering any consequences, he played the weaker move 25.Kf1.. (+2.9). Compensating for his oversight, he added a nice combination at the end: 25...Qf8 26.Qc1 Ng8 27.Bxh6! Nxh6 28.Ng5+. Here Patrick had seen enough and resigned 1-0.

Om's convincing win of the 2022 Koelle tournament marks a historic occasion for the Chess Club, as it is the very first time that a junior female chess-player has won a classic, open, and rated club tournament since the Club's foundation in 1856. In addition, she won her games against the three participating club champions. And being 'only' the 6th seeded player of the tournament, she played and scored 4/5 points (including 2 draws) against the Nos. 1,2,3,5 and 7.

Round 6

The much anticipated game between Scott (white) and Om, the 2 leaders after round 5, had all the ingredients of a great fight (see gif.diagram 7.). Another Sicilian opening was played, whereby Scott took the initiative and Om had to dig in. When it looked like Scott's attack was pushing through, he missed the crucial move to win the game. Om, as always, was very alert and found the couple of moves required to suddenly turn the tables and even win the game after another error by Scott. (see diagram 8): the situation at this point was very complicated...

Diagram 7 Scott vs Om ending in 0-1, and in Diagram 8 Scott vs Om after 23.Bxf7+

Meanwhile on second board, Jamie blundered (the exchange) on move 13 against Paul and resigned after 19 moves

Round 5

Scott had taken a half point bye, so Om and Jamie played on first board

Diagram 4. Om v Jamie after 34...Nb1

Diagram 5. Paul vs Bas after 16.Qc4 and Diagram 6 shows the end of Angus vs Michael in a draw

Round 4

This round saw the (early) pairing of the two top-seeds of the tournament

Diagram 1. Paul vs Scott after 22..f6 and Diagram 2. Paul vs Scott after 32..d4!

Round 3

This round was marked by the spectacular win by 6th seeded Om against Bas

Diagram 1 Scott v Jamie after 19..Bf8

Diagram 2 Anna v Pat after 21..Kb8

Diagram 3: black to move and checkmate in about 6 moves

Diagram 4: black completely overlooked the danger of 36.Nde6

Diagram 5: after losing the exchange, black found himself losing a full horse

After three rounds Scott is unbeaten with 3 points, followed by Paul and Om with 2.5 points each.

Reports by BvR