ACF Bulletin No. 57 - 12 March 2000

GRAND PRIX

Scores after three rounds:

Open: Greg Canfell 12.33, John Curtis 12.33, Manuel Weeks 12.33, Kerry Stead
12, Michael Hornung 12

U/2000: Manuel Weeks 16, Tama Coutts 12.33, Kerry Stead 12, Bruce Murray 12,
Michael Hornung 12

U/1600: Doug Carey 24.5, Nancy Jones 14, Tkac Milosavic 10.5, Reg Harvey
10.5, Tom Lea 10.5

Unrated: Peter Lewin 18.33, Leith Dawes 12.33, V Estiville-Castro 12.33,
Peter Varela 12 Owen Winter 9

Junior: George Xie 16, Michael Lip 12, James Jackson 12, Vesper Olsen 10.5,
Peter Varela 10.5

Female: Nancy Jones 14, Ngan Koshnitsky 14, Joanne Steer 12, Jan Martin 12,
Catherine Lip 9

There are 40 rounds this year and it is not too late to enter your
tournament in the Grand Prix! Just contact Jason Lyons
jason.lyons@student.unsw.edu.au Jason has done a fine job in restructuring
the Grand Prix and making it a true nationwide event once again.

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LABOUR DAY OPEN 4-6 March 2000

Migrant Resource Centre Hobart
Organiser: David Ferris. Arbiter: Kevin Bonham

After a late rush of entries this Grand Prix event attracted a strong (by
Tasmanian standards) field of 17 players.  8 rounds of 75 minutes per player
were played. After the top three seeds Hornung, Oriol and Bonham all lost in
round two, fourth seed Premilovac bolted to a 1.5 point lead on 6/6, then
dramatically lost to Hornung and Bonham in the last two rounds and dropped
to third behind these two on countback.

>From an arbiter's perspective the event went well apart from two things -
the unauthorised (and in one case unnotified) withdrawals of two players (a
rare event in Tasmanian chess), and a generally lazy attitude by some
players with respect to the scoring of games.  Following the event the TCA
unanimously passed a motion to crack down on unauthorised withdrawals from
TCA events.

6.5/8 Michael Hornung
6 Kevin Bonham (2nd-countback), Alija Premilovac (3rd-countback)
5 Pablo Oriol, Tom Lea (U1550 Prize), Reg Harvey
4.5 Glenn Gibbs
4 Graham Richards (U1350 Prize), Milan Mihelcic, Tom Kacic, Lazar Divkovic
3.5 Mike Cooper
3 Janice Martin
2.5 James Jackson (Junior Prize)
2 Leo Minol

1/3 (Unauthorised Withdrawal): Mike Stubbs
1/5 (Unauthorised and Unnotified Withdrawal): Emmanuel Hart.

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OCEANIC ZONAL

Venue: Auckland Chess Centre, 17 Cromwell St, Mt Eden NZ

Dates: 20 May to 28 May

Entrants: Any players from Zone 3.2b (Australia, NZ, Fiji) who have a FIDE
rating of 2100 or greater

Seeds: The three national federations have the right to nominate the
following players who gain free entry and billet accommodation (Australia 2,
NZ 1, Fiji 1)

Time Control: 40 moves in two hours, 20 moves in one hour and 30 minutes
guillotine

Winner: Zonal qualifier to the 2000 FIDE World Championship

Entry Fee: NZD$400 per player

Prize List: To be notified after number of entrant are known

Schedule: 20/5 11am Players meeting, 20/5 12 Noon Opening Ceremony, 20/5 and
21/5 12.30pm-7.30pm Rounds One and Two, 22/5 12.00pm-7.00pm Round Three,
23/5 to 28/5 12.30pm-7.30pm Rounds Four to Nine 28/5 7.30pm Closing Ceremony

Contact Details: Michael Freeman PO Box 330, Stratford NZ
Phone: +64 6 7628 687  Mobile: +64 025 280 6172  Email:
nzchess@compuserve.com  http://ourworld.compuserve.com/

Australia's seeds have been selected. They are Darryl Johansen and Alex
Wohl. First reserve is Michael Gluzman and second reserve Stephen Solomon.
Many thanks to all those who nominated and congratulations to those
selected.

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OLYMPIAD APPEAL

We are most grateful to Richard Farleigh who has pledged $1,000 to the
appeal. He will probably be representing Monaco in the Olympiad. All
donations however small or large are most welcome. Please email me and/or
send cheques payable to Australian Chess Federation to Norm Greenwood, Unit
15, Horizon Towers, 208 Pacific Highway, Hornsby 2077.

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SMERDON V KASPAROV

I understand from David Smerdon and Chris Depasquale that this will not be
going ahead as Kasparov had insisted that all players in the simul be rated
under 2000. I understand that David has been told that he will be receiving
some online coaching from Kasparov instead.

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2001 MASTERS GAMES - GEORGE LITHGOW

Should The Newcastle District Chess Association take part in the 2001
MASTERS GAMES?

The Newcastle District Chess Association made the decision not to take part
in the 2001 games.

We made this decision after consulting Mr Murray who tried to run the same
event on the Gold Coast in 1998 and failed to attract sufficient numbers to
satisfy the organizers. We also felt that it would be difficult to attract
the necessary 80 to 100 persons to compete in the above games.

Now the organizing body have again approached us and have relaxed the
criteria. Because of this we feel we can reconsider whether to participate
in the 2001 games.

My purpose in sending this E-mail is an attempt to gain some expressions of
interest in competing. Such expressions of course would not be regarded by
us as binding but would be used by us only in deciding whether to go ahead
with the necessary organizing details.

The question again is would you consider playing if it were run and your
circumstances at the time permitted it?

Please contact George Lithgow for more info and to give your opinion
george.lithgow@bigpond.com

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PHIP STEWART - REDCLIFFE STATE HIGH SCHOOL

Could I please have some info on the World Schools' Chess Comp.  I started
the chess club at Toowwoomba Grammar Junior last year, and have just begun
another club at Redcliffe State High School - we have just moved to the
Redcliffe peninsula.

Our club is about to join the association, if you were wondering.  We have
about 15 regulars at the moment.  Within two weeks we will be using 15
boards & 4 clocks, and will have a site licence for Fitz 7 (I think that is
the name of the program) so that it can be networked onto all the libraries
computers.  Our club name is "The Redcliffe Checkmates", and we hope to be
entering competitions soon."

We are a medium sized school with approx 700 students.  The club meets
during Tuesday and Thursday lunch breaks (1:00 to 1:45pm), but we also hope
to offer an afternoon session later in the year and, if all goes well, we
would like to open the club up to the public during an evening or weekend.
For this last idea to eventuate, we would be seeking to work with the
existing Redcliffe Chess Club. We are so young (~4 weeks) that we have not
yet officially contacted this Chess Club, but will be doing so very soon. We
would love to help them to promote Chess on 'the peninsula', and to benifit
from their experience.

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ARIANNE CAOILI

Arianne, who has just turned 13, won the Australian Girls' Under 16
Championships in Perth in January 1997. Although her parents maintain a home
on the Gold Coast she spends most of her time in Europe and represents the
Philippines in World Events. Last week she played in a tournament in Manuel
Weeks' home town of Malaga and amongst her victims was GM Vladimir Epishin
2667!

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CORRESPONDENCE

DENNIS JESSOP:

Thank you for your comments conveyed to Graeme Gardiner about the matters I
had raised on the programs on DGT Timers. I agree that the crux of the
matter is, as you point out, the absence of any amount of "core time" in the
third session which thus prevents most players who have not been scoring at
the end of the second session, while their opponent has, from complying with
the FIDE Laws regarding bringing the score up to date.

I was aware of several of the matters you mentioned in your comments and of
your comments about a preference for a 30 second add-on expressed in your
book. I really don't have any quarrel with that especially as the FIDE Laws
seem to imply, to a degree, that such a period will be used. Moreover, being
a wrinkly myself, I have sympathy for your view! What I do find a bit odd is
that the FIDE-approved DGT Timers don't provide for 30 secs add-on in their
standard programs. Also, as you say, it is impossible to program them at all
to give core time in the third session, a feature that would be of great
benefit.

Although the clocks will remember a manually-set program, it seems that one
needs to have them quarantined until the following round as I found that,
mysteriously, some of them had lost their memory by the following week, our
club tournaments being played on a one-round-per-week basis. I suspect that
some players had got to them and used another program in the meantime.

Thank you for your interest in this matter and for your helpful comments.

STEWART REUBEN:

The reason the dgts do not have 40/100, 20/50, all in 10 add on 30 seconds
as one of the choices is that I had not worked that out at the time they
were created. I worked that out for Gronigen WC 1998 and nobody has ever
argued with it.

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Best wishes to all

Graeme Gardiner



Somerset College, Somerset Drive, Mudgeeraba Queensland 4213
Tel: +61 7 5530 3777 (Somerset College)
Tel: +61 7 5530 5794 (Home)
Fax: +61 7 5525 2676
Email: ggardiner@somerset.qld.edu.au
Somerset College Website: http://www.somerset.qld.edu.au
ACF Website: http://www.auschess.com.au