Patrick thanks the winners and reiterates our commitment to next year's match in Geelong (hopefully with a different outcome!)
By one o'clock the tournament was ready to start and, thanks to some thoughtful organising by Kevin Perrin, there were enough pieces, boards, cups and cakes for all 30 players and visitors.
The overall tournament score was standing at 2.5 vs 2.5, and although the match was ostensibly just a fun way to pass a chilly Ballarat winter Sunday, you could see on the players faces that there was serious work to be done. Ten boards for the tournament, one board for the reserves playing a rated game.
Ballarat was outplayed for the most part; all three top boards went to Geelong, and our only full points were garnered by Patrick Cook on Board Four, Jamie Brotheridge on Board Nine, and James Eyre on Board Ten. Rob Bailey and Michael Tausz did well to get 1/2 points from higher rated opponents on Boards Seven and Eight. Cassandra Barnett on the reserves board did the same, staving off higher rated Jack Smith for a draw.
Results
Geelong 6 points to Ballarat 4 points
Board 1 : James Watson 1821 (Ballarat) vs. Binh Nguyen 1900 est. (Geelong) 0-1
Board 2 : Michael Sugrue 1867 (Geelong) vs. Bas van Riel 1880 (Ballarat) 1-0
Board 3 : Rodney Jacobs 1659 (Ballarat) vs. Geoffrey Gill 1790 (Geelong) 0-1
Board 4 : Zoran Babic 1751 (Geelong) vs. Patrick Cook 1633 (Ballarat) 0-1
Board 5 : Kevin Perrin 1606 (Ballarat) vs. Reza Daneshvar 1743 (Geelong) 0-1
Board 6 : Geoff Barber 1635 (Geelong) vs. Rob Loveband 1571 (Ballarat) 1-0
Board 7 : Robert Bailey 1515 (Ballarat) vs. Owen Courtis 1634 (Geelong) 0.5-0.5
Board 8 : Mio Ristic 1551 (Geelong) vs. Michael Tausz 1491 (Ballarat) 0.5-0.5
Board 9 : Jamie Brotheridge 1554(Ballarat) vs. Geoff Davis 1458 (Geelong) 1-0
Board 10: Nick Mcclaren 1350 (Geelong) vs. James Eyre 1262 (Ballarat) 0-1
Reserves: Cassandra Barnett 1097 (Ballarat) vs. Jack Smith 1250 (Geelong) 0.5-0.5
Ballarat Geelong Challenge
In 2011 we hosted Geelong Chess Club for Round 5 of the Victorian teams tournament, and at the suggestion of Geelong President Ben Kersten, a match of 10 boards, in the spirit of the famous 1925 and 1926 matches, was arranged, with the top 4 boards counting for the teams competition. Before play commenced, we were presented with a copy of Andrew Wemyss’ splendid history of Geelong Chess Club. The original Ballarat Geelong tournaments were held at the Mechanics' Institute. The revived tourney is being held annually and the teams vie for inscribing their name on the new Fletcher Morrow Shield, donated by Bill Stokie. A memorandum of understanding setting out guidelines for when and how the tournament will be run was signed in 2016 and is available for viewing
here. To facilitate planning and room booking, it was decided that the second Sunday in August would be our regular tournament date.
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