Arthur Koelle Tournament 2025
Arthur Koelle Tournament Reports by Alberto Biju
Note that previous years' games can be viewed in the Games tab above
Round One
The Koelle Tournament started Thursday evening. It is a seven-round Swiss with two rating groups, making it unique from the other tournaments of the year. A Grade includes players with an ACF rating over 1000, and B Grade includes the ones that are lower. Unrated players are given a provisional rating to compete in one of the two groups.
Sixteen players were seated in the A Grade tournament Thursday night, with one half-point bye. The A Grade tournament was led by first seed Candidate Master Declan Smith, who is looking to claim his first Koelle Tournament win after missing out last year to Stewart Scott, who is looking to make it two years in a row.
Mystery man Michael Leckie pulled off an upset on Board 5 by starting a strong attack against Bas van Riel in the opening, leading to the black king being stranded in the centre. There were three draws in the round. Our Club President Peter Stickland was held to a draw by the defending champion Scott Stewart. Peter found himself to have a slight advantage in the opening phase; however, the game was a back-and-forth frenzy ending in a draw. At Board 6, strong veteran and Club Captain Patrick Cook found himself a pawn down against strong junior Shanaya. However, Patrick held her to a draw, living up to his reputation of being the draw-meister. Tom Oppenheim also held the experienced Jamie Brotheridge to a draw.
The B Grade tournament also had its first round, with 30 players and one half-point bye.
Jasan Barnett, top seed of the tournament, was pushed to the edge by Jeffrey Spencer. Later on in the game, Jeffrey was caught in a nasty fork, leading to his loss.
Mr. Arthur Koelle was Victorian Junior champion in 1968 at 14, Country Victorian champion in the same year, and Club champion, also in 1968 as well as 1969. Most of these achievements are age records to this day! He went on to win the Australian Junior championship in 1971. Arthur has been living in Germany since 1982 and competed in the famous Bundesliga club competition, mixing it with experienced grandmasters, up until the mid-1990’s when work commitments became more pressing. Due to rising numbers of participants the original round robin format for the A Grade has now become a Swiss tournament, while the B and C Grade tournaments' format depends on the number of entries. The inaugural tournament was held in 2011.
