Australian Junior Championships 2008

Front: Vincent, Jamie, Alastair. Back: Owen Kevin, Kieran, Russell	In January six Tasmanians travelled to Sydney to contest the Australian Jnr Championships. Vincent Horton, Kevin Hendrey, Kieran Davis and Alastair Dyer form the Burnie Chess club and Owen Short and Jamie Briant from the Hobart International Chess Club. The championships were conducted over two weeks and 11 rounds with 1 game per day. Travelling away to play is tough and it always takes while to settle in. We stayed at the Bondi YHA and played plenty of fun games of chess, poker, table tennis and Risk (which Owen dominated). We ate at the hostel most nights and the meals were sensational, prepared by head chef (me)! Fortunately we also ate out a few times, pizza and hamburgers were favourites along with the occasional hot curry for Alastair. Carl Gorka from Victoria was the coach and taxi driver, ferrying us each day the 10km to the venue. Days were mainly consumed with chess, preparation from Carl, tactics, casual games and analysis of previous games.
Jamie, Kieran receive some lessons from coach Carl at the Bondi YHA.	Our first rest day agenda wiped everyone out with a lengthy trip to the Aquarium, Maritime Museum (to see the 5000yr old Iceman from the Italian Alps), Harbour Bridge, Rocks, a ferry ride, a view of the Harbour Heads and too long a wait for the bus which had finished dits service run for the day. With this hectic pace, the boys decided to play in the lightning on the next rest day. Vincent started in a blaze and scored 4.5 from the first 5 games beating the main tournament winner in the process before going into meltdown and giving away pieces. Alastair has a fun tournament with typically one-sided games and finished on 7/11 and in equal 2nd spot in the U16. Jamie also played well finishing with 6/11 and a good score for the U14. Kieran had a horrendous start and took until the last round to get a point – such is the way of lightning tournaments. They usually take their toll especially during the middle of a lengthy main tournament.
	Andrew Gurevich (Vic) also stayed with us and here he has a preparation lesson with Leonid Sandler, which he went on to win, proving sun, sand and surf can you’re your chess.

Vincent and Alastair were rated high in their divisions and had a fairly easy first few games.
Their experience at other Australian Junior Champs and prior preparation of opening lines also helped. Jamie while in the U14 faced the U18 field and met some strong opponents.
Kevin, Kieran and Owen were seeded low and had tough opening games. The latter four were developing new openings throughout the tournament and this was going to be an opportunity to develop their chess.

Highlights and opportunities were evident throughout the main tournament. Jamie, Owen and Kieran had tough first opponents.
Kevin got to play Derek Yu (16th place overall) in round 6 and played a sharp encounter. Jamie had a good game against Cedric Antolis (1810 rating).
Alastair played a terrific game against Yi Yuan in round 4 and was wining before falling to tactics in time pressure, and played the eventual winner (Junta Ikeda in round 6).
Both games were losses but are good examples of sharp play. Vincent had some interesting games with chances for extra points against the Ruan brothers, a draw with top seed Alexander Stankhe, and met an advanced Kings Indian against U10 player Anurag Sannidhanam.

Team coach and chess master, Carl Gorka, was pleased with the team’s performance and sees a bright future for Tasmanian players despite limited opportunities to play high standard games.

See the Aus Jnr site for games and reports