World Senior Championship

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  • World Senior Championship

    World Senior Chess Championship 2018 will be held in Bled, Slovenia from Nov 17 to Nov 30, 2018. A lot of Canadians have preregistered. So far, 6 Canadians in "young" section 50+ and 3 Canadians in "old" section 65+.

    http://chess-results.com/tnr361547.a...et=YES&flag=30

    Top Canadian in 50+ section is a strong professional IM Edward Porper, currently keeps 10th position in the starting ranking. Others are I.Findlay, M.Dougherty, D.Haessel, S.Peter and myself.

  • #2
    First round in 2 days, on Sunday.

    7 Canadians in Junior section. E.Porper (15 rank), D.Cummings (19), myself (20), I.Findlay (27), M.Dougherty, D.Haessel and S.Peter.

    - it should be my first 11 rounds tournament since ... 1984. As far as I remember, I played a few 10 rounds tournaments (Canadian Open-2007, Gibraltar)

    - with my rating 2307, I am the highest-rated FM. All other seniors with 2300+ FIDE are at least IMs.

    - my personal expectations are extremely low. Stock market required a lot of attention last month, and likely will continue to require it in the next 2 weeks. Working 12-15 hours/day isn't the best preparation for the chess tournament.

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    • #3
      Good Luck to Edward, David, Victor, Ian, Michael, Dale and Steve. A good representation from Canada. I wish I was there.

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      • #4
        https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2018...-Porper_Edward By playing natural moves Black gets a jaw-dropping position on move 23! No defence.

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        • #5
          Let's not forget the Canadians in the 65+ section: William Doubleday, Andre Zybura, Ian Finlay (without the "d"), and Udriadi Benggawan.
          Add IM David Cummings and Steven Peter to the Canadians in the 50+ section.

          No Canadian ladies are represented.

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          • #6
            Hugh, I mentioned both D.Cummings and S.Peter at my second post in this thread.

            First 15 boards translated to the internet. 3 of them will include Canadians today: Canadian derby Cummings-Haessel, Dougherty and Porper. I did not make it and play on board 16.

            Yesterday I played next to David and we finished our games almost at the same time. Around move 30, I had an extra pawn in pawn endgame, while David had absolutely dominating position with almost every pieces remaining on the board.

            The average rating gap was huge in the first round, around 400 points. Naturally, not too many surprising results. 2 Canadians achieved a great "semi-surprising" result: draw against much higher-rated opponent for S.Peter in the Junior section and for W.Doubleday in the older one.

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            • #7
              Good Luck also to Andre, Bill and Undriadi. May you all win at least one beautiful game, one that keeps you awake at night with all the beautiful variations (or two or three or four).

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              • #8
                The most enjoyable game of round two (for me) was Michael Dougherty vs Mark Van der Werf. Stunning play on the F file and lots of piece action leading to the potential of taking all of black's pieces and pawns. A veritable smorgasbord and gourmet!

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                • #9
                  World Senior Championship

                  November 19, 218


                  World Senior Championship 50+
                  Bled, Slovenia
                  Round 2, Nov. 19, 2018
                  Dougherty, Michael – Van der Werf, Mark
                  A46 Queen’s Pawn, Torre Attack

                  1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 c5 3.c3 e6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Nbd2 b6 6.e4 h6 7.Bh4 Bb7 8.Bd3 d6 9.O-O O-O 10.Qe2 Nbd7 11.a4 a6 12.Rfe1 e5 13.Nc4 Qc7 14.b4 Rfe8 15.bxc5 bxc5 16.d5 Nh5 17.Bxe7 Rxe7 18.g3 g6 19.Nh4 Ng7 20.f4 exf4 21.gxf4 Bxd5 22.Qd2 Bxc4 23.Bxc4 Kh7 24.Rad1 Nb6 25.Bb3 c4 26.Bc2 Qc5+ 27.Kh1 Rd8 28.f5 Qe5 29.Nf3 Qa5 30.f6 Ree8 31.fxg7 Kxg7 32.Qd4+ Kg8 33.Qf6 Nxa4 34.e5 Re6 35.Qh4 g5 36.Qe4 Nxc3 37.Qh7+ Kf8 38.exd6 Rdxd6 39.Rxd6 Rxe1+ 40.Nxe1 Qe5 41.Nf3 Qxd6 42.Qh8+ Ke7 43.Qxc3 Qd5 44.Kg1 f6 45.Nd2 Qc5+ 46.Kg2 Qd5+ 47.Be4 Qe6 48.Qb4+ Kf7 49.Qxc4 Qxc4 50.Nxc4 Ke6 51.Bb7 h5 52.Bxa6 h4 53.Bc8+ Kd5 54.Ne3+ Kd6 55.Kf3 Ke7 56.Kg4 1-0

                  Final position


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                  • #10
                    Yes, Michael won a great game against a strong 2400 opponent. Michael likes to play "tasty" chess (Tal's expression).

                    David Cummings won a Canadian derby as Dale blundered a piece close to the time control in almost equal position. My game, as in happens often, was the longest one. Somehow I won an equal knight endgame with 4 pawns each, all on the king side. Porper won a pawn in the opening and converted it.

                    So, we have 4 Canadians with 2/2, all play GM in the third round. Probably, M.Dougherty has the most interesting opponent GM Ketevan Arakhamia. One of a few female GMs, she is originally from Georgia (USSR) and currently represents Scotland. I remember her from Soviet chess tournaments more than 35 years ago. She was considered as one of the strongest girls in her generation.
                    Last edited by Victor Plotkin; Tuesday, 20th November, 2018, 06:34 AM.

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                    • #11
                      Yesterday was not the best day for many Canadians, as we lost 0.5-3.5 to GMs. Only Porper drew, he completely equalized with black. David Cummings got a very difficult endgame and lost after long fight. In my game, I got chances after a bad opening, but completely missed 28... g5 and my Queen was trapped on h6. It's not a big problem to lose to GM, but I didn't like my chess at all. To increase happiness, I decided to play in blitz tournament.

                      Around 50 players, 9 rounds, 3+2 time control, just 2 GMs and a few IMs was participating. I had a good start with 6/6, but it was more difficult after that. I couldn't convert an extra piece (!) in game 7 and lost to some IM in round 8. So, after 8 rounds 4 players had 6.5 points and played one another. I played with black against GM Arkell from England. Both of us had a good tie-break, so the winner of our game had a great chance to win the tournament.

                      In a very complicated endgame, I sacrificed almost everything to promote my a-pawn and won an endgame Q+1P against R+4Ps. Funny, in my slow game early yesterday, the material odds were exactly opposite. Queen twice proved itself as a very dominant piece.

                      So, after 9 rounds I shared 1-2 place with 7.5 points and my tie-break was somewhat higher. The happiness increased back to a good level.

                      Generally, playing blitz against seniors is much easier than against Mark, even if seniors have a higher rating.
                      Last edited by Victor Plotkin; Wednesday, 21st November, 2018, 07:19 AM.

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                      • #12
                        Ian Findlay from Alberta played his first game yesterday, as he missed some connections from Calgary to Ljubljana and thus started with 0 out of 2. No 0.5 points in official FIDE tournaments for missing rounds. So, Ian is forced to play a "double swiss gambit". I remember, Sambuev started 0/2 once in Cuba, but won his next 6 games and shared 1st place. Bator is a very streaky player. So, Ian still has some chances and 11 rounds are more than 9.

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                        • #13
                          Hi Victor, Do you remember position and continuation from your winning blitz game? Sounds entertaining. Now the secret is out, your training partner is Mark.

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                          • #14
                            Its Michael Dougherty again and on the F-file! Smorgasbord tactics. Michael, youve become my favorite entertainer!

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                            • #15
                              The well-known yo-yo effect in big swiss tournaments continued in round 4, as many Canadians won against lower-rated opponents. Porper has now 3.5 out of 4, Michael Dougherty and myself 3, David Cummings 2.5.

                              Michael plays really well so far, he won again against higher-rated opponent, this time a 2350 player. I have a chance to become his next victim, as we play in 5th round. I would prefer a 2150 European opponent, but obviously this is beyond my control. Usually, I don't play well against Michael, we have close to equal score after many games.

                              With 7 Canadian players in the 50+ section, we probably have more participants than any other country except Germany. So, some derbies are imminent, likely Plotkin-Dougherty is not the last one.

                              Bled is a beautiful place, I was here with my family a few years ago on Christmas. The main attraction is a gorgeous lake, with a small island and an old castle on the hill nearby. Around-the-lake trip takes slightly more than 1 hour (6 km) and this a mandatory part of a day schedule for many participants here.
                              Last edited by Victor Plotkin; Thursday, 22nd November, 2018, 07:30 AM.

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