Monday 9 February 2015

Games from Kimberley 2015

Capturing games at the SA Junior Chess Championships held in Kimberley in January 2015 was a mammoth task. In the end about 2700 games were captured - all the games from the Championship sections of the teams event (about 1700 games) plus selected games from the Wild Card and all the games from the Inter-Regional. The game capturers faced an unenviable job, since many players were unable to notate clearly throughout their games.

The organisers supplied PGN game files for each round on their website. These raw PGN files needed a lot of editing! After what seemed like weeks spent retyping player names (some names had 5 different spellings/variations), the next step was to find out and enter the age group sections (as these were omitted from the raw PGN file). I then had a working file on ChessBase and inputted the player ratings. After getting all the official results from the pairings software (one advantage of being an arbiter) I then looked for incorrect results (where a result differed from that on the team sheets). In a few cases I was surprised to find the colours in the raw PGN were opposite to those on the team sheets. It is possible that there are still errors in my corrected PGN files, so please let me know if you find any.

Here are all the games from the Junior Team Championships (1736 games, PGN) after correction of player names, event details etc. Some game scores are incomplete and others are missing. For missing scores, I have inserted player names and the published result in the PGN file. For reference purposes, here is the unedited PGN file of the teams event, from the official website.

I have not yet finalised my editing of the Wild Card events, so here is the unedited PGN file of the Wild Card events, from the official website.

Finally, here are all the games of the 2015 Inter Regional (172 games, PGN) after correction of player names, event details etc. Some game scores are incomplete and others are missing. For missing scores, I have inserted player names and the published result in the PGN file.