Friday 12 February 2016

Junior Closed information

The organisers of the SA Junior Closed in Bloemfontein at the end of March have just published their 1st circular for the 2016 SAJCCC. More details on the tournament rules and a list of invited players can be found on the SAJCCC 2016 website which is now live.

All KZN players going to the Junior Closed are asked to contact Divesh Sookdeo who is our regional representative. He is responsible for player registration and needs to know if players are staying at the hostel, and if any player has a disability. The deadline to register is 20th February, so players need to contact Divesh by the 19th February.


iLembe's golden girls

As previously reported, the under 15 girls team from Khayalemfundo School in Mandeni were crowned as Top Schools chess champions in Pretoria in December 2015.

Their story has now been published in the Stanger Weekly newspaper of 10th February 2016: "On Friday (5th February 2016), officials of the iLembe Department of Education, KwaZulu-Natal Chess Association and the Department of Sport and Recreation paid an unannounced visit to the school to congratulate the pupils on their outstanding achievement."



 President of KwaZulu-Natal Chess Association, Sandile Xulu, heaped praise upon the school chess coach, Siyabonga Gumede, and the girls on their outstanding feat. He also presented each of the seven girls with a chess set and a chess clock. Click on this link for the full article on news24.

Tuesday 9 February 2016

Games from Cape Town

The SA Junior national team championships and wild card events took place from 4th to 10th January 2016. The organisers published PGN files of games for 21 selected events (7 team, 14 wild card) on the Chess-Results.com website.

Most of the games from the A section of the teams event were in the 7 PGN files that I collected. Where a game was missing, I have added in a blank game header with the published result. Note that the under 20 A section was played on DGT boards and these games were broadcast live on the Tshwane chess website and can be downloaded from there. My file contains the scores from the DGT file where these differed from those on the Chess-Results website.

Here is my PGN file for A sections of team event (1736 games/results).

For the wild card events, the organisers published 14 PGN files, basically the top 10 boards of each age group. There were numerous missing or unreadable scores. Where a game was missing, I have added in a blank game header with the published result. I have also added in all results for the top players who were selected for the forthcoming Junior Closed in March.

Here is my edited PGN file for all 14 wild card events (1136 games/results).


Saturday 6 February 2016

Kenny Solomon masterclass

Just over a year ago Kenny Solomon became South Africa's first grandmaster, by winning the African individual chess championship held in Windhoek. Kenny currently lives in Venice and plays in a lot of open tournaments in Europe. He is a regular at the Gibraltar Masters open and was this year invited to do a video presentation on two of his best games, followed by answering questions about chess in South Africa. The video, titled Masterclass GM Kenny Solomon, is about 70 minutes long, and gives a fascinating look at his chess philosophy and his love for the game. I highly recommend this video!