SA Open 2009

Images: SAOpen2009.com

It’s time for the South African Open 2009. It’s also time for you to enter this tournament, follow all the links which will open in a new window.

Click here for the Official site of Chess South Africa – Chessa – and click here to enter the SA Open 2009 that takes place in Cape Town from the 3-11th July 2009. Now is the chance to grab this opportunity to play chess and to see the country the same time! The venue is Wynberg Boys High School in Cape Town. Click here for the venue-details.
Chess Cube is a South African chess site, another site where you can play chess online. I’m quite sure you will be impressed with the interface of Chess Cube.

Chessa chess calendar. Follow this link for all details of  chess tournaments in South Africa throughout the year.

Top 40 Chess players in South Africa, Anzel Solomons (F) is in position 41 with a rating of 2043
On this link you can see the complete list of the top 100 chess players in South Africa as by 28th April 2009.

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Melodies of love

Classical music and chess are two of my “melodies of love”..if you know what I mean..and today I want to share Dolannes Melody, by the master himself, the French artist, Jean-Claude Borelly! If you’re a chess player, try playing a game while listening to this music, you surely will have a good game. Wasn’t it Philidor that was a composer too…and a world chess champion! Today’s chess game, which I played on  Chesscube, was really one of  “those” games – for me…a plain silly start. No excuses. Sometimes you play (well me, not you) and you make certain moves and you don’t know what on earth caused you those moves. If you look at these images, you will see what I mean. You see, this is “typical-me”..Frailty, thy name is woman!) not thinking about the game, but just playing for the fun of it..and then, suddenly, the tables get turned…and your opponent refused to move as he knows he’s in trouble…and..”The rest is silence.” I wonder if you will identify some quotes I’ve used here and know from which play? You can now play through two games interactively. Down in this post you will find the links to play through it. Game 2 is a game I’ve played earlier tonight on Chesscube. My opponent is a 1708 strong player. I beat him in our first round and in the second I lost due to a silly Knight-move! If it wasn’t for my Knight-move, I could have beaten him, but that shows you again.. absent-minded-me! Please click on the images for a larger view.

You will see how he used his Knight (my favourite piece – see how I used my Knights later on!) to “spoil” it for me! –“O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”

–“Let me be cruel, not unnatural; I will speak daggers to her, but use none.”

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

..hmmm…first Knight to move in with a Knight-fork…”Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery.”

..and my second ready to slay his King..another Knight-fork…gmf! that will teach him to chase my Dame around and slaughter my men! –“The rest is silence..

And my dearest opponent begged me to stop..and on his knees he prayed his last prayers…his poor King in rags! –“The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King!”  –“Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

Do you think it’s true what Kasparov said?

Game 1: Please click HERE to play through the game. The game will open in a new window.

1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nb5 Kd7 5. Nxc7 Rb8 6. Nb5 Ra8 7. Bc7 Qe8 8. Be5 Ne4 9. Nc7 Qd8 10. Nxa8 f6 11. Bc7 Qe8 12. Bf4 e6 13. Nc7 Qe7 14. Nb5 Qf7 15. Nd6 Bxd6 16. Bxd6 Nxd6 17. e3 a6 18. Nf3 Rd8 19. Qd2 Ne4 20. Qd3 g6 21. h3 f5 22. a4 Nb4 23. Qb3 Qe7 24. c3 Nc6 25. c4 Na5 26. Qb6 Nc6 27. b4 Nxb4 28. cxd5 Nc2+ 29. Kd1 Nxa1 30. Ne5+ Ke8 31. f3 Nf2+ 32. Kc1 Nxh1 33. Bb5+ axb5 34. Qxb5+ Bd7 35. Qxb7 Qa3+ 36. Kd2 Nb3+ 37. Kc2 Na5 0-1

Game 2: Please click HERE to play through the game.

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Bg4 4. d5 Bxf3 5. Qxf3 a6 6. Nc3 h6 7. Bd3 Nf6 8. O-O Nbd7 9. Re1 Qe7 10. Qd1 Nb6 11. b3 Qd7 12. a4 Be7 13. a5 Nc8 14. b4 O-O 15. Ne2 Nh7 16. Ng3 Bg5 17. Bxg5 Nxg5 18. Qh5 Ne7 19. Be2 Ng6 20. Bg4 Qd8 21. Nf5 Nf4 22. Qh4 Qf6 23. Qg3 Rab8 24. h4 Nh7 25. Bd1 Ng6 26. Nxh6+ gxh6 27. h5 Kh8 28. hxg6 Qxg6 29. Qh3 Rg8 30. Bf3 Ng5 31. Qg3 Nxf3+ 32. Qxf3 Rg7 33. Re3 Rbg8 34. g3 Rh7 35. Qe2 h5 36. Rd1 h4 37. Rdd3 h3 38. Kh2 Qg4 39. Qxg4 Rxg4 40. Rc3 f6 41. Re2 Rgg7 42. Rf3 Rf7 43. Rf5 Rh6 44. g4 Kg7 45. Rh5 Rxh5 46. gxh5 Kh6 47. Kxh3 Kxh5 48. Kg2 Rg7+ 49. Kf1 Rg5 50. Re3 f5 51. Rh3+ Kg4 52. Rg3+ Kf4 53. Rxg5 Kxg5 54. exf5 Kxf5 55. Ke2 Ke4 56. Kd2 Kxd5 57. Kd3 e4+ 58. Ke3 Ke5 59. c3 d5 60. f4+ Kf5 61. Kd4 c6 62. Ke3 Ke6 63. Ke2 Kf5 64. Ke3 Kf6 65. Ke2 Ke6 66. Ke3 Kf5 67. Kd4 Kg4 68. Ke5 e3 69. f5 e2 70. f6 e1=Q+ 71. Kd6 Qg3+ 72. Kc5 Qc7 0-1

Update: Game 3…Another game I played on Chess cube….my opponent’s time ran out…although he was about to lose the game too…please click HERE to play through the game where I played white. Out of desperation he forced me to capture his Queen in order to have a lost myself, but I didn’t mind that much as I knew I had a Pawn-advantage. I loved the position of my Knights during the middle-game as I could use them effectively.

1. d4 h5 2. e4 e6 3. e5 f5 4. Bf4 Ne7 5. Bg5 h4 6. Bb5 b6 7. Bxe7 Bxe7 8. h3 Bb7 9. f3 Bb4+ 10. c3 Be7 11. Nd2 a6 12. Ba4 b5 13. Bc2 Nc6 14. Nb3 b4 15. c4 d5 16. c5 Bg5 17. Bd3 Be3 18. Be2 Bxd4 19. Nxd4 Nxe5 20. Nxe6 Qd7 21. Nd4 Rh5 22. Qd2 Rg5 23. Qxg5 Qe7 24. Qxf5 Rd8 25. Kf2 Bc8 26. Qc2 c6 27. Re1 Qg5 28. b3 Qg3+ 29. Kf1 Kf7 30. Bd3 Re8 31. Re2 Qg5 32. Bf5 Bxf5 33. Nxf5 Re6 34. Nd4 Nd3 35. Nxe6 Qc1+ 36. Qxc1 Nxc1 37. Nd8+ 1-0

Now, for the climax! Do enjoy Dolannes Melody and if you like it, I’ve got a link – Grumpy Boss’s blog – where you can download it from rapidshare. But you also have to download the Rar-software to unzip it…good luck, it’s worth doing it for a wonderful piece of music like this, and you not only get the one track, but the complete album! Follow the link.
Dolannes Melody
Jean-Claude Borelly

http://grumpyscorner.blogspot.com/2007/08/jean-claude-borelly-dolannes-melody.html

This is the Youtube-movie with Dolannes Melody.

The Piano version

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African Juniors 2008_2009 and Chess games

African Junior Chess Championhips 2008_2009… Please scroll down a little bit..I do apologise for this mixed post! I didn’t know I was going to have time to blog the African Juniors and didn’t want to start a new entry…

Melissa Greeff and Kareim Wageih - Winners of the African Junior CC 2008_9

 Finally I got my picture! Image from the Official site of Chessa. Melissa Greeff – from South Africa and Kareim Wageih – from Egypt, are the winners of the 2008_9 African Junior Chess Championship that took place in South Africa. For a larger view you may want to click on the image. See more images at the bottom of this post and 5 pages of lovely photos on the official site (link in this post).

I’m not in a mood to explain anything about my own games in this post. Ask me why…and I’ll tell you it’s because of politiciants ranted about what was written in a book they’ve read, believed all the rubbish and think they know everything after what some stupid guy wrote! (ok, that was a couple of  years ago, but still…the idea! who says what was was written in that book was the truth anyway! You should go and visit a place to see what’s going on before you make any accusations or act upon what was written in a book! Silly – if you ask me!) Well, you shouldn’t ask me more on this, unless you want to see me ranting tomorrow whole day!  And those same “people” won’t move a finger about what’s going on in Zimbabwe. Could somebody please write them a book about Zimbabwe!!! People are dying of hunger, calling for help…much worse is going on than what was written by “someone”, but do they care…no! They think they care..does anyone ever really care what’s going on in another country…who cares about Mugabe killing his own people? Is he God-sent..that they don’t do anything?

Ek wip sommer my agterend vir hierdie Engelse Barones wat dink dat as jy ‘n boek lees, dat alles in ‘n boek waar is…sy was seker lekker blond gewees. Dis alles in die hansard, skree as jy die link wil hê, maar maak gereed om jou te vererg.

 Ok, I’ll shut-up and keep my thoughts to chess…that’s much better – for my soul at least. I’ve decided to upload only a few images about games I’ve played recently..some good games, some silly stupid games.  Chess Cube is a quite newish chess site which is worth to check out. You can follow this link or the link on my blog’s side bar – with the white knight’s-head. Links in the post will open in a new window.

 The Hastings Chess tournament is also now on and on THIS LINK you will find games from the 1920’s till 2004 played at Hastings tournaments. Games can also be downloaded. I also have a few chess graphics of games played by earlier Chess Grandmasters, which I dug out on Chess World. Sometimes if I play through these games, I think..oh, that’s easy, or that looks like such an easy game, or…hmm..I think I can play a game like that too! but…gmf..when it comes to the real game…it’s not always so easy peasy, but I guess I need to follow the “rules” more, as I’m  following my “own” rules. I’m playing not too much now, but prefer to go on Chess Cube for a quick real time game, there’s always someone to play with. I do like Chess Cube’s interface, it’s cool.  Chess Cube is a South African site, also now a site which the English Chess use for their chess club. At the bottom of this post you will find a link to the English Chess-forum-site and the image with the link shows you the page you get when you go to “their” club…but once you’ve clicked on “log in”..it takes you straight away to the main page of Chess Cube. On Chess Cube you can also join your country’s chat room, if you like. The African Junior Chess Championship is now taking place in South Africa! You will find a link to the official site with more information in this post too.

Chess.com-game..I played white. I guess it was  a good checkmate in this game.

 

Chess.com-game..I played white in this game, my American opponent wasn’t “impressed” with my play…by that I think you know what I mean..

Sneumann vs Steinitz

Maroczy vs Pillsbury 

Steinitz vs Lasker

Chess.com-game..this game wasn’t a  good game for me…although it might look like it was.

Chess Cube-game..I like the position here..I played white in this game too..how come are all these games I’m blogging games where I played white!…just wondering..

Flags of the African countries taking part in the championships

African Junior Chess Championship: 28th December 2008 – 6th January 2009.
Please click here for the African Juniors link for more information.

The Amanzintaba Resort at Bronkhorstspruit, South Africa, where the African Junior Chess Championships are taking place. Amanzintaba means: “Water from the mountain”, this link will take you to the resort’s homepage. Bronkhorstspruit is near Pretoria, about 30 mins’ drive on the N4 Highway. Thaba in Northern Sotho means “mountain”…I’m not sure if they’ve changed the spelling of “thaba” in this resort’s name..this is my knowledge of Northern Sotho.

African Junior Chess Championship: Schedule

 

African Junior Chess Championships 2008_9: Girls top 5 after round 7

African Junior Chess Championships 2008_9: Open section after round 7

South African girls taking the lead in the African Juniors- girls section

African Junior Chess Championship: Open section after round 8

 African Junior Chess Championships: Round 9 – The final round…
  

Results: Round 9 - South African girls taking the first 5 places, well done!

Results: Open section: Round 9, the final round. Egypt taking the lead again.

For a larger view, please click on the images

For more images about the African Juniors…please follow my link to the official site in this post. There are 5 pages of lovely pics to see, also pics about their free day.

Chess Cube interface…ahh…you can see I played black here!
Please click here for the English Chess Forum link. The link will open in a new window. English chess -url…http://ecfclub.chesscube.com/

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