Categories
Tournaments

1Q iNet Tournament 2020

The 1Q internet tournament was held on Sunday 28 March, on OGS. 10 players participated.

Competition was fierce between the top three, with Andrew beating Andre by 4.5 points but losing to Chris by the same margin to end in second. Congratulations to Chris on his win. All games were even (no handicap) and positions 4 to 6 were determined by “sum of opponent’s scores”.

Final standings:
1: Chris Welsh, 3d
2: Andrew Davies 3d
3: Andre Connell, 2d
4: Paul Edwards, 1d
5: Rocco Vivier, 3k
6: Ben Bredenkamp, 1k
7: Dave Gale, 1k
8: Christina Auret, 6k
9: Christiaan Maasdorp, 4k
10: Michael Rapson, 5k

Categories
Rank Changes Tournaments Winter League

Winter League 2020

Winter league 2020 took place from May through September, with 18 players taking part. Player ranks ranged from 4d to 18k.

A McMahon style tournament, with pairings pre-drawn based on player ranks at the start of the tournament, was trialed in 2019. As the format seemed to be successful, it was used again. The “McMahon bar” was set at 3k to encourage games between players above and below the bar after the initial rounds.

Competition for the top spot was fierce, but ultimately an on form Chris Welsh secured wins against Andrew and Ben to secure first place with a MMS (McMahon score) of 22. Four players tied on an MMS of 21. These were Ben, Andrew, Andre, and Rocco. Ben and Andrew were only separated by their head to head game, won by Ben. Andrew managed to finally break Andre’s winning streak in their head to head tournament matches during 2020. The remaining ties were broken by SOSM or SOSOSM (“sum of opponent score McMahon” and “sum of sum of opponent score McMahon” respectively).

Congratulations to Rocco, Fred, Neville, Anton, and Pico who all received promotions during the course of the tournament.

Final standings:
1: Chris Welsh, 3d
2: Ben Gale, 4d
3: Andrew Davies, 3d
4: Andre Connell, 2d
5: Rocco Vivier, 3k
6: James Nicolson, 1k
7: James Gelant, 4k
8: David Gale, 1k
9: Michael Rapson, 5k
10: Paul Edwards, 1d
11: Lloyd Rubidge, 1d
12: Christiaan Maasdorp, 4k
13: Marc Loon, 5k
14: Fred Strauss, 7k
15: Gordon Wells, 7k
16: Neville Eisenberg, 11k (playing as 10k in the tournament)
17: Anton Stott, 13k
18: Pico Geyer, 16k

Categories
SAGA Tournaments

SA Closed tournament: Contenders 2020 results

Contenders was held primarily online this year, using the South Africa room of OGS as the main venue. Players were also given the option of meeting up and playing “over the board” with opponents in their area.

In the top four players, Victor and Andrew defended their 2019 positions, and Chris managed to nudge Andre out of 3rd. There was a three way tie in the bottom four players, with Lloyd, Ben, and Paul Edwards all on 2 wins. This arose because they each scored one win and one loss in their head-to-head games. The rules of the Candidates tournament specifies that this tie is broken based on the results from the previous year (2019). This resulted in Lloyd and Ben taking 5th and 6th place respectively. Paul Edwards improved on his 2019 position, finishing in 7th. Congratulations to Paul Steyn for qualifying for candidates for the first time.

The final standings were as follows:
1) Victor Chow – 7 wins
2) Andrew Davies – 6 wins
3) Chris Welsh – 5 wins
4) Andre Connell – 4 wins
5) Lloyd Rubidge – 2 wins, tiebreaker 5th in 2019
6) Ben Bredenkamp – 2 wins, tiebreaker 6th in 2019
7) Paul Edwards – 2 wins, tiebreaker 8th in 2019
8) Paul Steyn – 0 wins

Victor, Andrew, Chris, and Andre once again automatically qualify for the event next year.

Categories
KPMC Tournaments

KPMC 2020

Victor Chow represented South Africa in the 15th Korea Prime Minister Cup, held in August. The tournament was held online, so the usual round robin format was replaced by a double elimination qualifying round, followed by a knock out tournament for the top 32 players.

Victor finished top of his group with straight wins and progressed to the knock out tournament. He beat the representatives from the Czech Republic and Ukraine in round of 32 and round of 16 respectively. In the round of 8, he faced Minoru Ozeki from Japan, who unfortunately proved too strong. Ozeki went on to face China in the final.

Congratulations to Victor for a solid performance at the 15th KPMC, where he showed his fighting spirit on many occasions. Full results are available on the KPMC site.

Categories
Cape Town Rank Changes Tournaments Western Cape

Cape Town Open 2020

The 2020 Cape Town Open was held on May 23. This year it was played on OGS rather than “over the board”. This allowed a number of Gauteng based players to participate and made for a competitive tournament.

The top spot was taken by Chris Welsh, in a bit of a repeat of the 1Q internet tournament. Congratulations also to Pico on his promotion to 17k after his round one win.

Final standings:
1: Chris Welsh, 3d, MMS 33
2: Andrew Davies, 4d, MMS 32 SOS 94
3: Andre Connell, 2d, MMS 32 SOS 92
4: Lloyd Rubidge, 1d, MMS 31 SOS 92 SOSOS 276
5: Paul Edwards, 1d, MMS 31 SOS 92 SOSOS 267
6: Christiaan Maasdorp, 4k, MMS 27 SOS 88
7: Michael Rapson, 5k, MMS 27 SOS 79
8: Fred Strauss, 8k, MMS 23
9: Pico Geyer, 18k, MMS 14

Thanks to everyone who took part.