Sunday, February 25, 2007

City of Sydney, First Day

The 2007 City of Sydney event began yesterday at the North Sydney Leagues Club with another slightly disappointing turnout of players. Our mate TCN gives the exact numbers here in this post with a detailed account of yesterday's results.

Got to the venue just in time for a last minute entry. Ninety bucks that cost me! Damn, these chess tournaments are so expensive these days, I said to the NSWCA treasurer. For that kind of money I could be having a nice 3-course meal at one of Sydney's finer joints. Aah but anyway it's only one of two tournaments I play these days so I suppose it's not so bad a hit to the bank account.

Proceedings began with a belated award ceremony for the 2006 New South Wales Chess Championships won by FM Greg Canfell last year. NSWCA treasurer Norm Greenwood handed over a very nice little trophy - a silver cup. Normally they give you the shield, which you have to give back of course, that has all the Champs' names but I think this is the first time the officials have handed over a take-home trophy. I got the impression that Greg really loved that one.

Mr Canfell is the top seed, from memory. I'll have to get a complete list of players for tonight's update. Of note is the participation of a certain Dariusz Swiercz. He's a 12-year old from Poland and already a FIDE master!




The kid was lucky, I think, to get a draw in the first round. Against Hamish Selnes, Dariusz was the exchange down with his time winding to less than 60 seconds. The local player, unfortunately permitted a repetition.

As TCN repoted, I lost my first round game to Tomek Rej. Quite an OK effort considering that this was my first normal game for a long time. It was followed by a draw when, really, I should have lost!

I better just shoot of here now. There's an extra 20 to 30 minutes travelling time this weekend because of trackwork on the rail line. More updates later tonight.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I first seen him played at WSCP Lightning Tournament in Rooty Hill Chess (Feb 20). He's really good and quick, losing only to Jason Hu. You'll find about him in a new blog by Dozy at http://chessgenie.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Is Dariusz here on holidays?
Or is he residing in Australia for awhile?

There are 45 players in this years event,whats the usual turnout?

Around 60?