2011 State Allegro Championship

Played at the Moresby Street Centre, Kensington on the 22nd of May 2011.


The WA Allegro Championship attracted 25 entries, about average for this type of event in WA. Of these, 9 were Juniors, which is encouraging. Given the time control of the event (15 minutes flagfall) it is not too surprising that most of the prizes were won by Juniors, or recent Juniors.

Yita Choong was the first to break clear, with 4 wins in a row, including a seemingly critical one against Tom Donaldson in round 4. However, consecutive losses to Thomas Pinnock (!) and Aston Taminsjah left him needing some help, if he was to win.

However, that help was not forthcoming, and Tom and Aston Taminsjah scored an excellent 8 points to share the WA Allegro title. Aston�s only loss was to Tom in round 2.

Dennis Holland finished in 4th place with 5�. Unfortunately, he was not eligible for any of the rating prizes.

Six players finished on 5 points: Thomas Pinnock, Matthew Duke, Nedeljko Tomic, Alan Wolstencroft, Girma Orssengo and Alexander Ridley. Between them, these players shared every rating prize, as well as the Junior prize. It was difficult to find a way to divide the prizemoney, so I took a slightly different path.

Since Matthew Duke was the only one to be rated below 1400, it was easy enough to give him that prize. Matthew did very well, at one stage having 5/7, before running into Tom and Yita in the last two rounds. According to the (slightly suspect) rating program attached to SwissPerfect, Matthew was only expected to score 0.36 points from the 9 rounds, so his score of 5 was really not expected, at least by SwissPerfect.

For each of the other 5 players, I assessed their result in terms of all of the rating groups. For example, all 5 equally shared the U1800 prize, so they each received $8 each for that. Thomas and Alexander shared the Junior prize, so they each received $20 for that. Finally, Thomas, Girma and Alexander shared the U1600 prize, so they each received $13.33 for that. Then, I added up the bits and rounded the values a little bit to achieve the final result. It was a bit of a pain, but it seemed to be a decent way to do it.

We had our share of excitement along the way. One passionate young player took out his frustration with Chess on the building. Fortunately, he did not damage either himself, or the building, but he did cause something of a ruckus, and a halt to play. Another player was also causing problems, at one stage threatening to call the police, swearing at people, and departing with a threat to sue me. There were other minor incidents, but the CAWA Council will have to consider whether any action is required regarding these two.

Thomas Pinnock was unfortunate to fall foul of the dreaded mobile phone gambit in the last round. If we had not been running so late because of previous problems, this phone call would have come after play was over. At least, Thomas still received the same amount of prizemoney that he would have won, even if he had won the last game. Thomas continues to impress in the short time that he has been playing in open Chess tournaments.

All of this may have been amusing for bystanders but was a bit stressful for me. Hopefully, not all future tournaments will prove this lively, but no one can say that the CAWA does not provide entertainment! By the way, is anyone out there looking for an opportunity to become a DOP? Vacancies exist.

Your shaken but (hopefully) not stirred DOP, Haydn Barber.



Prize Winners


  Open
 =1st	Tom Donaldson, Aston Taminsjah	    8/9
  3rd	Yita Choong			    7

  U1800/U1600/Junior
 =1st 	Thomas Pinnock, Nedeljko Tomic,	Alan Wolstencroft, 
        Girma Orssengo & Alexander Ridley   5

  U1400
  1st 	 Matthew Duke 			    5


Final Standings


 Place Name                     Loc  Club   Score  M-Buch. Progr.  

 1-2   Donaldson, Thomas        1931        8        37.5   39.0
       Taminsjah, Aston         1690 Junior 8        37.5   37.0
 3     Choong, Yita             2040        7        36.5   36.0
 4     Holland, Dennis          1832        5.5      37.5   29.0
 5-10  Pinnock, Thomas          1431 Junior 5        38.5   28.0
       Duke, Matthew            1155 Junior 5        37.5   26.0
       Tomic, Nedeljko          1645        5        35.5   26.0
       Wolstencroft, Alan       1650        5        33.0   26.0
       Orssengo, Girma          1576        5        29.5   24.0
       Ridley, Alexander        1454 Junior 5        26.5   19.0
 11-14 Dunlop, Gordon           1715        4.5      33.0   26.5
       Mukhedkar, Sanjay        1742        4.5      30.0   22.5
       Shaw, Robin              1673        4.5      26.5   18.5
       Carolin-Unkovich, George 1336 Junior 4.5      26.5   17.5
 15-17 Cheong, Joseph           1532        4        33.5   24.0
       Kuriyan, Dileep          1440        4        30.5   20.0
       Mechlowski, Lennard      1624        4        28.5   22.5
 18-19 Cunningham, Sam          1407 Junior 3        25.0   14.0
       Patron, Andrzej          1857        3        17.5   11.0
 20    Ghorbanian, Behrouz      1163        2.5      21.5   12.5
 21-22 Shitole, Yash            1044 Junior 2        21.0    9.0
       Xiong, Sean              1102 Junior 2        13.5    7.0
 23    Shaw, Shane              1055        1        30.5    3.0
 24-25 Markwitz, Robin          1129 Junior 0        31.0    0.0
       Kreivez, Alex            1144        0         5.0    0.0


Cross Table


 No  Name                     Loc  Total  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    

 1.  Choong, Yita             2040 7     13:W  8:W  4:W  2:W 16:L  7:L 10:W 15:W 20:W
 2.  Donaldson, Thomas        1931 8     14:W  7:W  3:W  1:L  4:W 16:W  9:W 20:W  6:W
 3.  Patron, Andrzej          1857 3     15:W 10:W  2:L  6:W  7:L   :    :    :    : 
 4.  Holland, Dennis          1832 5.5   16:W  9:W  1:L 23:W  2:L 13:D  6:W  7:L 15:W
 5.  Mukhedkar, Sanjay        1742 4.5   18:W 12:L 13:L 15:W 19:W  9:L 11:D 16:L 22:W
 6.  Dunlop, Gordon           1715 4.5   19:D 11:W 12:W  3:L 13:W 20:L  4:L 18:W  2:L
 7.  Taminsjah, Aston         1690 8     20:W  2:L 15:W 12:W  3:W  1:W 16:W  4:W 10:W
 8.  Shaw, Robin              1673 4.5   21:+  1:L 23:L 19:L 18:D 22:W 14:L 24:W 11:W
 9.  Wolstencroft, Alan       1650 5     22:W  4:L 20:W 13:L 12:W  5:W  2:L 10:L 17:W
 10. Tomic, Nedeljko          1645 5     23:W  3:L 16:L 18:W 14:W 19:W  1:L  9:W  7:L
 11. Mechlowski, Lennard      1624 4     24:W  6:L 25:W 16:L 20:L 17:W  5:D 13:D  8:L
 12. Orssengo, Girma          1576 5     25:W  5:W  6:L  7:L  9:L 14:W 15:L 17:W 24:W
 13. Cheong, Joseph           1532 4      1:L 19:W  5:W  9:W  6:L  4:D 20:L 11:D 14:L
 14. Ridley, Alexander        1454 5      2:L 20:L 24:W 25:W 10:L 12:L  8:W 22:W 13:W
 15. Kuriyan, Dileep          1440 4      3:L 22:W  7:L  5:L 24:W 25:W 12:W  1:L  4:L
 16. Pinnock, Thomas          1431 5      4:L 24:W 10:W 11:W  1:W  2:L  7:L  5:W 18:L
 17. Cunningham, Sam          1407 3       :L   :L 19:L 24:W 22:W 11:L 25:W 12:L  9:L
 18. Carolin-Unkovich, George 1336 4.5    5:L 23:L 22:W 10:L  8:D 24:W 19:W  6:L 16:W
 19. Ghorbanian, Behrouz      1163 2.5    6:D 13:L 17:W  8:W  5:L 10:L 18:L   :    : 
 20. Duke, Matthew            1155 5      7:L 14:W  9:L 22:W 11:W  6:W 13:W  2:L  1:L
 21. Kreivez, Alex            1144 0      8:-   :L   :    :    :    :    :    :    : 
 22. Markwitz, Robin          1129 0      9:L 15:L 18:L 20:L 17:L  8:L 24:L 14:L  5:L
 23. Xiong, Sean              1102 2     10:L 18:W  8:W  4:L 25:L   :    :    :    : 
 24. Shaw, Shane              1055 1     11:L 16:L 14:L 17:L 15:L 18:L 22:W  8:L 12:L
 25. Shitole, Yash            1044 2     12:L   :W 11:L 14:L 23:W 15:L 17:L   :    :