Australian Universities Rapid Championships: Final standings

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

1  Zhao, Zong-Yuan        2427 USYD  8.5   12:W  6:W  8:W  4:W  5:W  2:D  3:W  9:W  7:W
2  Hu, Jason              2090 USYD  7      7:W  9:W  3:L 10:W  4:W  1:D 12:W  8:W  6:D
3  Rej, Tomek             2175 USYD  6.5   14:W 18:W  2:W  5:L  7:W  9:W  1:L  4:D  8:W
4  Oliver, Gareth         1800 ANU   6.5   24:W 21:W 13:W  1:L  2:L  5:W  7:W  3:D 10:W
5  Chan, Jason            2128 USYD  5.5    0:D 26:W 15:W  3:W  1:L  4:L 13:W  6:L 14:W
6  Hvistendahl, Robert    1768 USYD  5.5   23:W  1:L 14:W 16:W  9:L 12:L 11:W  5:W  2:D
7  Szeto, Jonathan        1470 UNSW  5      2:L 22:W 17:W  8:W  3:L 10:W  4:L 16:W  1:L
8  O'Chee, Kevin          2051 USYD  5     19:W 17:W  1:L  7:L 13:W 11:W  9:W  2:L  3:L
9  Chernih, Nicholas      1764 UNSW  5     22:W  2:L 23:W 21:W  6:W  3:L  8:L  1:L 20:W
10 Chan, Daniel           1715 USYD  5     21:L 24:W 11:W  2:L 16:W  7:L 19:W 12:W  4:L
11 Sirel, Aycan                UTS   5     15:L 20:W 10:L 19:W 17:W  8:L  6:L 18:W 13:W
12 Wang, Zhengbo          1525 ANU   5      1:L 23:L 24:W 22:W 21:W  6:W  2:L 10:L 16:W
13 Hermann, Sebastian     2015 USYD  4.5   20:W 15:D  4:L 18:W  8:L 14:W  5:L 17:W 11:L
14 Reading, Jeremy        1524 ANU   4.5    3:L 27:W  6:L 23:D 15:W 13:L 22:W 19:W  5:L
15 Lo, Anthony            1537 USYD  4.5   11:W 13:D  5:L 17:L 14:L 23:W 18:L 24:W 21:W
16 Khoo, Huan Miao             USYD  4     17:L 19:W 18:W  6:L 10:L 21:W 20:W  7:L 12:L
17 Barker, Mitchell       1564 USYD  4     16:W  8:L  7:L 15:W 11:L 20:L 26:W 13:L 23:W
18 Olesen, Esper          1727 MAC U 4     27:W  3:L 16:L 13:L 22:W 19:L 15:W 11:L 25:W
19 Oliver, Shannon        1449 ANU   4      8:L 16:L 27:W 11:L 23:W 18:W 10:L 14:L 26:W
20 Wong, Tony             1312 USYD  4     13:L 11:L 22:L 26:W 24:W 17:W 16:L 21:W  9:L
21 Lee, Terry                  UNSW  3     10:W  4:L 26:W  9:L 12:L 16:L 23:W 20:L 15:L
22 Bautista, Billy Joel   1170 USYD  3      9:L  7:L 20:W 12:L 18:L 25:W 14:L 26:W 24:L
23 Harrison-Ford, Michael 1230 ANU   2.5    6:L 12:W  9:L 14:D 19:L 15:L 21:L 25:W 17:L
24 White, Gareth          1296 USYD  2.5    4:L 10:L 12:L  0:W 20:L 26:L 25:D 15:L 22:W
25 Oliver, Jenni          657  ANU   1.5    0:   0:   0:   0:  26:W 22:L 24:D 23:L 18:L
26 Lee, James K M         1142 USYD  1.5    0:D  5:L 21:L 20:L 25:L 24:W 17:L 22:L 19:L
27 Cunningham, Michael         MAC U 0     18:L 14:L 19:L  0:   0:   0:   0:   0:   0:

"I’m happy. I’m at a chess tournament. I’m where I belong"... Who said this? Entirely appropriately, it was Gareth Oliver, son of the effervescent and fantastic organiser Jenni. After all, it was Jenni who spotted the need to fill a major hole in Australian chess - a universities event. Think about it: many juniors stop playing chess around the age of 16, being occupied with studies, other interests and, well... life. Then they get to university, and suddenly they have time on their hands again. And they still love chess. But what fun events are there for them to play in?

To be fair, it was not just Jenni Oliver who has begun to fill this gap. Jason Chan, recognising a great idea, put heart and soul into making the first event of this kind work at Sydney Uni - and it did! Jason did far more than just book the venue; between them, Jason and Jenni did much more than just put on a great chess tournament. Players of university age want social activities, and they got them: great food, the excitement and interest of a variants tournament (more on this later), soccer, movies... The fact that some of this was informal and not too organised actually made it even more fun. Yes, this event is here to stay. I only hope we can get more than the 26 players we got this year - we were aiming for 30, so we were close. If all those who played and had a great time tell all their friends next year, I am sure the event will keep growing...

The easygoing, social nature of this event was also helped by the rapid time controls: 20 minutes each, plus ten seconds per move from the start (Fischer). This attracted players from 5 different universities: 15 from Sydney Uni, 5 from ANU, 3 from NSW Uni, 2 from Macquarie Uni and 1 from UTS. The field was strong, with top seeded IM Zong-Yuan Zhao challenged by seasoned players like Tomek Rej, Jason Chan, Jason Hu, Kevin O’Chee, Gareth Oliver, Robert Hvistendahl and Nick Chernih, among others. A great website set up by Jason before the event helped. All we want now is a few more interstate players; we will work on that for next year...

Round 1 was the first of only three rounds on the first day, and already saw one interesting result! Terry Lee showed that the unrated players were going to cause a few shocks with a first up upset win over Daniel Chan (1715). The players castled on opposite sides, but poor Daniel was too busy concentrating on his kingside attack when the enemy bishop and knight got in and smashed him on the queenside! Apart from that, there were no real upsets. Jason Hu had to work very hard as Black to win a double rook ending against Jonathan Szeto in the last game to finish.

After this we were already into lunch, and a variants tournament: a fantastic idea by Jason Chan to add interest to the event. Every round (there were 9), we played a different variant of chess, from Suicide Chess to lesser known versions such as Invincible King and Explosion Chess. (And no, The Bomb - Tomek Rej, the Atomek Bomb - was NOT the best at Explosion Chess...). It was Jason’s idea, so I leave a more detailed report on this event to him. For now, suffice it to say the event was won overall on points by Jason Hu (7.5/9), with my special prize for winning the most games the most quickly going to Kevin O’Chee; and a great deal of fun was had by all!

Back to the "main event": Yuan and Tomek won fairly handily in Round 2 over Rob Hvistendahl and Esper Olesen respectively, but Jason Hu made much harder work of it against Nick Chernih! Nick began an ending a pawn up, but finished up in a rook and opposite coloured bishop ending with equal pawns and a monster passed a7 pawn for Jason (White)! Jason ended up winning the ending to join Yuan, Tomek, Gareth Oliver and Kevin O’Chee on 2/2. Anthony Lo was pawns ahead and should have upset fifth seed Sebastian Hermann (FIDE 2015), but ended up drawing by liquidation of material after Sebastian sacrificed his knight for Anthony’s last two pawns. Upset of the round was by the famous Michael (Harrison-Ford) over Zhengbo Wang (who let his queen get trapped), while two more unrated players proved that they could play: Huan Miao Khoo upset Shannon Oliver, and Aycan Sirel stunned Tony Wong.

Yuan was struggling a bit early in his Round 3 game against Kevin, and had to give up a pawn; but the IM soon fought back to end up winning quite nicely in a knight ending. Tomek’s rook and pawn ending against Jason Hu should probably have been drawn, but Jason missed a critical check forcing the queening of Tomek’s advanced passed pawn and winning. Gareth Oliver beat Sebastian to join Yuan and Tomek on 3/3. Jason Chan, having taken a Round 1 half point bye to be an organiser (!), got to 2.5/3 by beating Anthony Lo. Huan Miao Khoo scored another upset by beating Esper, while Jonathan Szeto took care of the 100 points higher rated Mitchell Barker.

So to Day 2 and Round 4, where Yuan was better against Gareth Oliver but then made a mistake and may have been worse; he was therefore relieved when Gareth was too slow and lost on time! Our IM was soon alone in the lead on 4/4, after Jason Chan reached 3.5/4 by upsetting Tomek in an ending. Four other players joined Gareth and Tomek on 3: Jason Hu, Rob Hvistendahl, Nick Chernih and Jonathan Szeto. Of these, Jonathan scored the big upset, toppling Kevin O’Chee by winning the exchange and eventually getting his passed pawns through to win. More claims to fame for Harrison-Ford, who scored an upset draw with fellow ANU player Jeremy Reading.

Day 2 continued with Yuan winning pretty convincingly against Jason Chan to get to 5/5, while Tomek was on 4/5 after his attack beat Jonathan. Jason Hu and Nick Chernih joined The Bomb on 4/5 by beating Gareth Oliver and Rob Hvistendahl respectively. Nick was quicker, but Jason eventually won in Gareth’s time pressure with more active pieces in a double rook and bishop ending. Jenni Oliver kindly volunteered to join the event to avoid having a bye - and promptly upset James Lee in a blitzathon! Other than that, there were no significant Round 5 upsets.

Jason Hu was much better against Yuan in Round 6, a pawn ahead and winning on both wings and in the centre after the next 5 forced moves; so why did he accept Yuan’s draw offer? "Didn’t want him to swindle me"... Tomek beat Nick in a double rook ending to get to 5/6; while a group on 4/6 included Gareth Oliver, who took advantage of Jason Chan’s time pressure. Zhengbo won his third game in a row by beating Rob Hvistendahl, as did Tony Wong by upsetting Mitchell Barker. Jonathan Szeto also continued his upset run, this time taking care of Daniel Chan.

In the critical Round 7 game between the top two seeds, Yuan was a pawn up against Tomek (White); but the IM sacrificed it back to try to get to the White king. Tomek managed to force a swap of queens; but the resulting rook and pawn ending was still much better for Yuan, and he went on to win. Jason Hu made relatively short work of Zhengbo, while Kevin prevailed against Nick in a much longer game. Jonathan Szeto should have drawn with Gareth Oliver, but lost the dead drawn queen and pawn ending in time pressure by failing to liquidate pawns. The only other upset was caused by Jenni Oliver, who was winning (a piece for two pawns ahead) for much of her game but ended up drawing with Gareth White by liquidation of material.

Still no definite clear winner after Round 8, despite Yuan showing no mercy on Nick to get to 7.5/8; for Jason Hu (6.5/8) could theoretically still catch him after beating Kevin (Black). A piece ahead but with Kevin’s passed f2 pawn looking dangerous, Jason was able to get to Kevin’s king, force a queen swap and win the ending. Tomek’s 2 rooks and knight looked better than Gareth Oliver’s 2 rooks and bad bishop in a locked position; but way behind on time Tomek could see no way through, and so agreed a draw. Rob’s extra pawn eventually upset Jason Chan. Jonathan Szeto got to 5/8 and Board 1 in the last round with a win over Huan Miao Khoo.

Any worries for Yuan were removed early in the last round, as Jason Hu handed the event to him with a 10 second draw with Rob; Yuan made sure of it anyway with a quick win over Jonathan. Tomek won a long game with an overwhelming attack against Kevin. He was joined in third place on 6.5/9 by Gareth Oliver, who sacrificed a rook on spec for an attack against Daniel Chan. It should not have worked, but it did... Gareth White ensured everyone recorded at least one win by winning his first game of the event against Billy Joel Bautista - in the last round!

Special thanks must go of course to Jenni Oliver, not only for her excellent organisational skills but also for effectively sponsoring the event - she subsidised the food on both days to a large extent, resulting in two excellent lunches of pizza on Day 1 and Chinese on Day 2! She also provided many special prizes of chocolate, which I usually awarded to those scoring the biggest upsets - although by the end of the event I tried to make sure that everyone had received at least one... When you add a fantastic dinner on the first night, food was definitely a big part of the event - must be a good thing! Thanks of course also to Jason Chan, whose spirit and enthusiasm was evident the whole event, and without whom it would not have been possible. Hopefully all three of us (Jenni, Jason and myself) will be involved again next year, and the same players and more will be back for an even bigger and better event...

Lunch Variants Fun Event: Final standings

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

1  Hu, Jason              2090 7.5   18:D 20:W 14:W 10:W  2:L 12:W  7:W  6:W  5:W
2  Chan, Jason            2128 6.5   12:W 16:W  6:W  3:W  1:W  7:D  5:L  4:L 11:W
3  Zhao, Zong-Yuan        2427 6      8:W  7:W  5:W  2:L 12:L 11:L 18:W 14:W  4:W
4  O'Chee, Kevin          2051 6     16:L 17:L 23:W 22:W 19:W 10:W 12:W  2:W  3:L
5  Oliver, Gareth         1800 6     22:W 15:W  3:L 11:W  7:L 16:W  2:W 10:W  1:L
6  Hvistendahl, Robert    1768 5.5   17:W  9:W  2:L 12:L 18:W 13:W 11:W  1:L 10:D
7  Chernih, Nicholas      1764 5.5   13:W  3:L 25:W  9:W  5:W  2:D  1:L 11:L 12:W
8  Lo, Anthony            1537 5.5    3:L 14:L 13:D 23:W 16:L 25:W 22:W 18:W 17:W
9  Rej, Tomek             2175 5     11:W  6:L 22:W  7:L 10:L 15:W 17:W 12:L 16:W
10 Chan, Daniel           1715 5     14:D 18:W 15:W  1:L  9:W  4:L 16:W  5:L  6:D
11 Wang, Zhengbo          1525 5      9:L 23:W 16:W  5:L 17:W  3:W  6:L  7:W  2:L
12 Reading, Jeremy        1524 5      2:L 13:W 20:W  6:W  3:W  1:L  4:L  9:W  7:L
13 Harrison-Ford, Michael 1230 4.5    7:L 12:L  8:D  0:W 14:W  6:L 20:L 15:W 18:W
14 Sirel, Aycan                4.5   10:D  8:W  1:L 18:L 13:L 23:W 19:W  3:L  0:W
15 Olesen, Esper          1727 4     19:W  5:L 10:L 17:L 20:W  9:L  0:W 13:L 22:W
16 Oliver, Shannon        1449 4      4:W  2:L 11:L 25:W  8:W  5:L 10:L 20:W  9:L
17 White, Gareth          1296 4      6:L  4:W 18:L 15:W 11:L 22:W  9:L  0:W  8:L
18 Szeto, Jonathan        1470 3.5    1:D 10:L 17:W 14:W  6:L 19:W  3:L  8:L 13:L
19 Khoo, Huan Miao             3.5   15:L 22:L  0:W 20:W  4:L 18:L 14:L 25:D 23:W
20 Barker, Mitchell       1564 3     25:W  1:L 12:L 19:L 15:L  0:W 13:W 16:L 21:L
21 Lee, Terry                  3      0:L  0:L  0:L  0:L  0:L  0:L 25:W 24:W 20:W
22 Wong, Tony             1312 2      5:L 19:W  9:L  4:L  0:W 17:L  8:L 23:L 15:L
23 Bautista, Billy Joel   1170 2      0:L 11:L  4:L  8:L 25:W 14:L 24:L 22:W 19:L
24 Lee, James K M         1142 2      0:   0:   0:   0:   0:   0:L 23:W 21:L 25:W
25 Cunningham, Michael         1.5   20:L  0:W  7:L 16:L 23:L  8:L 21:L 19:D 24:L

During lunch on the first day of the Australian Universities Rapid Championships, pizza was delivered to us (courtesy of the generous sponsorship from Jenni Oliver's Strategem Computer Contractors) and a fun competition was held where on each round, a different variant of chess was played. We ran each round at the blitz time control of 5 minutes, and just before the start of each round, a variant was randomly chosen and then the rules quickly explained.

As I was an organiser of these events, as well as being the arbiter and player for the Lunch Variants Fun Event, it was hard for me to witness exactly what was happening on all the boards, but I hope that this report is nevertheless entertaining.

Round 1: Iron king
The tournament began with Iron King, in which the king is an invincible piece that cannot be captured, not even by the enemy king. The aim of the game is to capture all of the opponents pieces (except the king of course). It was a very unusual experience for all the players as they struggled to get used to being so brave with their king and marching it up the board to gobble up all the enemy pieces. It was unusual seeing all the pieces so scared of the king and running away from it! According to rapid ratings (in 'normal' chess of course), Shannon Oliver (1449) managed to upset Kevin O'Chee (2051) while the fast-improving Jonathan Szeto (1470) held Jason Hu (2090) to a draw.

Round 2: Grand crossing
Here, the aim is to get the king to the opposite side of the board (white king to 8th rank and black king to 1st rank). However, it is illegal to put one's king in check but also, it is illegal to check the opponent's king! Having played the last round, players were now used to the strange idea of bringing out the king very early on, but this time, to restrict the opponent's possibilities since the king cannot be checked. One idea similar to normal chess is that the king gets very excited in the endgame as he sees open space and tries to make a bolt for it to the 8th rank. The main upset of this round was Robert Hvistendahl (1768) who managed to score the first touchdown against Tomek Rej (2175).

Round 3: Intrigue
In round 3, the kings are taken off the board and are hiding on a square that is written on a piece of paper. However, one special pawn on each side is marked with sticky-tape underneath and 'knows' where their king is hidden. When and if that pawn is captured, then his king must be revealed on that square and incidentally, captures whatever was on that square (including its own pieces). The aim of the game is to first locate the enemy king and then to capture it.

Gareth Oliver (1800) was black against Zong-Yuan Zhao (2427) and decided to hide his king near the opponent's queen's starting position. Gareth quickly ran his special pawn up the board to deliberately get captured. When the pawn fell, Zong-Yuan's queen was still in its starting position, so Gareth's king was able to appear from nowhere and capture the opposing queen! But the cute tactic backfired as he soon got trapped deep in enemy territory and was mated on the back rank, or perhaps it should be called the first rank, since that is where the king began!

Round 4: Stationary king
In this simple variant, the kings are not allowed to move at all. This means that checks are very dangerous and must be stopped by capturing the checking piece or blocking the check, although the blocking piece must be defended by a piece other than the king, since the king cannot recapture! Also, development of the rooks is rather strange as they can never go pass the e1/e8 squares. Players have to resort to such strange developing plans as h2-h4 followed by Rh1-h3, imitating the play of novices.

The top board clash was between Jason Chan (2128) and Zong Yuan Zhao (2427). Both players simply developed and surrounded their vulnerable kings but Jason got his rooks into the game first. Lines opened and the tactics favoured him. A bishop sitting next to the king was free (since the king is 'stuck') and Zong-Yuan soon lost. This gave Jason the outright lead in the tournament.

Round 5: Suicide Chess
A very well-known variant, the objective is to try to lose all one's pieces, or to be exact, be on the move but have no legal moves remaining. If a capture can be made, then a player is forced to do so but if they have a choice of captures, then they can choose which one to make. The king is not a special piece in this variant and is treated just like all the other pieces (that is, there are no checks).

The battle between the two Jasons, Hu (2090) and Chan (2128), was a classic and went right down to the wire in the endgame. Chan (black) had just a rook left on the board and Hu (white) had a king and bishop in the following position:

Black needs to find a way to suicide his own rook but if he gets too close, then white will be able to do the same with both his remaining pieces. So the black rook had to slowly sneak up to the white pieces like a rather shy character. The game continued 1. ... Rg6 2. Bc1 Rg5 3. Kd2 Rf5 and now Hu resigned because on any next move, the black rook will be able to move into the range of one of the white pieces.

On board 2, Jeremy Reading (1524) managed to beat Zong-Yuan Zhao (2427), who is obviously not very used to deliberately losing all his pieces!

Round 6: Explosion Chess
In this round, an explosion occurs whenever a capture is made. The captured piece, the capturing piece, and any piece on a surrounding square of the capture are all removed from the board. The objective is to capture the opposing king. Therefore, the king can never capture a piece because it will itself die in the explosion!

Nick Chernih and Jason Chan reached the endgame (a very rare occurence given how easy it is to get one of the kings killed) and after a series of explosive exchanges, Jason was left with a material advantage and looked almost certain to win. In a desperate state, Nick came up with an ingenius plan and ran his own king towards the opposing king. Jason realised Nick's crazy idea only too late and his king was unable to escape from the other suicidal king, so they both died in the same explosion and a draw resulted.

A major upset was Zhengbo Wang's win with the black pieces giving Zong-Yuan Zhao his third loss in a row! Considering the very tactical nature of this game, where having the first move is a big advantage, this was a great achievement by Zhengbo!

Round 7: Two kings
In round 7, the queen was replaced by another king and the aim is simply to capture either king. Of course, a fork between two kings is very lethal! This game was strange to get used to as one had to remember that the piece that looked like a queen is actually a king! Most of the games went to seeding except on top board, where Gareth Oliver (1800) was able to promote a pawn to a queen (the only way to get a queen on the board!) and quickly mated one of the Jason Chan's (2128) kings.

Round 8: Set-up game
I remember Shaun Press at this year's Doeberl Cup describing lightning chess as "It's not chess, it just looks like chess". Although it uses the chessboard and pieces, the following 'variant' (which I myself proudly invented) cannot even be described as looking like chess, but at least it's fun, and requires a suprisingly high amount of coordination and skill (but of a completely different kind)! Both players start off with all pieces lying down randomly scrambled on their own halves. The aim of the game is to be the fastest in setting up the starting position of ones own army, however, all pieces must be completely within their starting squares, not even a millimeter into another square or even touching the edge of the square! As soon as one player thinks they are done, they call "time" and if they are set up correctly, they win, otherwise, they lose. This was the only game that was not played with a time control, since it resembles more of a race than a game of chess!

On the top board, Kevin O'Chee (2051) called 'time' first against Jason Chan (2128) and was perfectly set up, so he took the win. This meant that for the first time in the tournament, Chan was no longer in the lead! Jason Hu (2090) beat Robert Hvistendahl (1768) to now hold the outright lead with 1 round to go!

Round 9: Hidden clock
For the last round, a regular blitz game with a clock was played with one twist: neither player can see the display on the clock even though they must continue to hit the clock. However, when a player is about to lose, they may reveal the display on the clock to see if their opponent has run out of time as a last-ditch attempt to avoid a loss. Hence, even though a player may feel that they are winning, there must be an element of doubt as it is not known just how much time they have left, and hence they are forced to hurry or risk losing on time! This cute variant was invented by one of the Sydney Uni players, Daniel Chan (1715).

Jason Hu (2128) fought off a determined Gareth Oliver (1800) to hold on to the outright lead of the tournament and win. Zong-Yuan Zhao (2427) felt more at home at this 'similar to normal chess' variant and beat Kevin O'Chee (2051), while Jason Chan (2128) was very quick and had a very dominating position against Zhenbo Wang (1525), forcing the latter to resign.

Special thanks to Charles Zworestine for arbiting the Australian Universities Rapid Championships as well as providing amusing commentary during the Lunch Variants Event, and the main organiser, Jenni Oliver, whose idea it was to run a fun rapid tournament for university students. She put in a lot of effort behind the scenes to organise the event.