West Wales Congress

Last weekend, Rudy, Julie and I took part in the West Wales Congress, held at the Glamorgan Arms, Pontlliw, near Swansea. We were all doing pretty well by Saturday night, Rudy on 2.5/3 in the Open, and, in the Major, Julie on 2/3 and me on 2.5/3. Not sure what happened to us next day, but we only scored half a point between us, my draw in the last round. I'm posting one game from the tournament, a ferocious attack by Rudy with a twist in the plot at the end:

Young,AJ (2051) - Van Kemenade,R (2039)

The Welsh Chess Union has a new improved website here.

1st Match

We had our first match in the Dyfed Chess League on Wednesday, against Gwyddbwyll.com. The games are now linked below:

1. I. Griffiths 1503 - R. van Kemenade 2039 1-0
   
2. M. Francis 1669 - O. Llywelyn 1391 0.5-0.5
   
3. E. Llywelyn 908 - I. Finlay 1408 - 0-1
   
4. G. Gwilliams 1352 - T. Jones ---- 1-0

A shock defeat for Rudy on Board 1 against the up-and-coming junior Iwan Griffiths. He went wrong in a Budapest Gambit, lost a piece early on and never recovered. I was afflicted with overcautiousness, even though I had beaten Owen Llywelyn last year in the same Caro-Kann exchange variation, and was happy to agree a draw after only sixteen numbingly slow moves, seeing that Ian and Gordon had clinched the match for us with comfortable wins. So a win for Aber but a good result for Gwyddbwyll.com, who were heavily outgraded on all boards.

Because the Dyfed League covers a wide geographical area, all matches are played in the Emlyn Cafe at Tanygroes, about 25 miles from Aber on the south coast of Ceredigion. This is also the venue for the Dyfed Closed Championship, which will be held on the weekend of 31st October and 1st November. It's always one of my favourite tournaments, with a convivial lunch on the Sunday, after which the last round is extra difficult to play. Also coming up is the West Wales Congress, 16-18 October in Swansea.

At the AGM last week, we decided that the club championship, which was a bit of a wash-out last year, should be a weekend tournament this time, to make it easier to arrange. We're hoping it will be in late November or early December. The signs are that we should have a decent number of players at the club this year: three new players have turned up in the last week or two, and some old ones have either returned or promised to.