A very good turnout of 55 players entered this years Dandenong Autumn Open with the top seed being Domagoj Dragicevic.

Round 1 went mainly according to ratings with the only upsets being draws to Phillip Drew against Miralem Campara and a very well played draw by Bob Parrot against Mehmedalija Dizdarevic, who has won the last two tournaments at Dandenong.

First prize is $500 and there are 5 x $100 rating prizes, the breakup for these should be available prior to round two commencing.

Round two had some suprising results.
Syf Pronk and Branko Sljivovac did well to hold their higher rated opponents to a draw and Phillip Drew defeated Bob Spiric despite a 228-point rating gap. Although given Phillip's rapid improvement lately this was not a big upset.

The biggest suprises happened on the top boards where only one of the top four seeds managed to win.

Domagoj Dragicevic and Milenko Lojanica were held to draws by Tahir Lushaj and Matthew Potter. I didn't see a lot of the top board game but on board four Matthew played very well and never looked like being in any trouble against Milenko. Ascaro Pecori stumbled against Garry Lycett to leave Malcolm Pyke as the only player rated over 2000 ACF to make it to 2 / 2.

Malcolm is joined by another 9 players also on 2 / 2.

There are 9-players in each of the five rating groups that have $100 prizemoney on offer. At this stage the only groups with outright leaders are;
Rating Group B: Matthew Potter 1.5
Rating Group D: Phillip Drew 1.5
Rating Group E: John Seehusen 1

Round three of the Autumn Open saw ten equal leaders whittled down to just three. Malcolm Pyke, Zhigen Lin and Richard Voon are the only players on 3 / 3. They are followed by a very strong group of six players all on 2.5

Malcolm became only the second player at the club able to beat Sujendra Premaka. Sujendra was unrated going into this tournament but was given a provisional rating of 1900 by the arbiter based on previous performances. This proved very accurate as the recently released June ratings have Sujendra with a rating of 1887.

Richard Voon has been in very good form lately, (starting a recent tournament at Melbourne Chess Club with 5 / 5), he was able to defeat Abdulwahab Rashid but he will need to be playing well as he is paired against top seed Domogoj Dragicevic in the fourth round. Zhigen Lin did what he always does to Garry Lycett to book a place on board one against Malcolm Pyke in what should be a very interesting game.

Philip Drew showed why his rating jumped 136 points (!) in the latest ratings, he forced Mehmedalija Dizdarevic to concede his second draw in this event to a much lower rated player. However Philip's recent improvement makes even his new rating look too low.

Third seed Ascaro Pecori had a tough fight against Matthew Potter, but wasn't going to lose two in row. His win put him back on track with 2-points and a chance to get at some of the leaders in the coming rounds.

A couple of upsets saw Craig Baxter overcome a 208-point rating gap to defeat Greg Holden, but Craig is another player whose rating jumped, (up 95 points), so it wasn't a huge surprise. Craig plays Kuol Deng (1745) in the fourth round for a chance to add even more points to his rating.

What was a big surprise was Joshua Martin (600) beating James Kuok (1243) which shows you can never relax.

Rating Group leaders;
Group A: Alistair Anderson, Thai Ly 2.5
Group B: Sam Biondo, Ahmet Yilmaz 2
Group C: Nick Vitkovic, Chris Potter, Peter Pispek 1.5
Group D: Craig Baxter, Philip Drew 2
Group E: Sljivovac 1.5

The fourth round started with three leaders and finished with double that number.

None of the leaders going into the round managed to win. Two of them, Malcolm Pyke and Zhigen Lin, drew against each other, and the other, Richard Voon, lost. This gave the players just behind an opportunity to catch the leading group and four others; Domagoj Dragicevic, Milenko Lojanica, Victor Kildisas and Alistair Anderson were able to win and join Malcolm and Zhigen in the lead. All six players are now on 3.5 / 4

The six leaders will meet each other on the top three boards next week in crucial games going into the business end of the tournament. With a further six players just 1/2-point behind and no less than nine players on 2.5-points, wins next week will be vital to stay in the running for the $500 first prize.

There were some long and tough games at the top in round four. Towards the end of the night when most games were completed the action was all on one side of the room, as the top six boards were still all going. However most of the spectators crowded around these games missed an interesting finish in the Bob Parrot vs Geoff Lee game. Geoff put up a tougher fight than Bob probably expected, and at the end Bob may have been fortunate to draw the ending a pawn down.

The top three games all came down to piece and pawn endings, Milenko Lojanica and Domagoj Dragicevic were able to convert one extra pawn to victory in their games against Thai Ly and Richard Voon. The game between the two leaders was the last to finish, with a same colour bishop and six-pawns each the only advantage I could see was Malcolm's 2-litre bottle vs Zhigen's coffee flask. But this was not enough and it finished in a hard fought draw.

The only big upset of the night was when Alistair Anderson played very well to defeat third seeded Ascaro Pecori. This loss would seem to put Ascaro out of contention for a prize, 1.5-points behind with only three rounds remaining.

Philip Drew and Craig Baxter both celebrated their big rating increases with a loss, although to much higher rated players, and both are still equal leaders in their rating group.

Three of the five rating groups have multiple leaders, and no rating group leader is more than 1/2-point ahead, so the $100 prizes on offer in each group are still very much up for grabs.

Rating Group Leaders:
Group A: Alistair Anderson 3.5
Group B: Matthew Potter, Graham Shaw, Sadedin Redzepagic & Manny Chua 2.5
Group C: Chris Potter 2.5
Group D: Craig Baxter, Syf Pronk & Philip Drew 2
Group E: Branko Sljivovac & Geoff Lee 1.5

Round five saw the six equal leaders whittled down to two as Domagoj Dragicevic and Milenko Lojanica defeated Zhigen Lin and Alistair Anderson. Domagoj was probably a bit fortunate to win, after blundering a piece for a couple of pawns his opponent seemed to have the situation under control. I didn't see what happened but next time I looked Domagoj had a Q+5P vs Q+2P and was clearly winning. The other leaders, Victor Kildisas and Malcolm Pyke drew after a very interesting B+2P vs N+2P endgame.

This takes Domagoj and Milenko to 4.5 / 5 and they will meet on top board next week. They are 1/2-point ahead of a group of four players with another five players on 3.5.

In the race for the rating group prizes there are multiple leaders in all but one group.

Group A leader Alistair Anderson lost and enabled both Abdulwahab Rashid and Tahir Lushaj to catch him on 3.5. With a further four players on 3 this group is wide open and the pairings could play a big part in determining the winner.

Group B is very interesting, last week there were four equal leaders and one of them, Graham Shaw, had a very good result holding Thai Ly to a draw. But the other three of them lost and two different players joined Graham at the top.

Chris Potter is the sole leader in Group C after a big upset over Miralem Campara. Chris had a horrible Victorian Open where he found himself on bottom board in the final round, but I suspect that he had used up so many bad moves in that tournament that he no more left to play. He would have expected to be well ahead in this group, but Mirko Kudric also played well to defeat Mendel Armerman and trails Chris by only 1/2-point. With both of them having tough opponents next week Peter Pispek on 2.5 could still catch them.

Group D seems the most predictable with equal leaders Craig Baxter and Philip Drew in this group only because the tournament began before the June ratings were released. But there are three players only 1/2-point behind and it may come down to the luck of the pairings.

Group E looks as though it will also go down to the final round. Geoff Lee is having a great tournament with another win, this time over Frank Hewitt to be equal leader on 2.5 with Branko Sljivovac. Both Albert Lamech, (who had a good win over Steven Doon), and John Seehusen on 2 are still in the running.

Rating Group Leaders:
Group A: Alistair Anderson, Abdulwahab Rashid & Tahir Lushaj 3.5
Group B: Graham Shaw, Sam Biondo & Greg Holden 3.0
Group C: Chris Potter 3.5
Group D: Craig Baxter & Philip Drew 3
Group E: Branko Sljivovac & Geoff Lee 2.5

The penultimate round of the Dandenong Autumn Open saw Milenko Lojanica take the outright lead with his win over top seed Domagoj Dragicevic. Milenko goes into the final round on 5.5 / 6 with a 1/2-point lead over Malcolm Pyke and Victor Kildisas.

Milenko will play Malcolm in the final round, one of them must finish at least equal first, if it is a draw or Malcolm wins then Victor can still get equal first, but he will need to beat Domagoj to do it.

There are four players; Domagoj Dragicevic, Alistair Anderson, Tahir Lushaj and Zhigen Lin on 4.5-points who could still grab a share of the 2nd and 3rd prizes depending on results.

There were some very interesting games last night;

Zhigen Lin would have been expected to account for Chris Potter fairly easily. But after gaining what looked to be a substantial advantage out of the opening Zhigen overlooked a basic mate threat with Chris' bishop and queen both pointing at Zhigen's g2-square. Normally easy to defend against but in this case he would have to give up material, Zhigen surrendered one pawn and then gave check. Chris had a couple of options, move his king or interpose a bishop threatening Zhigen's queen and still threatening mate. A very tempting option the second one. Unfortunately for Chris it allowed Zhigen a second check that forced a queen swap, whereas moving his king would likely have given Chris a winning game.

Sam Biondo held Ascaro Pecori to a draw, with Sam's position looking the better. With more time Sam would have been tempted to play on, but was happy at the end to settle for triple repetition. There is no doubt Ascaro is having a bad tournament, the June ratings actually have him as the highest rated player, yet he seems to have more trouble against 1400 - 1800 players than he does against 1900+ players. Despite his result in this event he will probably do well if he defends his Premier Grade title in the forthcoming Grades event, at least in that all his opponents will be rated over 1900.

Thai Ly and Philip Drew played a long ending with Thai's R+N+P vs Philip's R+4P. I had no idea who was winning, my opinion changing each time I went and looked at it. At one stage Philip seemed confident as he started moving his three connected kingside pawns, but allowing his king to get stuck in a corner with the rook and knight threatening mate saw Philip go down. Analysing it afterwards Thai indicated that he always had things under control.

It was good to see Bill St. John win his first game since returning for this tournament, and Steven Doon finally able to reverse an alarming form slump at Dandenong.

As well as the outright 1st - $500, 2nd - $300, 3rd - $200 prizes there are 5 x $100 rating prizes on offer.

Rating Group A: Tahir Lushaj beat Pranas Silas to go to 4.5 and looked as though he would lead going into the last round. But Alistair Anderson continued his good form with a well played win over Mehmedalija Dizdarevic to join Tahir. This group will have a very fair outcome, Alistair plays Tahir in the last round with the winner taking the prize. A draw could allow either Thai Ly, Abdulwahab Rashid or Garry Lycett, only 1/2-point behind, to catch them. Oddly enough the winner of the Anderson vs Lushaj game could end up sharing one of the open prizes, and depending on results the loser could still win first prize in the group.

Rating Group B: Greg Holden had a very good win over Kuol Deng to grab the outright lead in this group. He is on 4.0 with Graham Shaw, Sadedin Redzepagic and Sam Biondo on 3.5. These three have been playing well in recent rounds and all play lower rated opponents, whilst Greg will have a tough game against the higher rated Abdulwahab Rashid.

Rating Group C: Chris Potter's loss allowed Peter Pispek to catch him and they are both 3.5. In the last round Chris plays Mehmedalija Dizdarevic while Peter takes on Graham Shaw. Tough games for both of them, although Peter seems to be getting back into some good form with a good win over Syf Pronk. Mirko Kudric and Victor Lane on 3-points are still well in the running, but with them playing Pranas Silas and Miralem Campara I would still give Nick Vitkovic and Bob Parrot, both on 2.5, an even chance of finishing equal first in the group.

Rating Group D: This group has been affected more than the others by players able to take 1/2-point byes when they are not able to play. In round six Craig Baxter received 1/2-point bye to move ahead of Philip Drew who lost to Thai Ly. Joining Craig on 3.5 was Moustafa Fikry who ended Geoof Lee's good run in this event. However in the last round Philip Drew and Michael Potter will also receive 1/2-point byes and will both also finish on 3.5. In the last round Craig and Moustafa have hard games against opponents who will be playing for first place in Group B. These games on boards 10 & 11 should be very exciting.

** Philip and all the little Potters will be missing next week due to an unfortunate clash with the Victorian Junior Championships.

Rating Group E: Albert Lamech took advantage of Geoff Lee and Branko Sljivovac both losing to grab outright first in this group. On 3-points Albert is 1/2-point ahead of these two but plays a hard opponent in Mendel Armerman in the last round.

Rating Group Leaders:
Group A: Alistair Anderson & Tahir Lushaj 4.5
Group B: Greg Holden 4.0
Group C: Chris Potter & Peter Pispek 3.5
Group D: Moustafa Fikry & Craig Baxter 3.5
Group E: Albert Lamech 3.0

Next weeks final round should provide some exciting finishes with 19 of the 24 games involving players still in the running to share some of the $1,500 on offer.

Congratulations to Malcolm Pyke for his victory in the Dandenong Autumn Open. Going into the final round Malcolm was 1/2-point behind Milenko Lojanica, but after an interesting duel Malcolm was able to convert a 3 vs 2 pawn advantage on the kingside to a win. Milenko fought hard all the way, knowing he only needed a draw and that one slip by Malcolm could be enough. But in the end Milenko had to settle for equal second place.

At the conclusion of the top board game it looked as though first prize would be shared as Victor Kildisas had a couple of extra pawns in a rook and pawn ending against Domagoj Dragicevic. Victor is normally very proficient in the endgame, but in this case made some mistakes and allowed Domagoj to draw. These errors would cost Victor $150 as they took him from equal first back to equal second with Milenko.

Malcolm's tournament win was very well deserved as against strong opposition he won 5 games and conceded just 2 draws to finish on 6 / 7. The only other undefeated player was Victor who had 4 wins and 3 draws, while Milenko finished with 5 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, both finished on 5.5.

The three shared the main prizes:
1st - Malcolm Pyke $500
=2nd - Milenko Lojanica & Victor Kildisas $250 each

These top two board results left three other players with a chance of equal second, but Zhigen Lin, Alistair Anderson and Tahir Lushaj, who all started the last round on 4.5, could only manage draws to finish in a group of 7 players that were equal 4th - 10th on 5-points.

There were another 5 players finishing on 4.5, understandably 13 of the top 15 finishers were from the Open and Rating Group A sections. But surprisingly the other 2 did not come from Rating Groups B or C, but from D. Craig Baxter and Moustafa Fikry had excellent results to both finish on 4.5. But coming from the same rating group they had to share the money ($50 each), whereas their scores would have won the two higher rating groups outright.

The 5 x $100 rating group prizes were up for grabs in the final round with many people still in with a chance, depending on results. Rating Group A: The two leaders going into this round, Alistair Anderson and Tahir Lushaj, played each other for first place. However a draw allowed Abdulwahab Rashid and Thai Ly catch them and make a four-way tie on 5-points.

Rating Group B: Despite being the lowest rated player in the group, Greg Holden led by 1/2-point going into the final round. But he faced a tough game against Abdulwahab Rashid and was eventually beaten. Graham Shaw, Sadedin Redzepagin and Sam Biondo could all pass him if they won. However Sadedin lost early, Graham looked to be winning but allowed Peter Pispek to fight back and draw the game, while Sam managed to lose a tense endgame struggle against Moustafa Fikry. Bob Spiric also managed to win a good game to come from a point behind to catch the leaders. So it finished in a three-way tie between Greg, Graham and Bob.

Oddly enough Greg's surname probably cost the three of them seventeen dollars each. Something nobody seemed to notice throughout the event was that Greg and Bahri Senturk have an identical rating, but when the split into rating groups was done it was just a case of "the next nine players are in group A, the next nine in group B etc". The line between groups B & C was drawn under Greg but before Bahri. Had Greg's surname started with something higher than "S" he would have been in group C, Graham and Bob would have got $50 each, and Greg would have got $50 by sharing it with Peter Pispek. As it was they got $33.33 each and Peter took the whole $100 in his group. Most people cost themselves prizemoney by bad openings, missing tactics, blunders etc., but not many do it by having the wrong name.

Rating Group C: Peter Pispek was able to emerge from the pack and win this group outright in a very good result for him. Going into the last round he was tied with Chris Potter on 3.5 with Victor Lane and Mirko Kudric on 3. As it was Chris went down to Mehmedalija Dizdarevic in a very hard fought game and Victor played very well to draw against Miralem Campara. Mirko forfeited his game and any chance at a prize. This left Peter requiring only a draw against Graham Shaw to win the group. At one stage Peter got a bit flustered after falling behind on the scoresheet and being asked, (quite correctly), to catch up on his own time. But he recovered from this and when Graham made some small errors in the ending Peter was able to capitalise and the draw he needed was forced. Peter's form and rating has dropped a bit in the last couple of years, due to some health problems, so it was good to see him getting back closer to the level he is capable of playing at.

Rating Group D: As mentioned earlier Moustafa Fikry and Craig Baxter had excellent tournaments to finish on 4.5, both winning their last round games. Considering they were ranked 38th and 42nd, to finish in the top 15 after each playing 5 higher rated opponents was quite an achievement.

Rating Group E: This group is as yet undecided. Albert Lamech was leading on 3-points coming into the last round. Unfortunately his game against Mendel Armerman ended with the arbiter declaring a double forfeit. I won't go into any detail as a protest has been lodged and will be dealt with by the committee. Meanwhile Branko Sljivovac won his last round game to move to 3.5-points in a very good result for him.

Rating Group Winners: Group A: Alistair Anderson, Tahir Lushaj, Abdulwahab Rashid & Thai Ly 5.0 $25.00 each
Group B: Graham Shaw, Bob Spiric & Greg Holden 4.0 $33.33 each
Group C: Peter Pispek 4.0 $100.00
Group D: Moustafa Fikry & Craig Baxter 4.5 $50.00 each
Group E: Branko Sljivovac 3.5, Albert Lamech 3.0 (deferred whilst pending a protest)