The 2024 Championship was held in the northern Launceston suburb of Rocherlea. It was a very warm weekend, but the venue had good air conditioning, and at times I even had to put on a fleece as it felt so cool! A field of 30 players competed including seven of Tasmania’s top 10 rated players.

Round 1:

The first round started at 2pm on Saturday 9th of March with a time control of 90 minutes for the game, plus 30 seconds increment per move. The tournament was to be rated by the ACF and FIDE. In the first round of Swiss events, the top half of the field play the bottom half of the field, so it is expected that there will be some easy games for the top players. But this rarely happens and I was very mindful of my form in game one, and interested to watch how the other top players fared. 

I was paired against talented Hobart junior Esteban Prieto who has a reputation for being able to win against much higher rated opponents. Esteban perhaps lacks some consistency, but can be a very dangerous player to anyone in Tasmania. I chose a slightly unusual system against his Kan, and he reacted badly allowing me to force a king side concession early on, and then hurry up my development until we reached this position:

As White, I had just castled queen side which looks a bit dangerous. Esteban, as Black, needs to get on with developing and ensure his king safety. But instead he decided to open lines to my king even though he isn’t set up to attack. 12..d5? This is a fairly typical blunder. The side which is better developed has the better attacking chances, so that means White should be opening lines while Black is trying to slowly improve their position. And even worse, he is opening the centre where his king is situated! 13.exd5 exd5 14.Rhe1

In just a couple of moves, Black has gone from being worse to being lost. Black now has to give up material to avoid being mated.

While I was looking at the other top players, I thought Kevin Bonham was struggling, Wynand-Jack Pretorius was making hard work of his position, Will Rumley looked to be losing, but Fabian Ivancic seemed to be very sharp. Of the top ten players, three were held to draws by much lower rated opponents in round 1, Rumley, Rout and Lim. The biggest upset of the round was when Noah Carpenter’s phone went off giving an automatic win to Yung-Shin Wells who was rated more than 500 points less!

Round 2:

The second round was due to start at 6pm on Saturday, but the in almost every round the longest game exceeded the time allocation, and went over four hours. So the round started a bit after 6pm. There were no major upsets in the second round as all the higher rated players started to work their way to the top of the table. James Banbury showed throughout this tournament that he was vastly under rated. In this round he beat Chris Shepherd, the first of many scalps. I was paired with another talented young Hobart player, Anya Song.

After a changing opening that started as 1.d4, then transposed to a type of Modern (1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5) or Philidor Defence (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6), and then became blocked in the centre, we finally came out with this position:

I know this pawn structure from the Sicilian. It can arise from the Najdorf or Sveshnikov Sicilians when White puts a knight into d5, Black trades and White recaptures with their e-pawn. Strategically, White should be playing to their majority on the queen side, while Black plays ..f5 to create some counter chances on the king side and in the centre.

Anya chose a different strategy and castled long going for attacks on opposite sides of the board, though the pawn structure doesn’t really fit with this strategy. There are, of course, still tactical chances that might work for White, but if Black plays correctly, then they should be in a good position. Five moves later, the following position was reached:

It is clear that Black is better developed and has more threats than White. And if the attacks fail for both sides, then White has very weak pawns which will favour Black in any endgame.

Round 3:

The third round was played on Sunday morning, the first of three games in the day. On top board, I was held to a draw by Marcus Bretag. On board 2, the big game between second and third seeds was won by Kevin Bonham against Wynand-Jack Pretorius. On board 3, Fabian Ivancic won another top level game against Ian Rout. This left Kevin and Fabian as the only players on 3/3 while Marcus and I were half a point behind, and the field sat another half a point behind. Young Sam Cassidy produced another upset against Chris Shepherd this round. Chris would get his game together and finish well after this.

 was White in this position against Marcus and had to decide which way to proceed. I have the following options:

28.Bxe6 trades the bishop pair for a pawn weakness
28.b4 keeping the bishop pair for now and trying to hold up the queen side
28.e5 advancing the king side majority

All of these options have some good and some bad in them. I decided to trade bishop for knight which I felt gave me the best chances of playing on with the least risk of losing. Marcus played very solidly, and the game ended in a draw.

Round 4:

Kevin and Fabian scored a draw which meant that no one was on a perfect score by the end of this round. I won against Wynand-Jack Pretorius to join the leaders, while Marcus lost to Zach Lim who was playing and acting as arbiter. Will Rumley also won to join Zach just a half point behind the leaders and Anya Song also joined this group. Perhaps the biggest upset of the whole tournament came in this round, when James Banbury beat ex-Champion Ian Rout, the game having a rating difference of some 600 points!

Another complicated endgame, though this one is a lot more tactical. Black’s queen side looks great, but White has fantastic counterplay with the h-pawn. My opponent, Wynand-Jack played 56.Ra6+? As so often, checks only push a king to a better spot. (56.Bf4 Nh7 was the best White could get, but the position is very complicated) 56..Kf5 57.Kb1 (57.Bf4 is still probably best) 57..b3 58.Rf6 Ke4

White’s king side hasn’t progressed while Black’s queen side looks very dangerous now. 59.Bf4 and I now missed a forced mate by 59..Nf3 though I still managed to win the game in a time scramble after this.

Round 5:

This was the third game on Sunday and most players were really tired. I played Kevin Bonham in a game where neither of us played particularly well, but he played just a little worse than I did. On board 2, Fabian Ivancic drew with Will Rumley which left me half a point clear going into the last day. Fabian was the only player half a point back, but then there was a big group of six players a further half point behind. While there were no significant upsets, James Banbury held another ex-winner, Miles Petterson, to a draw

I had built a strong position against Kevin playing White. Black just offered a trade of rooks. I probably could have taken and then won a pawn, either b7 or d4 with good winning chances. But I remembered a game I played in the 2005 Australian Masters against FM Jesse Sales where he took on c8 but he shouldn’t have. He had a stronger continuation that we found in the post mortem analysis. 27.Rc7! Now Black can’t trade as that would bring my other rook to the seventh rank, so he had to play 27..Rd8 when I just took 28.Bxb7 and was a pawn up in a better position. I never let up and won the game.

Round 6:

I managed to win my game against Fabian and stood a point clear of the field guaranteed at least a share of the title. Kenin Bonham and Zach Lim both won to jump into equal second, while Anya Song continued her good tournament drawing with Will Rumley and joining him a half point behind Kevin and Zach. Upsets in this round came in the form of Eric Foster getting the better of Rosalia Miller in a topsy turvy game, and Daryl Ross beating Fabio Camporesi in a game that started 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.d4 Nxd4 7.c3 Be7 and then I believe Daryl didn’t take on f7 but still went on to win the game!

As Black in this position I took 16..Nxe4. I’d seen Fabian could play 17.Bxb6 winning a pawn back and discovering an attack against my knight 17..Qb7 pins White’s bishop while protecting e4. This complicated little tactical sequence left the following position:

I thought Fabian would play 18.Qc2 when I planned 18..Nd5 and I felt I was in a good position, but wasn’t sure. This position never came about, because Fabian sacrificed the exchange with 18.Rxe4?! And never really had enough for it, so I went on to win.

Round 7:

I played Zach Lim in the last round and took a fairly quick draw against him to secure the title. Zach still finished equal second as Kevin Bonham drew with Anya Song. Fabian Ivancic won against Wynand-Jack Pretorius to join the group on equal second. 

The final standings were:

1 Gorka 6/7; 
2= Bonham, Lim, Ivancic 5; 
5= Rumley, Song, Patterson, Keerthiratne, Carpenter 4.5
10= Bretag, Banbury, Pretorius 4
13= Rout, Prieto, Shaw, Kuypers, Shepherd 3.5
18= Ross, Cassidy, Ratkowsky, Foster, Djatschenko, Wells 3
24= O’Mara, Oud 2.5
26= Camporesi, Miller, Lee 2
29= Ford, Heap

There were great performances through this tournament by Anya Song, James Banbury, Hayden Shaw, Daryl Ross and Sam Cassidy, all of whom will be getting a decent rating improvement for their efforts.

This was the final position in my game against Zach Lim from round 7. I have taken a pawn on e5, but will lose my d3 pawn in return. I offered a draw which Zach accepted. Earlier in the tournament I would definitely have played on and tried to make something from this level sort of position.

I was quite happy with my performance this year. I don’t think I was ever in a losing position, maybe just a bit worse or level at times. The competition seemed tougher than last year, even though I seemed to be playing better.

Prize Winners:

Tasmanian Champion: Carl Gorka

Women’s Champion: Anya Song

Senior Champion: Chris Shepherd and Ian Rout tied

Junior Champion: Will Rumley and Himash Keerthiratne tied

Prizes also awarded for:

=2nd Kevin Bonham, Fabian Ivancic, Zacharias Lim

U1800 Himash Keerthiratne, Noah Carpenter

U1500 James Banbury

Finally, a games selection, with 35 games played over the weekend

PGN Viewer from Chess Tempo