Queensland Under 8 Championships:
Brilliant Bristow

by DOP Charles Zworestine

Thought I’d be different, and give the little ones a full report this time! After all, it is not very often that they get a whole tournament report all to themselves. And while we saw the usual quota of dropped queens and missing pieces at this level, this 15 player nine round Swiss event (time limit 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move from the start) nonetheless produced some very exciting chess; there were even some well played endings!

There were very few upsets in Round 1, except for unrated Harry Hughes beating Felix Tan. The latter did win a piece in the opening, but then gave it back and gradually lost all his pieces! In Round 2 Harry struck again, drawing by repetition in a drawn rook ending against Jared Louie; while Felix was upset once more, this time by Jordan Vico.

Round 3 was the time when the top seeds started meeting; and Number 1 seed Laurence Bristow won queen and game against second seed Brody Seignior. This enabled Laurence to take the outright lead on 3/3 after Jared Louie’s queen fork won an exchange against Martin Jack, and Jared made it count! Laurence maintained his lead in Round 4 when, from a fairly equal ending, he ended up checkmating the enemy king on a5 with his only remaining piece, a Black bishop on c3! David Hughes upset Brody Seignior by winning his queen, surviving Brody’s counterplay and then swapping down to a won ending a rook ahead. Sam Barrett stunned Martin Jack by winning his queen.

Fewer shocks in Round 5, as Brilliant Bristow really started to assert his dominance! He beat Matthew Pyper quite convincingly to get to 5/5. David Hughes (White) and Sam Barrett played an excellent game to draw a difficult rook ending with passed pawns on both sides of the board:

Play continued 1.a8=Q Rxa8 2.Kxa8 h2 3.Rc1 Kg4 4.Kb7 Kg3 5.Kc6 Kg2 6.Kd5 h1=Q 7.Rxh1 Kxh1 8.Ke5 f4 9.Kxf4 Draw. YOU try to improve upon the play by either side…

After Round 6 it was 6/6 for Laurence, while David Hughes was outright second on 4.5; Brody Seignior and Matthew Pyper (who upset Martin Jack) were on 4. Another upset in round 7 saw Sam Barrett beating Jared Louie to get to 4.5; but the others at the top all won except for Matthew Pyper (who lost to David Hughes). Then Round 8 saw Laurence march on to 8/8! Brody moved into outright second with a win after David Hughes sadly moved his queen en prise to lose to Jordan Vico. Poor David realised just a bit too late; he had earlier queened first and been winning…

So to Round 9, where Bristow won to make it a picket fence; well done Laurence! Jordan continued his fine late run by beating Brody to join him in second place. This was a reward for being the player most prone to actually use his time and think… David Hughes was dead lost, with nothing but his king left against Jared Louie, but never say die: his king then captured all his opponent’s extra material to force a draw! This left David in the tie for second with Jordan and Brody, while Jared had to be content with joining a group of 4 players in equal fifth on 5/9: the others were Felix Tan, Matthew Pyper (little Felix beat Matthew in the last round) and Callum Gray (who upset Sam Barrett in the last round).