NSWJCL Championship Part 1 of 2

		Rating
Clarke	Matthew	1156
McGowan	Cameron	1085
Mikkelsen	Max	1085
Bayaca	Sterling	1077
Yang	Gordon	1052
Melamed	Daniel	997
Fikh	Anthony	989
Boylan	Peter	932
Chen	Henry	917
Ge	Eva	859

The schedule as mentioned above gave me 2 games a day with 1 game on the last day and a lightning tournament.

Looking at the draw before the tournament I also tried to give myself goals going in on what scores i wanted to achieve and players I wanted to perform against. The odds I gave myself pre-tournament went as follows taking the color into account plus expected points

Matthew Clarke(black): 10% win, 20% draw, 70% loss            Expected(0.2)

Cameron McGowan(black): 15% win, 30% draw, 55% loss     Expected(0.3)

Max Mikklesen(black): 10% win, 40% draw, 50% loss             Expected(0.3)

Sterling Bayaca(white):20% win, 50% draw, 30% loss             Expected(0.45)

Gordon Yang(black):15% win, 50% draw, 35% loss                 Expected(0.4)

Daniel Melamed(white): 30% win, 40% draw, 30% loss          Expected(0.5)

Anthony Fikh(white): 20% win, 60% draw, 20% loss               Expected(0.5)

Henry Chen(white): 50% win, 20% draw, 30% loss                 Expected(0.6)

Eva Ge(black): 35% win, 60% draw, 15% loss                         Expected(0.65)

Total Expected: 3.9 points 

So yeah, my goal for this tournament is going to be to get 4 points and anything above that will be a success. Not quite the 1st place hopes that many of my competitors will have going in but I generally try to keep my expectations reasonable and being 8th seed doesnt give to many grounds for optimism. The first day of the competition will be against Cameron McGowan followed by Henry Chen. My predictions for the day will still be the same as before the tournament as there is no bonus sample size so i expect 0.9 points today meaning that a 1 point day will be a relatively good day

Game 1

There has been a LARGE lack draws so far in the tournament. This may be due to the larger gap in the playing field from before but still i would have expected a couple so far.

Two people on 2/2 Cameron and Gordon less than I would have expected considering no draws

The 1st and Last seed ended up losing and winning a game respectively showing that there may be large amounts of volatility in this tournament meaning the high places could be up for grabs.

Day 2 Preview:

Round 3 Eva Ge(Black) Expected 0.65

Round 4 Daniel Melamed(White) Expected 0.5

Tomorrow is one of the theoretically easier days of the competition where i have put an estimate of 1.15 points on the day. So i am going to put out a goal to get at least 1.5 points from the two games which will be a bit of an ask considering my performance on Day 1 but hopefully I can pull out a win. Anyway if you made it this far thanks for reading and i will be back tomorrow hopefully with some good results and more importantly some good games to share.

Day 2

Well another day is over full with just as interesting positions as the previous day. The first game of the day was against Eva Ge, the lowest rated player in the field but with a win yesterday and two good games should definitely not be underestimated

So not quite the start i was hoping for. I felt like i didn't play particularly bad during that game however a lack of middlegame knowledge in the scotch gambit along with strong play by my opponent meant that I was crushed fairly swiftly. My goal of 1.5 points previously would not be possible anymore and I would have to pick up a win in the second game to hold relatively even with my pre-tournament prediction.

Other Results:

McGowan, Cameron: Mikkelsen, Max 1:0
Chen, Henry: Bayaca, Sterling 0:1
Melamed, Daniel: Yang, Gordon 0.5:0.5

Clarke, Matthew: Fikh, Anthony 0.5:0.5

Standings after Round 3

Cameron McGowan 3/3

Gordon Yang 2.5/3

Sterling Bayaca 2/3

Eva Ge 2/3

Matthew Clarke 1.5/3

Anthony Fikh 1.5/3

Max Mikklesen 1/3

Peter Boylan 1/3

Daniel Melamed 0.5/3

Henry Chen 0/3

Round 4

At this point in the tournament i was 7-8th place in the standings, less than ideal and I was now 0.55 points behind my pre-tournament meaning I will have to start picking up some points now against some higher rated players. This game was against Daniel Melamed who I gave 30-40-30 odds meaning that I would have 1.05 points to get to go back to my prediction, obviously not possible but I could get very close with a win in this game.

This was the game where i think I have played the best chess so far in this tournament. Although I got off to a bad start after I lost the pawn I played near perfect throughout the game only making one error. This also put me back up to 50% with 2/4 and only 0.05 points behind my tournament prediction.

Other Results

Mikkelsen, Max: Fikh, Anthony 0.5:0.5
Yang, Gordon: Clarke, Matthew 0.5:0.5
Bayaca, Sterling: Ge, Eva 0:1
McGowan, Cameron: Chen, Henry 0:1

Standings after Round 4

Cameron McGowan 4/4

Gordon Yang 3/4

Eva Ge 3/4

Matthew Clarke 2/4

Sterling Bayaca 2/4

Anthony Fikh 2/4

Peter Boylan 2/4

Max Mikklesen 1.5/4

Daniel Melamed 0.5/4

Henry Chen 0/4

4-7th place is a lot better than what it was looking like it was going to be earlier but now I have played both of the bottom seeds and the bottom 2 in the standings. My matches will most likely only get harder from here.

Things I noticed from Day 2

Lots more draws this day like I presumed was going to happen for most the tournament

Cameron McGowan is having an extremely strong tournament not only on 4/4 but playing very solid in all of the games

Eva Ge is performing well above her rating at 3/4 and if no drop-off occurs then she should secure one of the top places

Day 3 Preview

Matthew Clarke(black) Expected Points 0.2

Anthony Fikh(white) Expected Points 0.5

With only 0.7 expected points before tomorrow Day 3 is going to be most likely my hardest day yet. Playing Matthew Clarke the top seed as black is going to be a tough challenge regardless of the form he is in and Anthony Fikh has also had a very solid tournament only losing one game so far as well as a great game against Daniel. My goal will be to get 1 point from the two games however it will be a tough ask but it is definitely possible and would push my closer to the 4 point goal overall. Thanks for reading through and I will be sure to update tomorrow with my results.