South Africa snags Gold, 2 Silver
As the African Zonal 4.5 Chess Champs headed into the final four rounds, South Africa’s medal hopes looked promising. In the rest-day update, I said we could expect some exciting chess from the final days, and the players certainly did not disappoint. Here’s how the rest of the tournament went for the South African players.
Open Section
At the start of round 6, FM Daniel Barrish and FM Calvin Klaasen were two of the four players leading the field with 4/5. They faced each other on board 1, where a fierce struggled ensued. Barrish emerged with a slight edge out of the opening, but the engine swung in Klaasen’s favour after white played a brave 20. g4 in front of his castled king. Nevertheless, g4 appeared justified a few moves later, as white began to dominate the kingside and the engine swung back in Barrish’s favour.
Still a way off from the 40-move time control, and with clocks racing towards zero, the game soon equalized and then saw both players missing play on the f-file which would have handed them a solid advantage. By move 40, Barrish had less than a minute remaining on his clock, while Klaasen had 4 minutes, so the additional 30 minutes was no doubt a huge relief for both players, as was the nearly equal engine evaluation.
The players kept fighting, and it wasn’t long before Barrish was once again massively down on the clock, and he hit upon the wrong plan with his 43. b4 pawn sacrifice, likely underestimating how quickly black could get his pieces in the game. Klaasen’s time also dropped quickly, but after a series of natural-looking moves from Barrish, black just had too much going for him (a passed d-pawn, active rooks and knights, mating threats), and Barrish resigned a full rook down.
It was great to see such fighting chess from both players, and something that made it even better was the draw that was reached on board 2, meaning that Klaasen headed into round 7 half a point ahead of the rest of the field, while Barrish only trailed 2nd and 3rd by half a point.
In round 7, Klaasen faced Zambia’s Siame Kela Kaulule on board one. Even though the engine favoured Klaasen for most of the game, it was never due to a material advantage, and with Klaasen’s 34th move, a draw was agreed upon, as the engine dipped to zero and the players’ time edged dangerously close to running out. On board 3, Barrish dominated his game, but time was once again a factor and it looked as though his Mozambiquan opponent, Vasco Viageiro, had managed to survive and equalize the game. In what was amazing to watch (as well as a good lesson on ‘danger-levels’), an innocent check on a8 was the nail in the coffin for Viageiro, and Barrish picked up the full point a few moves later thanks to mating threats in the endgame.
A draw on board 2 in round 7 meant that Klaasen headed into the penultimate round with a half-point lead, while Barrish was joint second (third on tiebreaks). South Africa got full points from the round, as Barrish beat his lower-rated opponent, and Klaasen had a comfortable win against top seed, FM Sergio Miguel, who had a difficult event overall.
Everything therefore came down to the last round. Since Zambia’s Timothy Kabwe had better tiebreaks than Klaasen, and only trailed the leader by half a point, Klaasen was in a must-win situation if Kabwe won his game. With worse tiebreaks than both Klaasen and Kabwe, Barrish had to win his game to guarantee top 3, but was at the mercy of what Klaasen and Kabwe did to place any higher.
Barrish was able to get a slight advantage with the black pieces against Botswana’s CM Thuso Mosutha, and he built upon this to win his endgame convincingly. After this, he could only wait to see the outcome on the top 2 boards. Kabwe looked guaranteed to win his game, having a strong attack and extra material, but failed to find the winning moves and ended up in a situation where he was suddenly fighting for a draw, with only a rook and two isolated pawns versus his opponent’s queen. The draw was agreed upon, and only Klaasen’s game remained to determine if Barrish or Klaasen would walk away as champion.
Klaasen had played a great game against Zimbabwe’s Spencer Masango, and didn’t look to be in any trouble. However, both sides still had rooks and queens on the board and both players had only 20 minutes left, so when Masango offered a draw, Klaasen decided to accept the draw which would guarantee him the crown, rather than risk making a wrong move that would lose him the game and place him in second.
In the end, after impressive chess throughout the entire event, Klaasen and Barrish did as well as South Africa could have hoped for: both finished on 7/9, and Klaasen, with the better tiebreaks, was declared the 2022 Zone 4.5 African Chess Champion!
Photo supplied by Calvin Klaasen
Ladies section
In the first 5 rounds, WGM-elect Jesse February had accrued 3.5 points, trailing the two tournament leaders by a single point. WIM Anzel Laubscher and Robyn Klaasen were not too far behind, with 3 points, while Chloe Badenhorst had had a tough start to the event and was sitting on 2/5. Since the tournament leaders had already played each other, they occupied the top 2 boards on the live broadcast, and we were unable to watch any of the South Africans’ round 6 games. Nevertheless, February picked up the full point against her experienced Mozambiquan opponent, WIM Vania Vilhete, Badenhorst started off the second half of the tournament strongly, and the critical Laubscher-Klaasen game ended in a draw.
Round 7 saw February take on defending-champion WIM Esperanca Caxita on board one, and Caxita can hardly be blamed for not realizing that h3 would be a game-losing blunder. It is hard not to be impressed by the move February found in the game, 14. ...Nb4, which led to her opponent’s resignation moves later, for a beautiful 20 move miniature. Lauscher and Badenhorst beat their lower-rated opponents, while Klaasen lost a hard-fought battle on board 4.
With better tiebreaks, February overtook Caxita in the standings, and trailed tournament leader WFM Luzia Pires by one point. Laubscher-Pires was therefore the game to watch – if Laubscher could beat the tournament leader, it could be the opportunity February needed to clinch the title.
Laubscher neglected her development, and Pires with the white pieces was able to build up a sizeable advantage. However, she failed to find some precise moves to continue her kingside expansion and was unnerved as black’s queen infiltrated the position. The engine evaluation soon read equal, and then suddenly it was black who looked a lot better, culminating in a huge opportunity for Laubscher on move 39. Unfortunately, with just 2 minutes remaining on her clock, Laubscher was unable to find the tactic 39… Rxb7, and a few moves later, the players agreed on a draw in a tricky endgame where black had an extra knight, but white had dangerous-looking c- and d-pawns.
On board 2, February had another beautiful attacking game where she was never worse, while Badenhorst drew against higher-rated Vilhete, and Klaasen bounced back with a win against Lesotho’s Bonolo Ntsielo. This meant that all February could do in the last round was win and hope that Pires drew or lost her game, while Laubscher trailed February and Caxita by an insurmountable 1.5 points, meaning that while a podium finish was impossible, a win would secure clear 4th place.
In a game that was no doubt unpleasantly similar to her 7th round game against February, Caxita’s rook quickly fell victim to WFM Ednasia Junior’s knight, and after 24 moves Caxita resigned, meaning that even if February lost her game, she was guaranteed second place. Chasing the rating points on her way to 2100 and her WGM title, February showed no mercy and defeated compatriot Klaasen to finish with 7.5/9, only half a point behind champion, Angola’s WFM Luzia Pires.
Klaasen finished the tournament on a respectable 4.5/9 after a tough event, while Laubscher and Badenhorst both won their final round. This brought Lauscher to a well-deserved 4th place with 6/9, while Badenhorst finished the event on 5.5/9, showing commendable resilience to score 3.5/4 in the final four rounds to place 6th overall.
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Overall, the South African players really did their country proud, and they can be proud of their individual performances. It was great being able to follow the players’ results, and watch some of their games, and hopefully there will be many more events in future (with more live games being shown), so South African chess enthusiasts can support our country’s top players and enjoy the high-quality and exciting chess that they’ve proved they can play.
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It is still unclear whether FM Klaasen, FM Barrish, Klaasen and Badenhorst will qualify for any direct titles or norms based on their performance, given the change in FIDE regulations effective from 1 January 2022, which was not correctly advertised by tournament organisers prior to the event.
The top 3 open and top 2 female boards from rounds 2-9 can be found here.
The South African games not already shown above are presented below:
