2019 Oceania Seniors

The 2019 Oceania Seniors is taking place in New Zealand, as part of a chess festival celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Howick-Pakuranga Chess Club. The 23 player field consists mainly of NZ players, but there are 3 Australian players taking part.
The first round saw only one upset (Nigel Cooper beating Nigel Metge), but I expect more upsets to occur over the next few rounds. Unlike most open events the field is quite compact in terms of rating, so a winner from the 7 round event isn't easy to predict.
The tournament crosstable can be found here, while there is live broadcast (and replays) of the top 9 boards at this link.

2018 World Seniors

It seems to be the season for World Championhsip's, with the Women's World Championship just finishing, the Carlsen v Caruana Match almost down to tie-breaks, and the World Seniors taking place in Bled.
The popularity of Seniors chess continues to grow, with over 300 players taking part across the 4 events (Open and Women's 50+, Open and Women's 65+). Australia and New Zealand have both sent a number of players to the tournaments, with 6 from NZ and 4 from Australia. The best performing player from this group so far (in terms of points) is CM Hilton Bennett who is on 3.5/6.
Current standings for each event can be found, starting from here http://chess-results.com/tnr361547.aspx?lan=1 This takes you to the 50+ Open event, so just click on the links for the other tournaments.

World Senior Teams

The Seniors chess circuit continues to grow in popularity, with a record turn out at the just completed World Senior Teams event in Dresden, Germany. In a dramatic last round, the USA team grabbed first place, beating Canada 3-1, while the English team lost to Germany 1.5-2.5. In the over 65 event, the Russian team proved unbeatable, winning all 9 of their matches.
Both events attracted a number of famous, and indeed legendary players. GM's Nunn and Speelman were part of the England team, while Sveshnikov and Balashov were part of the Russia Over 65 team. Just as interesting was the turnout of players better known as authors or administrators, with Stewart Reuben, Tim Harding and Almog Burstein turning out for their respective teams.
Probably the next big seniors tournament is the World Seniors in Bled later this year. I know of a few players from this part of the world taking part, and if it was closer to the end of the Olympiad I would be tempted to stay for it, but alas it isn't to be.

2017 World Seniors

The 2017 World Senior Championship is up and running in Acqui Terme, Italy. Alan Goldmsith is the only Australian representative at the event (playing in the 65+ section), alongside 3 New Zealand players (Hilton Bennett 50+, Bob Gibbons 65+ and Helen Milligan W50+).
 Alan got off to quite a good start in his tournament, winning his first 2 games. This meant he faced GM Evgeny Sveshnikov on the top board in round 3 and went down after sacrificing most of his pawns for an ultimately unsuccessful attack.
Results from each of the events can be found at chess-results.com, along with a small selection of games from each of the tournaments. (Links to all the events can be found at the top of the page)

2017 Asian Seniors - Final Day

IM Mahmood Lodhi is the 2017 Asian Seniors Champion after beating FM Bob Smith in the final round. The win for Lodhi moved him to 7/9, and after Efram Bagamasbad could only draw with FM Leonard McLaren was enough for outright first. Unfortunately for Bagamasbad, the draw allowed both GM Darryl Johansen and FM Bruce Watson to catch him, and overtake him on tie break. As a result he missed out on the FM title by a narrow margin.
In the Veterans GM Eugene Torre completed a clean sweep with a win over Grant Kerr. FM Ewen Green finished 2nd, with Edmundo Legaspi earning the FM title with his third placed finish.
Importantly for Lodhi, first place also earned him his third and final GM norm. As a result he will become Pakistan's first GM (subject to confirmation).
As for me, I lost a tough last round game to finish on 4/9. Although I didn't make it to 50%, I at least performed slightly above my rating, so it wasn't all bad. I certainly enjoyed the tournament, and hope to play more seniors events in the coming years.
Full results for both events can be found here.


Lodhi,Mahmood (2344) - Smith,Robert W (2223) [A49]
2017 Asian Seniors (9.1), 15.10.2017

2017 Asian Seniors - Day 6

Round 8 of the Asian Seniors saw another upset win by Efram Bagamasbad, and he now shares the lead with IM Mahmood Lodhi. The two met in this round and for a long time Lodhi held the upper hand. But he pushed too hard for a win and it backfired on him in the ending, and Bagamasbad collected the scalp of another titled player. They're both on 6/8, half a point ahead of GM Darryl Johansen, FM Bruce Watson, FM Leonard McLaren and FM Bob Smith.
The key final round pairings sees Lodhi play Smith, McLaren against Bagamasbad, Johanesen against IM PK Chan, and Watson against FM Michael Steadman.
In the Veterans GM Eugene Torre has wrapped up first place with his 8th consecutive win. He leads by 2.5 points, and the only remaining interest in this event is who picks up the minor placings (and the FM title).
NB The final round starts at 10am local time (8am Canberra time), and will be broadcast at the links given in my earlier post.

2017 Asian Seniors - Day 5

IM Mahmood Lodhi leads the 2017 Asian Seniors by half a pint with two rounds to play. Lodhi beat CM Don Eade to get to 6/7, half a point ahead of FM Bruce Watson. In third place is Efrem Bagamasbad, who scored an upset win over GM Darryl Johansen.  Round 8 sees Bagamasbad play Lodhi, while Watson is up against Johansen.
In the Veterans, GM Eugene Torrw scored his 7th straight win and now leads by two points with two rounds to go. David Lovejoy is outright second on 5, with Edmundo Legaspi and FM Ewen Green in third.
I've dropped back to 50% after losing to IM PK Chan. As with a number of my games at this level, my attack was just a move too slow. After that I missed a tactic and once I had run out of drawing tricks, it was time to resign.

2017 Asian Seniors - Day 4

Day 4 of the 2017 Asian Seniors was the second (and last!) of the double round days. As a result the morning round saw a number of energy conserving draws (including my own 7 move effort), although the afternoon round was a little more full blooded.
After starting the event with 3 straight wins, GM Darryl Johansen added another 2 draws today, to fall back to 2nd place. He drew with IM Mahmood Lodhi in round 5, but Lohdi overtook hime in round 6, after Johansen drew with FM Leonard McLaren, while Lodhi beat IM PK Chan. The draw by McLaren leaves him tied for second, along with FM Bruce Watson, who beat FM Bob Smith.
In the Veterans event, GM Eugene Torre continues to dominate, reaching 6/6. FM Ewen Green was unable to stop the GM in round 6, and with Torre leading by 2 points, it is battle for 2nd and third.

As for my own results, the double round days have been reasonably kind to me. After the mornings draw, I managed to win my afternoon round to get to 3.5/6. My opponent FM Sujendra Shrestha played the very offbeat 1.e4 e5 2.g3 but after solving some early opening problems, I was able to exploit his damaged pawn structure and eventually win a QvR ending. Shresthra was the third Nepalese player I have faced in this event, and counting the couple of Olympiads, brings my score against to Nepal up to 3.5/5!

2017 Asian Seniors Day 3

GM Darryl Johansen and IM Mahmood Lodhi share the lead after 4 rounds of the 2017 Asian Seniors. Johansen drew with FM Bob Smith in today's round, while Lodhi score his third straight win, beating FM Bruce Watson. The two hold a half point lead over a group of players on 3, including Smith, FM Leonard McLaren, FM Ahmed Ismail and IM Peng Kong Chan.
In the Veterans, GM Eugene Torre has kept is perfect record intact, with another win today. At first it looked as though Edmundo Legaspi might hold the opposite coloured bishop ending, but Torre kept pushing until Legaspi went wrong and lost his queenside pawns. Torre has already played a few of his closest rivals, and it looks like New Zealand hopeful FM Ewen Greene is all that stands between Torre and a tournament victory.


Torre,Eugene (2456) - Legaspi,Edmundo (2087) [B06]
2017 Asian Seniors (4.9), 11.10.2017

2017 Asian Seniors Day 2

Day 2 of the 2017 Asian Seniors saw the first of two double round days. This normally gives players less time to prepare, but as it was rounds 2 & 3, it wasn't that critical.
Paul Spiller backed up from yesterdays draw with IM Lodhi, with a draw against FM Michael Steadman. WFM Helen Milligan also had a good day, drawing with FM Bruce Watson and finishing on 2/3.
GM Darryl Johansen leads the event overall, winning both his games today. At one stage I thought his position is round 3 game looked perilous, but a few moves later he was well and top and collected the point. In The Veterans event (65+) GM Eugene Torre leads with 3/3, scoring a couple of nice victories. Edmundo Legaspi is also on 3 points, and they face off tomorrow.
In other news, the live broadcast of the games was up an running from round three. The link to the games is at http://www.newzealandchesslive.co.nz/Live/tfd.htm

2017 Asian Seniors Day 1

The first day of the 2017 Asian Seniors was almost upset free, with the top seeds winning most (but not all) of the games. Tournament organiser Paul Spiller drew with second seed IM Mahmood Lodhi, while FM Mike Steadman and CM Hilton Bennett had a quick draw in an all NZ clash.
I found myself seeded at the halfway point of the tournament, and so faced top seed GM Darryl Johansen on board 1. Despite playing a few inaccurate moves in the opening, I manged to survive my worse position until then ending, when  things began to turn in my favour. Despite losing a pawn my active rook and knight created enough play to give me distinct drawing chances, but running short of time I rejected the best line and lost a few moves later. Nonetheless I was happy with my play (at least towards the end), and I did learn something from the game.
Updated results for both the Seniors and Veterans can be found at http://www.newzealandchesslive.co.nz/Vega2017/wwwAsianSeniors/


Press,Shaun - Johansen,Darryl [B26]
2017 Asian Seniors (3), 19.08.2017

2017 Asian Seniors and Veterans

The 2017 Asian Seniors and Veterans begins next Monday (9th October), in Auckland, New Zealand. At this stage there are 57 entries across the two events, with a large number of countries represented. Top seed in the Seniors is Australian GM Daryl Johansen, while GM Eugene Torre (PHI) is the top seed in the Veterans. The 9 round tournament will run from Monday through to Sunday (15th).
Currently I am seeded just below the halfway mark of the Seniors event, so will probably have a tough first round. Currently my main ambition is to not play bad chess, and hopefully score around 50%. My last playing trip to NZ was for the 2011 Oceania Zonal, where  I did hit 50%, so I;m counting on history repeating.
You can see the list of entries for both events at the tournament webpage, and once the tournament begins, downloads games etc.

2017 Asian Seniors

The 2017 Asian Seniors is being held in Auckland, New Zealand from the 9th to the 15th of October. It is being organised by the New Zealand Chess Federation and the Oceania Chess Confederation on behalf of the Asian Chess Federation.
The tournament is a 9 round swiss and will award titles for Over 50 Open, Over 65 Open and Over 50 Womens. (According to FIDE regulations IM for the winner, FM for second and third). The venue is the Waipuna Conference Centre, which was the venue for the 2017 Oceania Zonal, held earlier this year.
The organisers have already announced their first high profile entrant, GM Eugene Torre from The Philippines. Torre was the first GM from Asia, and last year picked up a bronze medal for his score at the 2016 Olympiad. While entries are likely to mainly come from Australia and New Zealand, I would not be surprised to see more than a few IM's and GM's from other Asian countries make the trip to the shaky isles.
Full details of the tournament, including entry conditions can be found at this link.

Seniors Chess

Now that I am eligible, Seniors Chess (50 years+) is of greater interest to me than previously. I am thinking of heading to New Zealand in October to player the Asian Seniors, and getting a team to a future World Seniors Championship might also be a goal.
Currently the 2017 edition of the World Seniors Teams Championship is underway in Crete, and while not as popular as the Olympiad, it doesn't look to dissimilar. Of the 98 players in the 50+ section, 20 of them gold the GM title, with the England 1 team fielding 4 of them (Short, Nunn, Speelman and Arkell). However they are only third in the tournament with the St Petersburg team (also containing 4 GM's ) well out in front after 7 rounds.
The 65+ section doesn't have quite as many GM's (only 5!), but 35 titles players in that field is still impressive.
While the top seeded England team may once again fall just short of gold (shades of 1986 Olympiad, plus any Football World Cup bar 1966), GM John Nunn did score a nice attacking win, which reminded me of his games from that earlier period.


Nunn,John - Beilfuss,Wilfried [B30]
World Seniors Teams, 2017

Sliding towards retirement

Chess is one thing you don't retire from due to age (well, not normally). You might choose to give the game away for other reasons, but just being old is not a barrier to continuing to play. Evidence of this is in the World Seniors Championship currently underway in Italy. The tournament is running in 4 sections and interestingly the 65+ section has attracted more entrants (185) than the Over 50 section (100). The Over 50 events is a little stronger in terms of GM's (10 v 7) but both events show that there is a capacity for seniors chess. The Women's section are substantially smaller (27 for both events) but the odd statistic from these events is that there are more titled players than untitled players in both tournaments.
There is the odd Australian and New Zealand player in these events, and you can check out the results here if your wish (the link is the the 50+ Open, but the other tournaments can be found there as well). As someone who reaches 50 years old next year, I suddenly become eligible to play from Jan 1 and depending on work/finances etc I may add the PNG flag to those hanging over the tournament hall.

2014 Oceania Seniors

The always energetic North Sydney Chess Club is soon hosting another important event, the 2014 Oceania Seniors Championship. This is open to all players who are 50 years or older at the end of  this year (ie If you were born in or before 1964 yo can play).
Since its establishment, this event has grown in popularity, and this year is no exception. With FIDE lowering the definition of senior to 50 years not only have the number of potential entrants increased, but they have also become stronger. Top seed for this years tournament is currently IM Gary Lane, with FM Bob Smith second seed.
The tournament runs over 4 days from the 3rd to the 6th of July (7 rounds), and entries are still open. If you are interested in playing in the event (or as a youngster, just wish to spectate) then all the details can be found at the tournament website.