THANDO CELE
TuksChess hosted their first ever Open Rated Tournament since the sports re-establishment in 2010 on the weekend of 19 and 20 August. The tournament was hosted at the Groenkloof Campus Sports Hall and 85 players participated. Participants came from Tshwane, Johannesburg and Potchefstroom.
The winners of Section C were mainly TuksChess Junior players with Kayleigh Weideman taking first place, followed by Keanan Fouries and Yoshua Smit. The Section B winners were Gerhardus Bekker, David Lubbe and Daniel Wohlfarht. The winners of Section A were Daniel Jere, Roland Bezuidenhout and Johannes Mabusela, while Jacqui Grobbelaar was awarded the prize for Best Lady.
The tournament was played in the format of a three section split – the A, B and junior sections. The Open Rated Tournament was Chess South Africa rated and played over 6 rounds with time restraints of 60 minutes per player per round.
The prize money of the tournament was R10 000, with the top three players receiving prizes. While many sporting sections are determined by age, chess sections are determined by an elo rating that players receive by winning rated tournaments. Chess rated rankings are as follows: Grand Master (Gary Kasparov is one with a rating of 2831), International master (IM), Candidate Master, Fide Master (FM) and lastly, regular chess players.
To play in Section A, players needed to have a rating of 1300 and above. This section was highlighted by the presence of two IMs, Jere and Mabusela. As IMs, Jere and Mabusela (rated 2363 and 2244 respectively) are rated as the finest players in the country. Among the top players in Section A, there was room for TuksChess’ and UP’s own Bezuidenhout, a Fide Master (FM) with a rating 2049 who has recently won the u/20 Commonwealth Championship in Sri Lanka. Varden Trevelyn (14) was another FM who received this title by winning the African Youth Chess Championships in 2012 at the age of 10.
Section B catered for players with ratings from 600 to 1299, while the junior section had an age restriction of 11. These two sections were categorised by players still in their development phase as top chess players.
The next TuksChess major tournament will be at the University of the Western Cape in December for the University of Sports South Africa Chess Championships.
Image provided.
