George Trundle Memorial Round 8

Photos in this post by Helen Milligan

We had a quiet day today. Intermittent showers and exhaustion from the previous few days (tourism, not chess) put paid to our enthusiasm. Also, the tournament is hotting up and norms are on offer so all the players in the hunt are being a bit more serious. See for yourself.

Ben Hague, the leader, is the only one in the hunt now, as Chris Wallis got beaten by Vishal today in another scintillating attacking game. Watch all the games by clicking on

George Trundle 2018 Masters games

Simon Lyall and Gordon Morrell

CM Oliver Picken

I really liked my position today, although Stockfish only awards white a very slight edge. White has a central space advantage, but that doesn’t mean that black deserves to be mated. We both played reasonably normally until I lashed out with 23.d5. After that, it looks like two blind people fencing. I somehow found a perpetual.

  [Event "George Trundle Memorial"]  [Site "Auckland"]  [Date "2018.07.14"]  [Round "8"]  [White "Wohl, Aleksandar"]  [Black "Ang, Alphaeus"]  [Result "1/2-1/2"]  [WhiteElo "2335"]  [BlackElo "2204"]  [ECO "B07x"]  [EventDate "2018.07.07"]   1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Bg5 Nf6 5.Qd2 a6 6.O-O-O b5 7.Bd3 Bb7 8.  f3 Nc6 9.Nge2 Nb4 10.Bh6 Nxd3+ 11.cxd3 Bxh6 12.Qxh6 Qd7 13.Rd2 O-O-O  14.Kb1 Kb8 15.Rc1 Rc8 16.Nd1 e6 17.Rdc2 Qe7 18.Qh4 h5 19.Ne3 Nd5 20.  Qf2 Nb6 21.Qe1 h4 22.Qa5 f5 23.d5 exd5 24.Nd4 dxe4 25.dxe4 fxe4 26.f4  Qf7 27.a4 Nxa4 28.Nc6+ Bxc6 29.Rxc6 Qb3 30.Nd1 Qd3+ 31.Ka2 Nc5 32.  R1xc5 dxc5 33.Rb6+ cxb6 1/2-1/2