Tan Weiliang continues his fine run on the local circuit...wins Queenstown Closed - by Junior Tay and Tan Weiliang

[Following the demise of SCN, regular contributor and my good friend Junior Tay has decided to continue with his tournament reports for the benefit of the local chess community. I wish to reiterate that this is a website only interested in chess analysis and tournament reports. Please note that any comments which are aggressive or political in nature, annoymous or otherwise, will be promptly deleted and the IP addresses taken down. - Wei Ming]

By ICCF IM Junior Tay and Tan Weiliang:

Picture: Tan Weiliang at the Asian Continental 2012

Following his =1st placing (with Roberto Suelo, WIM Gong Qianyun and Leonard Reyes) at the Teck Ghee Open ( http://chess-results.com/tnr73686.aspx?art=1&lan=1 ), Tan Weiliang clinched the Queenstown Closed Championships (and the $100 cash prize + Challenge Trophy) with a quick draw against Sellmair Reinhard, (a graduate student from Germany) in the last round after 6 consecutive wins.

In Round 3, Weiliang was presented with the opportunity to play an unclear Greek gift sacrifice and decided to take the gamble... (Analysis by Tan Weiliang and Jr Tay)

Weiliang's toughest opponent was National U11 Champion Ashvin Sivakumar who put up decent resistance in the endgame. Weiliang recalled falling into a worse position after the opening and he had to claw back to equalise and subsequently, as he recalled "I got a clear advantage but then made a bad error in mutual time trouble which would have thrown away all the advantage but he didn't refute it and sucumbed badly. I didn't expect such a tough fight, that we were down till 5 min vs 5 min until he lost control of his time. Probably the opening did no favours, making me work very hard for the win". He gave credit to the fast improving Ashvin (who had beaten WIM Gong Qianyun at Teck Ghee one tournament ago.

(Analysis by Tan Weiliang and Jr Tay)

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The next round had Weiliang outlasting Kelvin Wee on time  in a Rook + opposite coloured bishop ending with Weiliang having an extra pawn. This set up the much awaited clash between Weiliang and FM Ting Jinyao in Round 6. Unfortunately, it proved to be anti-climatic as the latter fell for a trap which netted Weiliang a clean piece. Weiliang promptly coasted home with the 7 move draw against Reinhard, with the latter tying for 2nd with Jingyao and Tan Poh Heng. After a 4 game blitz match with Weiliang, Reinhard declared that he made a good decision in accepting quick draw offer from the new Queenstown Closed Champ!

Poh Heng showed up at the event with a completely new style of play. Usually, he will try to outpoint his opponents positionally in...say... the Ruy Lopez but this time, he was armed with antiquated gambits and they reaped swift dividends for him as his opponents went down in flames. His only loss was to Jingyao. This augers well for his forthcoming Amateur Chess Organization event in Dubai ( http://www.amateurchess.com/participants-list/ ) where he is currently seeded 4th in his category.

If you are interested in following Weiliang's views on Chess and his other interests, you may check out his personal blog  (http://weiliangking.blogspot.sg/ ).

 Final Results can be found on http://chess-results.com/tnr71475.aspx?lan=1