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The Federal Government of Nigeria declared Easter holiday
for April 2 & 5 and as this fell on the edge of the first
Saturday in April, we, as you can trust, arranged for the
April edition to be on the 2nd and 3rd making it a 6 round
event. To our dismay, the well established Friends of
Chess also announced the same days for its events. This
meant that Chess Heights Monthly for April will be
attendance challenged. We decided not to cower but to go
ahead with the event. The following is the story of the
actions. The action started with the first round. Fresh from
winning the first stage of the 2010 Olympiad trial, Tolulope
Ogunwobi was expected to demolish his old school buddy
Adetayo Adegbemle. However, Tayo with the white pieces
castled kingside against Tolu's dragon and started an attack
based on the f file, a bishop hitting on f7 and a knight
controlling d5. Tolu managed to hold on for a while but inaccurate play
gave Tayo a winning position on move 23. After a further 11
moves, Tolu equalised. The comedy of errors however
continued and the game ended drawn. In other games,
Amesiamaka as usual deviated early from theory and then
outplayed Paul Boyo to take the full point. Abejide Ayodele
in his own case used d4 and a minority attack to crush
Abiodun Johnson. In another game, Akinseye Abiola was able
to secure the only black victory of the round against Trust
Odih. Finally, veteran player, Rahman Agusto now called
Olaonipekun Agusto overran Abimbola Osunfuyi a.k.a. 'young
GM' to take the full point.
Click
here to view games of round 1
Round 2 was sort of twisted as it was both comical and
explosive. Abejide lost to Sowaribi in an impossible to lose
position so we have to congratulate him for doing the
impossible. When you check the game you will be excused to
think that he was paid a million bucks to throw it. In the
Ogunwobi versus Osunfuyi struggle, Tolu played flawlessly to
take the point, the rook sacrifice towards the end was
particularly instructive. The last available game was
between Paul Boyo and the 10 years rusty Adetayo Adegbemle
who is an alumni of Great Ife. In the game, Boyo went for a
precisely 400 years old sacrificial line against the two
knights defence. Though no longer in vogue, it brought him
the maximum point and great entertainment. The last thing of
note in this round was that Olaonipekun Agusto won again and
along with Sowaribi was tournament leader; Tolulope was
chasing them ½ a point down.
Click
here to view games of round 2
Going through these games one begins to see the strength and
weaknesses of Nigerian players. Remarkable to me is the
tactical weakness of Abejide. In his 3rd round
game against Akinseye, he threw away another winning
position with several very poor moves; I suggest he spends
more time with Morphy’s games and Fritz. On another note,
glory be to God that we have the recorded game of Agusto for
this round, he managed to build a mating attack from a very
inferior position and won thereby maintaining his leadership
of the event. Another remarkable play came from Adetayo,
against Mr. Johnson in this 3rd round; he
displayed his brilliance and rustiness. First he outplayed
black, and then he forgot his under attacked queen. Like I
said on Silverbird TV: ‘Shit happens’. Thankfully, this
round saw Abejide picking his first point of the event. He
played steadily with the French defence to over-power our
chief arbiter, Paul Boyo.
Click
here to view games of round 3
In
round 4, Adegbemle shrugged of 10 years of rust to defeat
the highly talented ‘young GM’, Osunfuyi, while Paul Boyo
played unconventionally to quietly defeat Trust Odih. Tolu
once again played brilliantly against Agusto only to blunder
on move 17 and allow the game to end drawn. Rounding off the
available data, Mr Johnson tapped into his years of
experience to calmly defeat the nervous Sowaribi.
Click
here to view games of round 4
Interestingly, round 5 had 100% wins for black – who says
white has the advantage? Abejide continued his winning
streak with an emphatic domination of the board against
Trust Odih. The leadership of the event was retained in this
round by Olaonipekun Agusto when he won Abiodun Johnson with
a queenside attack. Tolulope Ogunwobi continued the chase ½
a point behind with another very accurate win against the
poor play of Sowaribi. It was a battle of coach versus
student in ‘Young GM’ game against Boyo. Osunfuyi attacked
in the Giucco Piano variation but could not find a way to
crack black’s defence. Eventually, he made a mistake and
lost. Finally for this round, Adegbemle played brilliantly
again but missed some tactical threats and lost the kind of
game that anyone would find painful.
Click
here to view games of round 5
As
usual, the final round is the money round. It is the round
that decides who goes home with what. The key game of the
event was Abejide versus Agusto and Ogunwobi versus Johnson.
It was the results of those games that would decide the
champion of the event. Olaonipekun played with gusto and
sacrificed a piece in the opening but the position was very
familiar to Abejide Ayodele who kept his cool and won the
winning position. It took 82 moves though. In the other key
game, Tolu played a brilliant novelty which involved the
sacrifice of his white bishop. The move is definitely not in
the opening books and fritz doesn’t even see it but it wins
and that win made Tolulope Ogunwobi the champion of the
april edition of Chess Heights Monthly.
Click
here to view games of round 6
Here are
pictures from the event
This
posh venue for the event is the Media Center of Unilag
Sports Center
Olaonipekun Agusto versus Akinseye Abiola in the foreground
Trust
Odih tackles Paul Boyo in the background while Abejide
Ayodele fights Akinseye in the foreground
Abiodun Johnson versus Sowaribi Amesiamaka
Abimbola Osunfuyi versus Adetayo Adegbemle
The
third place Abejide Ayodele
Tolulope Ogunwobi is champion of April edition of Chess
Heights Monthly
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