Consistent Gauci keeps hold of national title

Joseph Gauci has won the national chess championship for the third time in his career.

Joseph Gauci, Malta’s top-rated player, has won the national championship for the third time in his career following his victories in 1981 and last year.

Gauci’s technique of grinding out a win with white and defending seemingly indefensible positions with black earned him seven victories to seal the title with a round to spare.

The 79th chess championship was played on a double round-robin format with players meeting each other twice with alternate colours.

Gauci completed a double over Colin Pace and Jake Darmanin.

“This success is of great satisfaction to me especially as I started with a not-so convincing first-round win besides suffering back-to-back losses in rounds two and three from good positions,” Gauci said.

“I somehow felt that I could do better... my unsteady start to the tournament was due to the fact that I hadn’t taken part in competitions for a year.”

On his level of competitivety, Gauci explained: “At 55 years of age, chess can become very hard in terms of stamina and concentration, especially when you compete against much younger opponents.

“When I won the title for the first time in 1981, I was only 22 and had no issues with stamina.

“After 22 years away from competitive chess, I took up the game again in 2003 and was finding it hard to concentrate and calculate long and complex variations after three hours of play.

“However, thanks to some useful tips from Grandmaster Bartas Heberla (Malta’s coach in the past two chess Olympiads), I found new ways to conserve energy both before and during the game.

“In the last two years, I realised that I could still play well even after five hours of play.”

Duncan Vella was runner-up after collecting five wins and two draws. Together with Gauci, Vella has automatically qualified for next year’s Championship.

Pace, a seven-time national champion, opened well with three wins but struggled to regain his momentum after his defeat against Gauci.

Robert Zerafa led midway through the tournament with five out of six points. However, his seventh-round loss to Gauci undermined his confidence as he followed up with shock defeats to Darmanin and Vella.

Patrick Zerafa had a disappointing tournament following his good performance at the Olympiads.

Together with Darmanin, he acquired 3.5 points.

Darmanin, the junior national champion, enjoyed an encouraging debut in the senior event, gaining two victories against the Zerafa brothers and two draws.

The game of the tournament was between Darmanin and Patrick Zerafa in round nine. Lasting six hours, the game featured a record 149 moves and ended in a draw.

Final standings
1. Joseph Gauci 7.5 points; 2. Duncan Vella 6; 3. Colin Pace 5.5; 4. Robert Zerafa 5; 5. Jake Darmanin, Patrick Zerafa 3.

Sammut tops parallel event

Fifteen players took part in the seven-round parallel open tournament, held concurrently with the major finals.

Veteran Ron Sammut claimed top spot with 5.5 points after beating higher-rated players Oliver Said and Filipina Thornton.

Thornton was runner-up followed by Said, both on five points.

The next tournament on the calendar is the Malta International Open from November 16-22.

So far, over 130 players have registered to take part.