Rodwell scooped Silver and Bronze in the Rapid and Blitz events respectively.Well done to the Winners of the 2018 Arnold Classic Rapid and Blitz Open held 18th-20th May 2018 at The Sandton Convention Center in South Africa.. !!
PRESTIGE RAPID EVENT:
(After 10 Rounds)
1. GM Sahaj Grover (2544) IND 9pts
2. IM Rodwell Makoto (2403) ZIM 8pts
3. IM Daniel Cawdery (2427) RSA 8pts
…Almost 30 players were in this top Prestige Rapid Section
PRESTIGE BLITZ EVENT
(After 10 Rounds)
1. IM Daniel Cawdery (2427) RSA 9pts
2. GM Sahaj Grover (2544) IND 9pts
3. IM Rodwell Makoto (2358) ZIM 8pts
…28 players took part in this Prestige Blitz Event.
Other Sections included: Open, Disabled Chess and Parents Blitz.
A report by Kasparov Chess Foundation Africa (KCFA) Director Mr Graham Jurgensen had this to say….
"A hectic final day at the 2018 SWVG Arnold Classic saw more than 13 rounds completed in a single day. Rounds 8 – 10 of the Rapid event were played in the morning while a 10 round blitz tournament at a rate of 3/3 + 2 secs per move took place in the afternoon.
In the Prestige section, the top seeds showed why they are in a separate class as GM Sahaj Grover (IND) won the tournament with an impressive score of 9/10 ahead of IM Rodwell Makoto (ZIM) and IM Daniel Cawdery (RSA) who ended tied for second on 8/10.
In the Blitz event, IM Cawdery showed why he is rated as one of the top blitz players on the African continent as he defeated Sahaj in their personal encounter en-route to scoring 9/10 and topping the blitz table. Sahaj fought back however and won all his other games to also score 9/10 and tie for 1st place with Daniel. IM Rodwell Makoto and CM Joseph Mwale both scored 7/10 to end in a distant tie for 3rd place behind the top 2.
Sahaj was awarded the overall winners trophy ahead of Daniel with a combined score of 18/20!
In the open event also saw some great chess and congratulations are due to Karabo Teeke and Johannes Moche who shared first place in the Rapid section with a score of 8/10. Lackson Malatji scored 7.5 to end third on his owm
Lackson then went on to win the blitz with 8.5/10 ahead of Draven Bucceri and Yaduvir Govender who both scored 8.
The final standings from all sections are now loaded on chess-results at http://chess-results.com/tnr353350.aspx?lan=1. There are also 101 games from the Prestige Rapid event available for download from the same site.
KCF would like to thank SWVG for the generous funding which made the tournament possible. We also wish to thank the team from Gauteng Chess and the Arnold Classic Africa for their tireless efforts to make the event the success it was."
