Gauteng Championships II (March 6-7, 2004)
by Dorian Love
The second Gauteng Championships was held at a wet, and thanks to a power-failure, sometimes dingy Old Edwardian Club in Houghton. As South Africa's oldest tournament, much was expected, and yet, again the figure-gaming Dippers preferred to push the lead rather than negotiate over Tunis. This left a depleted field to contest the honours. Although eight players were to play in total, not all played at once, and so every game was played to Escalation rules, South Africa's first exclusively Escalation Tournament!
Matthew Strachan, defending his title, was to play a single round, and his second place in game one was not enough to threaten the leader-board. Dorian Love dominated the first day with two big wins and sealed the title then. He sat out the third round due to domestic pressures, and returned to post a second place in the last game which might have hinted at a spot of metagaming had it not been for the fierce struggle over the chocolate factories of Belgium which saw David Vannucci, who won game three, but was beaten into third place in the fourth game and second in the tournament vanquished by Dorian.
Katlego Manyaapelo struggled manfully, and played solidly in all three games to earn maximum points for effort, and carry the GHigh School Gold home with him!
| Player |
Club |
Game 1 |
Game 2 |
Game 3 |
Game 4 |
Points |
Position |
| Dorian Love |
St Enda's Eagles |
57 |
56 |
- |
23 |
136 |
1st |
| David Vannucci |
Wits |
- |
- |
54 |
11½ |
65½ |
2nd |
| Ian Adler |
Independent Wargames Team |
- |
- |
- |
49 |
49 |
3rd |
| Katlego Manyaapelo |
St Enda's Eagles |
11 |
14 |
15 |
2 |
42 |
4th |
| Matthew Strachan |
Old Edwardians |
27 |
- |
- |
- |
27 |
5th |
| Jaco Vermeulen |
Independent Wargames Team |
- |
- |
27 |
- |
27 |
5th |
| Thabo Mokoena |
Lenadra Giant Killers |
- |
24 |
- |
- |
24 |
7th |
| Alexis Roodt |
Pretoria Boys High School |
- |
- |
- |
11½ |
11½ |
8th |
|
