Small, Nokes top chess candidates

Press, 20 August 1984, Page 24

Small, Nokes top chess candidates

Two New Zealand Olympic chess players, Vernon Small and Roger Nokes (both Christchurch), are favoured to take the top prizemoney in the $l2OO IBM South Island chess championship this week. The tournament, which starts today and finishes on Saturday, will be played at Christchurch Boys’ High School Most of the leading South Island players are competing in the eight-round competition. Smail three times the New Zealand champion and twice winner of the South Island title, has recently been selected to play the top board for New Zealand at this year’s world teams’ championship. Nokes, aged 26, is expected to hotly challenge Small for the first prize of $5OO. The South Island champion on two previous occasions, Nokes is rated just below Small He is an attacking player prepared to take risks whereas

Small is a more conventional and good positional player. The main threat to the Christchurch pair might be Jonathon Sarfati, of Wellington. Sarfati, aged 19, has twice won the New Zealand junior championship and has been the North Island champion once. Other top rated players include Bruce Anderson, who has won the South Island title on a record nine occasions, the youthful Adrian Lloyd and Tony Love, of Southland. Four juniors, Ben Alexander and Mark Wilson (both Christchurch 8.H5.1 the Papanui High School No. 1, Michael Hampl who is the joint national junior champion with Sarfati and Ben Martin, aged 14, from Otago, are all promising players capable of upsetting. A novelty of the tournament is the entry of an IBM personal computer. It is not among the tournament’s favourites.