Chess Inspiration with Magnus

Today I was at the Australian Junior Championship in Melbourne. It is a fantastic event with hundreds of kids from across Australia playing, and the venue at Swinburne University is great. There is even an excellent cafe just across the road serving superb coffee, the Axil Coffee Roastery.

So I have been chatting to some people,and looking at some of the kids game, a pretty good way to spend some time!

The question that always interests me as a chess coach is how can you bridge the gap between teaching and engaging? How can you improve someone's game while keeping it fun? There has to be some inspiration to guide the education. For oldies like me, it can be difficult to remember exactly what I found inspirational as a child, or even a young teenager. And as times change, things that inspire can change.

One thing that is constant are the top players in the game, and talking about Wijk aan Zee and how the superstars are doing is a great inspiration for the kids. (I actually like when the Junior Champs takes place at the same time as the Senior Championship, such as kids in the morning, adults in the afternoon so the kids get to see the best players in the country in action after their own games) There is no bigger superstar at the moment than Magnus Carlsen, so he is currently the biggest inspiration to kids in chess. On my recent trip to NZ I saw a book about Magnus that I nearly bought...

I didn't see much chess, but I learned that Magnus is keen to ride a motorcycle and go punk!

I took a look at my life now that I live in the country, and I finally decided to switch clubs from Melbourne to Box Hill. I have entered the next Friday night Box Hill tournament, the Autumn Cup which starts on 26 January, and I'll start writing about this as it happens. I won't stop writing about MCC which I have a great fondness for, and I'll try to play a weekend event or two this year.

Anyway, I'll be back to chess blogging as well!

Celebrating Australia

Yesterday was Australia Day, a public holiday which in recent years has brought mixed feelings out. On the one hand we are celebrating a great nation which I'm proud to have emigrated to. On the other hand, the indigenous population have had their land stolen and atrocities committed throughout the past 200 years.

In chess terms, Australia is not one of the great nations and never has been. However, there is still much chess being played and a chess culture is developing. The Australian Junior Chess Championship recently concluded in Adelaide and the under 18 was won convincingly by Ari Dale. Ari joins a list of very strong players who have captured the title. The girls title was won by Zhi Lin Guo who has progressed excellently into the top 20 active women in Australia, and who will hopefully be fighting for an Olympiad place in the not too distant future.

The age group champions were:

U-16 David Cannon (Vic)
U-14 Bobby Yu (Vic)
U-12 Michael Ostapenko (Qld)
U-10 Brandon Soetanto (Vic)
U-8 Sayum Rupasinghe (NSW)
U-16 Girls ??
U-14 Girls ??
U-12 Girls ??
U-10 Girls ??
U-8 Girls ??

Unfortunately it isn't clear who won the girls titles as events were doubled up, so the U-18 and U-16 played in one section as did the 14/12's and the 10/8's. I'd assume that the winner of each section would take the older age group award, but seeing I don't know, I'm not going to guess, potentially get things wrong and upset people.

I know I've already been harping on about the inequality in chess representation between men and women, but this is another example. With the open events, it is fairly clear who won excepting for the odd tie that required a play off, but with the girls there is no recognition of their achievements. Pretty poor.

What isn't poor is the Australian Chess Magazine 50 Moves which I resubscribed to today, though again it would be good to see some female representation in the pages of the magazine, rather than just Cathy Rogers with her excellent photography. The other thing I'd like to see more of is coverage of Australian chess, of which there was little in this magazine. Ian Rogers is obviously an excellent writer and his articles are great. In the December issue he focuses on The World blitz and rapid Championships where he was reporting from the scene. This is great for Australian audiences, but I actually enjoyed Adrian Chew Lee's and Eunice Koh's article about the World Youth Championships more. I guess the local feel, and personal knowledge of some of the players brings it a little closer to my own world.

I hope to see articles by Australia's young talented travellers on their experiences in chess tournaments abroad, as well as as tournament reports of important events in this country. Those reports were always the backbone of the British Chess Magazine when I was younger in the 1980's. Having quality players writing about the events they participated in, with great chess content was inspiring and educative. All top British GM's would write for BCM back then, with articles from Nunn, Miles, Short, Keene, Speelman etc, it truly was an excellent magazine. Due to financial issues the BCM took a hit, and very nearly folded a short while ago. Well it is back, and is excellent!

Again, I bought an issue (I was annoyed by the online reader edition I bought and if I subscribe, it will be to the hard copy) and it seemed excellent. Articles by McShane and Howell on the London Classic, and the British knock out tournament were the top 2 articles, but other contributors include Australia's own David Smerdon, Pentala Harikrishna and Krsten Muller. Like the Australian 50 moves, there is little of local interest, which again is a bit disappointing, but there is an article by a female contributor, Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant.

I guess both magazines, 50 Moves and BCM are aiming at high end material, and they certainly both have that. I think they are both great, but they would be even better with more local news.

(Good luck to Justin Tan and Moulthon Ly in Gibralter, and I hope they bring us a brilliant report for a future 50 Moves magazine. They are both currently leading ex World Champion Anand!)

Time Zones

I love living in Melbourne, and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world. But if there is a fault, it is that the world is still euro-centric (especially the chess world) and Australia is sitting on the GMT +10 time zone. This means that many chess events happen overnight for us, nd it can be difficult to follow live games and maintain a life.

I usually start Tuesday mornings by downloading the weekly chess magazine, TWIC, which comes out on a Monday in the UK. I then look at some games which happened overnight in Europe and was pleased to see that even great players like Mamedyarov are capable of playing moves that I'd feel bad about playing.

In 2016, if a 2700+ player comes up with a worse move than 38.c5?? allowing Qxb1, then I'll be very surprised.

Allowing an opponent to take a rook for free is more the province of junior chess, and the Australian Junior Championships are currently being held in Adelaide, a half hour behind the times of Melbourne! Today is a kind of rest day with the problem solving championship taking place in the morning, and the lightning championship in the afternoon.

The first titles have been decided. The under-10 champion of Australia is Victorian Brandon Soetanto, while the under-8 champion is Sayum Rupasinghe from NSW. Both these champions won after a play off, and both had to overcome another player from their home state. Congratulations to both these young national age group champions!

Even further in the future than Melbourne is New Zealand. The recent New Zealand Open Championship was a great success for the organisers who assembled a group of strong players from abroad, and a good turn out from home. The tournament ran at the same time as the Australian Championship which was an unfortunate clash. I'm sure a number of Australians would have travelled to NZ for the event if the clash hadn't occurred. The tournament was won by English GM Gawain Jones who has been to New Zealand before, and there were rumours at one time of him changing his federation to New Zealand. Instead he added Maroroa to his name, and his wife, IM Sue Maroroa, changed her federation to England.

It was a tough field with Wenjun Ju from China playing before heading to Wijk aan Zee to play in the b-tournament. The 2548 rated GM from China took the scalp of top seed Nigel Short on her way to joint second place. Short also ended well in second, along with another Chinese GM 2602 rated Qun Ma. There were 6 GM's in all and 5 IM's in the field of 66 players.

Nigel Short will be spending more time "down under" as he plays at the 50th Ballarat Chess Festival over Labour Day weekend in March. This is a great coup for the Ballarat organisers to attain the entry of such a high profile star, a Grand Master and previous World Championship contender. Of course, Short is also a controversial figure, which in some respects, makes it even better for Ballarat as his participation will certainly raise the profile of the event. Short will be giving simuls in Australia, in Adelaide and Sydney, and this will undoubtedly be newsworthy, if his New Zealand experience is anything to go by.

In Auckland, he played 20 women simultaneously, in a challenge dubbed "Beauty vs the Beast". This sort of language isn't politically correct, and that was picked up by a local journalist. In fact, Short has come in for a heap of criticism for his views on women in chess over the past 12 months, and I have to admit that I have not agreed with his views. But to finish on a positive note, Short is never one to back down from a challenge, and is an absolute devotee to chess. In another article, the piece that I like the best is:

"For me, chess has been a blessing, because I have had a life which has been fascinating," he explains. "There are jobs which would make more money, but it's not everything in life. I have so much of my identity wrapped up in chess: it's nice actually, to come here, to the other end of the earth, and people are still familiar with you. There is something which is very satisfying about that and it's always nice to be recognised."

Endgame Time

Yesterday I posted a great counter attacking game from the Australian Junior Championship. These are exactly the sort of games where juniors can show their abilities, direct targets, tactical possibilities, cut and thrust. Of course the downside of too much tactical and opening study can weaken other parts of the game, and it is no surprise that juniors tend to be poor positionally, and at the endgame.

Before I show that endgame, the hero of yesterday, Heath Gooch took another scalp today by drawing with David Cannon, the top seed in the tournament. Here's the final position.

The position is levellish, with opposite coloured bishops on the board, but that just gives both sides greater attacking opportunities at the moment. I am shaking my head in disbelief that 2 under 16's should agree to a draw in this position, when the game is full of life, and I can almost hear IM Robert Jamieson's teeth grinding while saying "don't agree to draws while there's life in the position: how can you improve if you're scared to lose?"

The endgame I saw today started in this position:

Black has a winning position, but couldn't seem to finish things off. Here black can win a pawn straight off using simple forks. 1..Ne3+ 2.Kf3 Nf5 and the d-pawn falls as 3.Ke4 fails to Nd6+ forking the bishop. Instead he played 1..Nb4? and the game continued for a while until it reached this position.

Again, searching for checks helps as 1..Nd5+ 2.Ke4 f6  leaves white with no good moves, while black's knight can move around to attack d4 under favourable circumstances. Instead, black decided to manouvre his king back round to the king side until white blundered into the following position.

Knowing that a fork can be used to win material from a check should help us realise that the knight would really like to get to e2. So in the above position 1..Nc3 achieves that aim immediately as the bishop is attacked and so are both of the squares it can move to which defend e2! Alas, black felt it was time to advance his g-pawn and the game ended a draw.!

I'm of the opinion that both these young players would have had no problem seeing these knight forks in a middlegame setting, so why are they so difficult to see with less pieces on the board? Spending a little bit of time each week looking through an endgame, or some endgames, or some endgame theory or tactics is unbelievably beneficial for most players.

Sunday Chess

What a great first round at Wijk aan Zee. The top section saw some solid chess, some inspired chess, and the odd blunder, while the b-tournament had no draws. My favourite player at the top is currently Karjakin, but he had to work very hard to hold a draw against Yifan Hou. However, a draw with black at this level is a good result. That is what Carlsen will be saying, as he drew with the black pieces versus Navara. Of course, Navara is no slouch ranked 25 in the world. The winners of the round were Caruana, So and Ding Liren, but it's a long way to go.

More immediate to us here is the Australian Junior Championships in Adelaide. A double round in the under 18 cleared some matters up with the top 2 seeds meeting. Ari Dale proved too good for Patrick Gong this time round, and Ari now sits on 3/3. Also on 3/3 is Tom Maguire, and these 2 meet tomorrow. In the under 16, top seed David Cannon has moved to 3/3. David Cannon has already been a national age group winner taking the under 10 title in 2011. Funnily enough, the second seed in this tournament, Kevin Willathgamuwa, won the under 8 title in 2011. Kevin had something of a disaster in the third round in Adelaide, going down to Victorian junior Heath Gooch. Heath is one of a number of talented players from the country Victorian centre of Mildura. Heath and his sister Aryn, as well as Liam and Zoe Harrison are the cream of the crop from Mildura at the moment, and it is great to see so many talented players from outside the main metropolitan areas. Heath now faces David tomorrow in the top board clash.

The first champions will be decided tomorrow in the under 10 and under 8 categories. The under 10 is tight, but IM Robert Jamieson's charge, Shawn Zillman, leads by half a point with 3 rounds to go. In the under 8's 3 players are on 5/6 and the title is wide open.

In the Willathgamuwa-Gooch game the following position was reached from an Advanced French.

Heath as black had just played 12..0-0, a novelty in the position, but not one likely to be repeated as black has castled into an absolute onslaught. However, Kevin couldn't find the way through and it was the white king that was checkmated in 9 moves! The obvious move is 13.h5, but white decided to transfer his queen to h5 to checkmate his opponent. A brilliant counter attack by Heath!

After the Australian Championship

The Australian Championship has been finished less than a week, and we're already moving onto other events. The Melbourne Chess Club is hosting The 2016 Australian Women's Masters, South Australia is the host state for the Australian Junior Championship, and in the big, wide world of chess, Wijk aan Zee starts in a couple of hours.

Let me start with the Women's Masters. I have to say that I have genuine problems with this tournament for a few reasons.

- Women shouldn't have separate events, and lower expectations in chess. It is degrading, and somewhat discriminatory to set the standard of women's titles lower then that of men.

- The general attitude towards women in chess makes many feel unwelcome, and second class chess citizens. Like, for instance, withdrawing from a tournament after losing to a girl, like happened in the Australian Reserves.

- By treating women as inferior, the chess community reinforces this and continues to keep women as inferior.

It really is little surprise that the one woman who competed on an even level with men, Judit Polgar, denounced women's only events, and competed with the best players she could find.

Anyway, taking away the fact that it is a women's only event, the organisers, Gary Bekker and Jamie Kenmure have put together a very good field of players, but with only 1 Australian in the top section, but a second section is taking place, and the winner will apparently be given entry to next year's event. There hasn't been particularly good coverage of the event, so I haven't seen any games or even the results, though IM Leonid Sandler posted an article to the Russian news site with the first round games.

The Australian Junior Championship started today in Adelaide. There are 4 live boards showing the top games from the Under 18 and Under 16 Championship. The under 18 will be a fascinating affair with IM Ari Dale the top seed, but Australian Reserves Champion, Patrick Gong also in the tournament. Both came through the first round unscathed.

Meanwhile, the traditional year opener in the elite chess world, Wijk aan Zee starts tonight. As always, Wijk puts together a strong but interesting field. As well as Carlsen, Giri, Caruana and So from the top 10, there are a group of exciting players. Eljanov was the biggest mover in 2015 moving up to 13 in the world; China has 3 players in Liren Ding (12 in the world) Yi Wei (16 year old Chinese Champion) Hou Yifan (top female player ranked 68th in the world); 2015 World Cup winner, Sergey Karjakin plays; and last year's winner of the B tournament, David Navara has the honour of playing Carlsen in the first round!

It will be a tough first round for Carlsen. According to Chessbase readers, Navara's win against Wojtaszek was the best game of 2015!

Chess

Ok, so there are 2 weeks left of my summer holiday period so I'd better take stock of what I have to do before then. First I've got to keep an eye on some tournaments around the World. Here in Australia the Junior Championships is still being held in Sydney, and I have to admit that I haven't really been following it too closely because I've felt pretty bad due to the intense heat we've had in Melbourne. I did notice that a student of mine, Jay Landau won the Under 8 and under 8 Lightning Championships so that was good. I also noticed that a Tasmanian girl who I've helped a little, Yuvini Perera has been doing well, coming equal first in the U-12 girls Lightning, and is equal second in the U-14/U-12 girls event. Hopefully she can do well as she has not been well the past year, but has still been a remarkably positive young girl. Nearer to home, the Melbourne Chess Club is running its annual Australia Day Weekender next week. I'd have really liked to play this, but it looks like I'll have to miss out, though I hope to drop in sometime over the weekend.

I also haven't been following the GM tournament in Holland as closely as I'd usually do either. I've heard that the Budapest Gambit has been used a couple of times successfully, but I haven't seen the games. One game that did impress me came from the second group. The game was from an Open Sicilian where white set up a Maroczy Bind (pawns on c4 and e4) and then played f4 as well to build up an imposing centre. He then just developed his pieces behind this pawn mass and walloped his opponent on the kingside. What makes it more impressive is white (IM Benjamin Bok, 2560) was much lower rated than black (Yu Yangyi, 2677).

In the top group it is early days, but Aronian is already in front with 3/4. Then in just over a week the Gibralter tournament starts with 9 players over 2700 in a field approaching 200 players.


Following chess isn't the same as playing it though. I did have great intentions of putting in a ton of work into my game this week, but 40+ C temps put paid to that, and virtually everything else I wanted to do! So I've got to get back to work on my game. I do have some incentives to work hard. First I'll be playing in 2 tournaments, the MCC Club Championship which will run on consecutive Mondays from the start of February. This tournament always attracts a strong filed and I see that already IM Ari Dale and FM Dusan Stojic are in the field. I'll also be playing on Friday nights at Glen Eira Chess Club. After setting up the club last year, we want to pick up things a notch or 2. We are going to run 3 x 7 round swiss events through the year with each event qualifying 3 players through to a final club championship. The qualifiers will be low entry fee and no prize money events, but the end of year tournaments will have big prizes, including a $1000 prize for club champion. We tried to drum up some interest at the Australian Championship for the club, and were lucky to get a "probably" from IM James Morris who lives just a few blocks away from the venue.

I've also got my work cut out teaching chess this year. I'm taking on some stronger students, which will test my ability to take players from the 1200-1500 range through towards 1800-2000+. While I'm fairly clear on how the curriculum is going to run, it never hurts to have tons of material, so my work will also hopefully help with my teaching. Because of this higher level coaching I've agreed to run a lecture at the MCC on February 1st at 6.30 pm. Come along, it should be fun and a critical audience will help me to hone my advanced teaching skills!

After the Australian Chess Championship

It's time to think about me. I've rejoined the English Chess Federation and have paid the fee to restore my FIDE rating. I should be relisted in the FIDE list by the end of the week. Which means I can play chess again! I didn't really play much during the Australian Championship, but rather was looking at games and analysing. Anyway, I'm pretty bad at blitz chess. Saying that I did manage to win a blitz game against IM Guy West. I won't say how many games I lost :D

IM Guy West

What's it like to start playing again after a year? I guess my calculation will be a bit slow for a while, though it probably wasn't my strongest point anyway. Openings I'm not too bothered about as no one seems to know enough about them anyway. I have a secret plan to do with opening preparation anyway which I'll mention on this blog once I've discovered the secret. As for middlegame planning and endgame technique, that's what I've spent the last year looking at anyway, so I guess I won't be too weak in that department either. I'm hoping that once the rust falls off, I won't be too different in strength to what I was before, and am even hoping to jump back to 2200+. I intend to start playing chess again at the start of February at the MCC Championship.

I'm also helping to start a new club near to where I live. I will write more about Glen Eira Chess Club in this blog in the future, but for now I'll say that we are seeking affiliation with the state body, and are looking to run our first rated event starting at the end of January

I'm also following the World of chess again. I have to say that I found the World Championship a let down, but generally speaking I enjoy tournaments more than matches. After the Anand-Carlsen match I was quite busy and not particularly motivated to follow international chess events, and funnily enough, it has been the local Championship in Melbourne that has reawakened the desire to follow top class events. Currently the annual super tournament in Holland is being played, and I will be following this closely. Like the Australian Championship it is a relatively young field and it is interesting to see how things will go, especially as the Candidates tournament for the World Championship isn't too far away.

Here in Australia, the summer season of chess goes on. Currently the Australian Junior Championships are being held in Sydney. There was a ridiculous timing clash with the Senior Championship that meant the 2 events overlapped. Anyway, the Under 18's, 16's, 10's and 8's are all under way and I'm glad to see a boy I've helped coach leading the under 8's. For a 7 year old, Jay Landau has a pretty good tactical eye, and he is a rare child who likes to checkmate rather than take material (though he can be pretty greedy too!)

Jay as black saw a mating pattern that his opponent didn't see, winning after 1..Rh5 2.Ne5 [Hoping for the greedy 2..R8xe5 3.Rc8+ Re8 4.Rxe8#] 2..Ng3# Next time I see Jay, I'll have to tell him that he could have been even more forceful by reversing his move order: 1..Ng3+ 2.hxg3 Rh5#

I was very saddened to see the death of 27 year old Grand Master Vugar Gashimov. It is tragic when people are taken so young. He had to cope with epilepsy (which I have quite some knowledge of) and eventually a brain tumour. Peter Doggers article about Gashimov on the Chessvibes site is possibly the best I've read.

Critical Chess Observations

Time for some Grumpy Old Man Moments

(I've just read this blog post before publishing it, and wonder if I'm beginning to suffer from Victor Meldrew Syndrome)

I try to keep this blog as positive as I can, but let's get real, we don't live in a perfect world. So it's time to look at some issues that I've noticed in chess recently. So, starting with the Australian Junior Championships that just recently finished on the Gold Coast I couldn't help but wonder about both the quality of the fields, and the number of players in the event as a whole. Talking just about the numbers, compared to the event 12 months before in Melbourne which had 276 entries, this year's 2013 Championships had 224 entries, a drop of about 50 kids. Now there may be a number of reasons for this, but really someone should be asking the question of why this is so, and if there is anything that be done about it. As expected the majority of players in the tournament were from Queensland, but then surprisingly there weren't too many player from nearby New South Wales. I'm not the only one wondering about this. IM Alex Wohl said pretty much the same thing on his excellent blog.

On to quality. This year's under 18 Championship seemed a little stronger than last year's which is definitely a good thing, but when we look at the list of the top under 18's in Australia, only 5 of the top 20 were playing (note that Yi Yuan seems to be missing from the top under 18 list though he would be in it) and Oscar Wang played in the under 16 event. While Gene is a worthy Champion, shouldn't we be trying to maximise elite players in this event? I don't have a solution for this, but the issue needs raising. None of the top 10 under 14's competed in their age group, though it was good to see Michael Kethro and Jack Puccini take up the challenge at the under 18 level. At the lower age groups, the quality is pretty good, so the question is how to keep players coming back to the event in their senior years (and of course, the numbers participating in younger age groups is far greater than at the older age groups).

Moving on to the girls, there seems to be no thought as to how to improve these events. In fact, I heard the suggestion that the girls events be scrapped and girls play for the titles within the open section. I would fully support this, but I have my doubts that I'm in the majority. There was some frustration after the under 18's, 16's and 14's were merged into one tournament and some of the girls had to play with a time control that hadn't been advertised for their section. As it was the older girls dropped from 90 + 30 to 60 + 30 which is what the under 14's were scheduled to play at, and not many of the older girls, nor their parents, were happy with this change. To add insult to injury, they found out about this change after the appointed time for the round to start, so there wasn't really any time for discussion, or communication, or an apology, just a decision and let's get on with it! It's little wonder that girls don't really want to play in this event if their treatment is inferior to that of the open competitors. Only 1 of the top 10 rated girls in the country competed in Queensland and 39 in total compared to 46 the year before. Of course, the girls are firmly put in their place below the boys by the fact that their prize money is lower at every level. Now personally I'm not a fan of prize money at junior events, but if there is going to be prize money, why is one age group champion worth more than another? This is blatantly chauvinistic and unfair, however it is dressed up.

I have 2 final criticisms of the Championship. First, the entries list on the official tournament webpage was a bit clumsy, showing all competitors in one big long list in alphabetic order. Assigning entries by rating, and/or by the section they were playing in would have made that page more useful. Once tornelo started to be used to manage the data things were much clearer, so perhaps future organisers should look at employing a data entry program like tornelo or swissperfect that can do this job. Secondly, there was a play off needed for the under 12's where 4 players came =1st on 7/9. Now to my thinking, all 4 should have played in that, but only 2 went forward. If I was David Cannon (especially him because his tie break looked just as good as Denny Han's's), or Brendan Pierotti, or their parents, I'd be pretty aggrieved that 2 players went forward into the play off's that had tied with 2 players who were eliminated on tie break. If there are to be play offs, especially in junior events, shouldn't all players finishing on the same score be entitled to a chance at that play off? Otherwise, what really is the point when the various tie break systems can find us a winner?

Ok enough about the Junior Championship at which I really had a good time. Let's talk about FIDE's new proposal requiring licensing of players with their national federations. To be honest, I'm completely blown away by some of these ideas, and I will almost certainly give up FIDE rated chess if they go ahead. It appears to be overly bureaucratic and will become costly for both organisers and players. In fact, if I opted out of the FIDE system, but then played in a tournament which was FIDE rated, it could cost the organisers 50 Euros in fines! I am not happy about divulging private information about myself to a national chess federation (especially my passport number) and not happy to pay extra for the privilege of having my games rated in the international lists (actually I'm not happy about having to pay twice to have my games rated in both national and international lists!).

Of course, if there are others like me (perhaps many others) what will clubs do about their events? There are 3 FIDE rated club tournaments starting in Melbourne next week at Box Hill Chess Club, Noble Park Chess Club and Melbourne Chess Club. Will these clubs continue to FIDE rate their tournaments (Noble Park and MCC FIDE rate all their longplay events) even if it means a drop in numbers? I am eagerly following this issue and will come back to it in the future, no doubt.

Australian Junior Championships: The Winners

I am finally over the problems that I encountered leaving this event and travelling home, and I apologise for not getting this final report on the championships out sooner. In my opinion there was some good and some not too good to come out of the Championships, but that is probably the case with all tournaments. I'll start with the good, but this is all just my own opinion, so don't think I'm stating any official position here.

The venue wasn't spectacular (last time I was in Queensland the juniors shared a luxurious hotel with the senior championship!) but was more than adequate for the event. I've played in many sports halls for chess events, and always found them fairly comfortable. The surroundings of Bond University were pleasant, and there was plenty of safe outside space for kids to play in, though I'm not sure how many took advantage of this. The tournament was organised well by Andrew FitzPatrick and Gardiner Chess, and events ran more or less smoothly. The Tornelo management software worked well and enabled quick upload of games and results. The players conducted themselves well, and generally put their whole effort into each game. The competitiveness of each section can be seen by the fact that only one age group division (under 10's) was decided before the last round.

So a big congratulations to the winners. In the under 18's Gene Nakauchi was really the stand out and worthy winner of the event after his good showing in the Australian Open earlier in January. I think it was at Ballarat last year that IM Stephen Solomon told me in passing that Nakauchi was about to break through in a big way. It seems Stephen's prediction was right! In the under 16 top seed Oscar Wang found himself under pressure early, but fought back with an impressive run scoring 6.5/7 at the end of the tournament to overtake Punala Kiripitige and win this section. The under 14 was all about the Willthgamuwa brothers moving up divisions and much talk was whether either could win (many thought one of them would). But both were pushed back by Tom Maguire who gave away just 2 draws to win the title on an impressive 8/9. The under 12's was (predictably) the most competitive section ending in a 4 way tie for first. The play off was won, perhaps surprisingly, by Kerry Lin. I say 'surprisingly' because Kerry had only managed to finish =9th in the under 10's which was won convincingly by Kevin Willathgamuwa with a round to spare. The under 8's was also won convincingly by Christopher Lim, who also moved up to compete in the under 12 event where he finished on half points, a very good performance for a 6 year old!

The girls events were bundled into 2 divisions and the titles went to Nicole Chin (under 18), Zhi Lin Guo (under 16), Chloe Chin (under 14), Fiona Shen (under 12), Emily Lin (under 10) and Kamryn Durden (under 8). All the results are available on the tournament website.

The effort by all the players was excellent as there were some pretty grueling schedules and they managed to upload their games (965) after playing them. The coaches were working flat out to help their students, either with technical advice or moral support. My favourite coaches moment was sitting near to Jim Cannon who was working with some under 8 girls and having them in hysterical laughter over something or other. Good work Jim, let's make the game fun first and produce winners once the kids love the game!

Actually, that's left me in such a good mood that I'm going to leave the critical parts of this report till a later blog post. Congratulations to all players who put in such a great effort, and especially to the new Champions.

Last day of the Australian Juniors

This post has been cancelled due to bad weather!

So far, due to high winds and torrential rains caused by Tropical Cyclone Oswald, I have had the most weird of days. First I discovered my flight from Gold Coast Airport back to Melbourne had been cancelled. Then I discovered that I had been rescheduled on to a plane at Brisbane, except there was no idea given on how to get there, so with some other parents and kids in the same condition I jumped a train to Brisbane Airport. I then stood in a queue for about 3 hours before being checked in and am now sitting at the gate, waiting to board my flight which is already 35 minutes late. So I will not be back in Melbourne before about 11pm local time.

Therefore, thanks to the Queensland weather this blog post in cancelled due to bad weather conditions. I'll be writing it in full tomorrow.

Surf up on the Gold Coast

Torrential rain and heavy winds at Brisbane Airport

A very wet Varsity Lakes train station on the Gold Coast

Australian Junior's and Double Chins

The Chin sisters on board 1 in the under 18 girls

Sorry, but I couldn't resist the title! The penultimate day of the Australian Juniors saw some sorting out happen. In the girls under 18, the top seeds have risen to the head of the event, with Nicole Chin (right in the picture above) having a 1 point lead going into the final round. In round 7, she played her younger sister Chloe (left in the picture above) who is also playing well and currently in joint third. I'm not too sure who is in which position at the different age groups (U-18, U-16 and U-14) but all will be revealed tomorrow.

In the boys events, things have generally become clearer. In the under 18's Gene Nakauchi is now a point clear of Yi Liu who is himself a point clear of Yi Yuan and Pengyu Chen. The under 16 tournament is led by Oscar Wang who is half a point ahead of Punala Kiritipige who is a further point clear of the rest. Tom Maguire won both his games in the under 14's today and has taken control of the under 14 event, a full point clear of both the young Willathgamuwa brothers. And in the under 12's Denny Han has a clear point lead from a pack of 5 players!

The under 10 and 8's girls had to play 4 games today, and there was actually 1 draw, spoiling a perfect set of results. Those 2 girls who drew with each other, Cassandra Lim and Emily Lin are currently that half point ahead of the field. There are 2 more games tomorrow for these girls which should be a nerve tingling experience.

Tom Maguire (right) clear leader of the under 14 boys

Tomorrow should be pretty exciting as a number of minor places are up for grabs, and no one has actually won a title. There may be play offs to determine champions, and then there will be the prize giving, which is what all the kids want to be a part of. There is a combination of trophies and cash prizes, though there has been some debate as to whether cash prizes are appropriate, especially at the younger age groups. I don't remember winning any money prizes in junior competitions, but being elated to walk away with a trophy, or better still, a book prize! Then again, we are talking pre computer and mobile phone days. In fact colour TV hadn't been around too long in my house when I started playing junior chess, and Fischer was still World Champ, though only just! Anyway, enough old-man talk, here are the trophies.

Australian Juniors Lucky Day 7

Was day 7 lucky for anyone at the Australian Junior Championships? Well, I didn't feel too lucky walking to some students in the rain this morning.

Stormy weather on the Gold Coast

However I was lucky enough to see another native bird, an Australian Bush Turkey that apparently lives down the road from where I'm staying.

Australian Bush Turkey

At the tournament today there was a meeting of the Australian Junior Chess League (AJCL) which I was lucky enough to miss! I've been to enough committee meetings and AGM's over the past few years to last a lifetime! I'm not sure of the details of the meeting but one thing was decided (maybe!) and that is the next Australian Junior Championship will be held in Sydney in 2014.

Of the tournaments that have been in progress there are 5 lucky players heading the sections. The under 18 sees Gene Nakauchi maintain his half point lead over Yi Liu, with the rest of the field at least a further point back. This is now becoming a 2 horse race. Oscar Wang is a point clear in the under 16 from Punala Kiritipige and Martin Jack with the rest another point back at least. Tom Maguire has taken sole first place in the under 14 event, but there is a massive pack hot on his heels. There are 9 players within a point of first, so I'm guessing tomorrow's 2 games will be very important in sorting out the field. The under 12 is equally tight. Kerry Lin (only 9 years old) leads the field but 8 players are within a point of him and a further 8 are only half a point back. I think this will go to the wire, and I can see play off's looming in both under 14's and 12's. The under 18 girls, which also incorporates both the under 16's and under 14 girls titles, Nicole Chin is the sole leader, but a group of 5 players are all within a point of her including her sister Chloe, and of course the sisters are playing their game tomorrow with a draw really helping neither of them!

Today also saw the start of the under 10 girls, (which incorporates the under 8 girls title) who had to play 3 games today. This wasn't enough to split the field and 3 girls share first, Cassandra Lim, Lillian Lu, and Callie Brutnell. After 3 rounds, the tournament is still awaiting its first draw! Maybe we'll get one during the 4 rounds they have to play tomorrow which seems to be a bit excessive. I can understand that there can't be 3 rounds on Sunday as that will take to long, especially if there are play off's, but was there anything wrong in scheduling the event on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and having 3 games per day, like in the boys under 10's and under 8's?

To end this post, I'd like to show you lucky readers a game played by one of my students, Max Phillips who is playing in the under 12's and is the group just behind the leader Kerry Lin. In round 6 Max played black against Kevin Song who had been sole leader of the tournament before this round. The game was an amazing fight, with some great imaginative play, but perhaps Kevin was the lucky one for the game to end in a draw. Credit to both kids for playing such a great fighting game.

Lucky position 1: Kevin as white played 13.Bxh7+, going for the well known Greek Sacrifice. Max "believed" Kevin and played 13..Kf8, and when I asked him after the game why he didn't take on h7 he said I get mated. When I asked him to prove it....well, Max didn't look too happy. Kevin returned the favour as 14.e6 would have been very strong opening black's king's defences. Instead white played 14.h3. The game continued 14..Ngxe5 15.Nxe5 Nxe5 when we reach the next position.

After nicely opening the black king side, Kevin opened up his king giving Max a lucky tactical opportunity. 16.f4? and Max seized his chance with 16..Ng6! opening the e-file to great effect. After 17.Bxg6 it was lucky for Kevin that Max chose to go all in with a check 17..Bxe3+?, as the other capture 17..Rxe3 would have won a heap of material due to the threatened discovered check from the bishop on c5. The game continued until the end with black holding an advantage for most of the time, but being unable to extend it. However the final position was agreed a draw and I think that it was a bit early to be doing that. The game had a lot of play in it and although black may have been better, I think the game could have gone either way, so both players may have been a little unlucky not to have gone on and won this game.

This game was typical of under 12's chess with lots of excitement and tricks. Ok, there were a number of mistakes made by both sides, but there was also a lot of good ideas too.

A Quick Australian Junior 2013 Post

Ok, it's late, and I'm exhausted so this will be brief. First the weather has taken a turn for the worse here, which is great for chess enthusiasts!

That large white block of cloud above the North East of Australia is Tropical Cyclone Oswald which is heading South towards where we are on the Gold Coast about half way up the eastern coast. Today there was plenty of grey clouds, and a fair amount of showers though nothing particularly heavy. What we get over the next few days is anybodies guess!

Anyway, with this weather there's no excuse to go outside and play, so chess is the order of the day. So, starting with the oldest, a draw on top board secured Gene Nakauchi's overall lead in the tournament, but helped the rest to close up. Yi Yuan and Yi Liu are half a point back and Thomas Pinnock (who is the next to tackle Nakauchi) a further half point down. Top seed Oscar Wang has finally taken the lead in the under 16 section. He is a point clear of 3 players, Punala Kiripitige, Martin Jack and the still impressive Clint Therakam who must really go down as the man of the whole Australian Juniors. Today Clint notched up another upset win against George Carolin-Unkovitch who is rated about 550 points above Therakam!

The under 14's might well be the closest of the lot, and it is unbelievably competitive. No one has reached 4/4 and a group of 4 players sit at the top on 3.5. However, there are a further 10 players within a point of these, so anyone that starts to accumulate points from now is going to be close to the top at the end of the tournament. To be honest, no one player has particularly stood out for me yet, so tomorrow might be a big day in establishing an order for this event. There is an outright leader in the under 12 in Kevin Song of Queensland. He is closely followed by a group of 5 players headed by top seed David Cannon. However, David hasn't played the most convincing chess and will hopefully find his full strength over the next full days.

From round 3, David had gotten into a horrible mess as black. If Max Phillips with white had played 43.Rxf7 Kxf7 44.Qc5, the game would probably have not lasted much longer and we would have had an upset. However, White played a blunder, 43.Ne2? and David took his chance with 43..Rxf2 44.Kxf2 Rf6+ and white's king has no good squares and black wins the knight and soon after went on to win the game. David has been pushed hard in most of his games, which I suppose comes with the territory of being top seed!

The girls under 18 event has a clear leader in Rebecca Strickland who has convincingly moved to 4/4. She is half a point ahead of Nicole Chin who is half a point ahead of 3 more players. This field is spreading out, but I'm not sure of the sections that the girls are qualified for, so it's difficult to know who is leading which event as the under 18's, 16's and 14's are all together. I'll try to get to grips with this and work out who is trying to win which section tomorrow. The younger girls are also bunched together in under 10's and 8's. These start tomorrow and have the onerous schedule of 3 games tomorrow, 4 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. There are going to be some very tired girls on Saturday evening!

And finally here are the winners from the lightning events!

Under 12's champion was Kris Chan from Victoria who scored an amazing 10/11, while the under 18 championship was won by Yi Liu of Queensland with a perfect 11/11. Congratulations to these 2 speed specialists. Full results can be found on the tournament website.

Australian Junior Championships: Major titles resume

Can you spot white's threat? Upsets happen, and this one came from the Under 12 Championships where one of the top seeds was taken down by a player rated 600 points below them. However, it shows how tough and competitive these events are. Of course white threatens Qd8 mate, which was stopped by the check 27..Qe5+. This is fine, but as a spectator alarm bells are ringing as focus can easily be lost at the under 12 level. White blocked with 28.Be4 and, yes you guessed it, black decided to win himself the pinned bishop. The game tragically finished 28..d5 29.Qd8# 1-0 Cholan-Yap Australian Under 12 Championship 2013.

After the excitement of the problem solving and lightning events yesterday, the main events began again today. There are titles to be decided for U-18, U-16, U-14, U-12 in open divisions and every age group in the girls only divisions. In fact starting with the girls tournaments, there has once again been a low turnout for the girls championship and even at 11am when the chess was due to start, there was still some debate as to what format was going to be used. In the end there are just 2 tournaments, an U-18 (20 players) and an U-10 (14 players) though I believe there will be champions in all age groups from U-18 down to U-8's. In fact, I don't know this for sure, but when I do I'll confirm it. The older girls started their event today, while the younger ones start on Friday and use the 3 games per day format. It is a bit difficult to tell who is competing in which age group, and I know some of the girls were disappointed that they didn't end up playing their preferred time control as the U-18 and 16's were due to play 90+30 while the U-14 and 12's were to play 60+30. In the end the older girls missed out and the 60+30 time control has been used. So far there have been no top seed casualties, but they all start to meet tomorrow for the main sorting of these events.

The boys tournaments which started today are the U-14 (35 players) and the U-12 (63 players) making them 2 of the biggest sections of the Championships. Both these events look amazingly competitive and I am hard pressed to pick a winner in either section. The format of 2 game per day for 4 days and 1 game on the fifth day will also lead to stamina issues toward the end of the tournaments, or even on the second games of the day. Already there were a number of players who didn't look so good half way through the afternoon game. The top seed in the U-14's, Rishi Dutta was held to a draw by Gary Lin rated 300 points below him, for example. In fact, in this section there are only 6 players on a perfect score including, ominously, both the Willathgamuwa brothers. However, it is early days yet. Actually, there is another (much) younger brother who will have 2 great role models if he decides to take up chess!

The under 12's is the biggest tournament in terms of participation and with 15 players rated over 1000 there is tough competition. Top seed is David Cannon who has been a junior champion before so knows what it takes to win the title. David started with 2/2 but the real fun starts tomorrow when the players rated above 1000 all begin to meet.

The under 16's and 18's resumed their events today. Punala Kiritipige was pulled back to the field by top seed Oscar Wang in the under 16's. There are now 2 leaders (Punala and Oscar) followed closely by surprise package Andrew Mather who is playing about 500 points above his 1312 rating to be on 3.5! Clint Therakam was also back to giant killing ways again today and he is one of 3 players a further half point back on 3. The top 3 players in the U-18 all won today and lead the field, Nakauchi 4.5, Yi Yuan 4, Yi Liu 3.5. It looks like one of these 3 will take the title and the top 2 play tomorrow.

Leader of the under 18's, Gene Nakauchi has played some very interesting ideas. Today against Jack Puccini he came up with an exchange sacrifice which caused his opponent no end of headaches.

Nakauchi as white played 25.Nxb3 and after the recature 25..Nxb3 had no hesitation in sacrificing the exchange with 26.Rxb3. Gene's queen side initiative and that massive protected passed pawn on b6 proved too much for Jack to defend.

Again the team at Gardiner Chess are doing a great job, as is arbiter Charles Zworestine and the Tornelo management system is working well at quickly updating results and storing the games that the kids themselves are putting into the computers.

Bumper Time for Chess

Today was a day off for me while I'm on the Gold Coast, so I explored a little. I'll brighten this blog post with some pictures.

Gold Coast beaches, Queensland

There's so much top class chess around it's hard to know where to look. Let's start in Australia. I'm currently in the Gold Coast coaching at the Australian Junior Championships which continue through till Sunday. There are age group prizes for U-18, U-16, U-14, U-12 and all girls only divisions to be decided yet. I'll be blogging more about this here over the next few days.

Then at the weekend there are weekenders happening in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales over the public holiday, Australia Day. Straight after that, the clubs will get into their season in Australia, and for me that means playing (hooray!) the Club Championship at the Melbourne Chess Club.

Some intersting features of the Gold Coast seascapes

In the World of chess the biggest annual round robin of the year, Wijk aan Zee is reaching it's climax with world number 1 Magnus Carlsen and World Champion Vishy Anand in amazing form. The tournament ends on Sunday. Just starting today is the biggest swiss tournament of the year, the Gibraltar Open. There are a number of events at these big chess festivals, but the top section of Gibraltar has 246 players of which 8 are rated over 2700, 44 above 2500 and 104 above 2300! Gibraltar is a 10 round tournament and continues through until 31st January. As Gibraltar ends, so the second strongest swiss of the year starts in Moscow. In fact it has to be said that there isn't usually too much difference in the strength of the fields. Gibraltar definiely has an edge at the top, but the depth of the Moscow field is unreal, with currently 187 registered players above 2300 strength! The tournament runs from 2nd-10th of February.

Overlapping the Moscow open is Aeroflot, the super elite swiss, where you have to be 2400 to be in the top group. The field boasts 7 players above 2700 and 86 players in total with the lowest rated currently at 2411! Of course, there are a number of sections at Aeroflot too, with the b-group being a 130 player swiss ranging from 2549-2065. It has to be said, that not many tournaments have an under 2550 section! Aeroflot starts on February 7th and runs till February 15th.

Phew, that is an amazing amount of top class chess coming up in the next few weeks! It will give us a month to calm down before the London Candidates start!

Feeding the locals on the Gold Coast. Yes that's my arm they're perched on!

Australian Junior's 2013: The First Champions

Day 3 of the Australian Junior Championships on the Gold Coast of Queensland was the final day for the under 8's and under 10's. An action packed itinerary of 3 games per day ended in our first 2 champions. The under 8's was close till the finish and in the final round there was still doubt, but the leader Christopher Lim of Victoria won his last game and took the title. Dashiell Young of Queensland was second, and Jay Landau of Victoria came third.

Under 10's top boards for the last round

Under 10 Champ Kevin Willathgamuwa of NSW sees his opponent's first move

Girls playing near the top boards in the under 10's

Meanwhile the under 10's was decided with a round to spare. Kevin Willathgamuwa of NSW won the title with a perfect score of 9/9 and was 1.5 clear of his nearest rival, Luis Chan of Victoria with Queenslander Jason Wang coming in third.

Tomorrow is a rest day from the main events, though many will take part in the problem solving and lightning tournaments. Then on Wednesday the under 8's and 10's will be replaced by the under 12's and 14's and the girls while the under 16's and 18's finish their events. Today saw outright leaders emerge in both these tournaments. Punala Kiripitige maintained his lead in the under 16's with another win taking him to 4/4. He is a point clear of Martin Jack and top seed Oscar Wang who he has to play on Wednesday. This tournament is very difficult to predict as there are only 14 players with 9 rounds so some unusual pairings are likely to take place towards the end of the event and there seem to be some under rated players in the event meaning that no one has an easy game.

The under 18's is now led solely by Gene Nakauchi who won a nice game against Pengyu Chen. Gene is half a point clear of 3 players, though it is still fairly tightly packed in this group. There were some fireworks on the top 2 boards.

Pengyu Chen-Nakauchi saw black in sacrificial mood. 20..Rxe2 21.Nxe2 Bxf3 22.Nc3 Qg4 23 b3 was this sound, or was it necessary or forced? I actually have no idea but it was imaginative and interesting as was black's next follow up.

 A whole rook down, black played 23..Re1+ What an amazing move! The game soon saw exchanges leading to a position where white had 2 rooks and 4 pawns against black's queen and 5, which black played better and won.

However, the game of the day was probably the board 2 scrap between two of the top seeds Yi Liu and Yi Yuan. The game was a no holds barred King's Indian Defence with both sides fighting to break through on opposite sides of the board. Black had an alarming looking build up on the king's side but it was white who first won material.

White won a piece (he is an exchange down in the diagram above) with 27.c8=Q Rxc8 28.Qxc8 and was a long time up on the clock, though he took a good while on his next move after black played 28..fxg3

So imagine you're white and need to find a defence. You can afford to give back some material as you are a piece for a pawn up. What would be your candidate moves? 29.Bxb6, 29.Nxd6, 29.Be1, something else? White chose 29.Bxb6 and after 29..Nhf4 30.Nxf4 Nxf4 31.Bc4 Qh6, with the threat of mate, he had to give up his queen, though he got a ton of material for it.

32.Qg4+ Kh8 33.Qxg3 Rg7 34.Qh2 Rxg2 35.Qxg2 Nxg2 36.Kxg2

Black has a rook and 2 pieces for the queen, but unfortunately one of them goes straight away to 36..d5!.

It is well worth a look at this crazy game which can be found in a file of 300 games already recorded at the Championships.