Chess Events

Time to promote some events, and catch up some chess activities I've seen. I've always been of the opinion that I owe it to the chess community to give back some of my time and energy for all the enjoyment I've got out of it. A karma type of thing. It's great anyway meeting people with a similar interest.

I've been really lucky to be involved in chess coaching for the past 10 years and find out about lots of events for young players. Like in many countries the challenge for chess organisers in Australia is not developing new players at primary school level, but maintaining interest into high school and beyond. As a result, here in Melbourne, we have thousands of primary school players, but a small number of players making it to adult game.

At the end of August, the Victorian Inter- University Championship took place at RMIT. It was a pretty strong tournament held in a really friendly atmosphere, and in wonderful surroundings.

On the left, 2 of the favourites Zhigen Lin and Simon Schmidt

The amazing ceiling of the venue, Storey Hall

The winner of the tournament was Sunilson Suderson of Deakin, who wasn't the only strong unrated player in the field. Dara Akdag from Denmark studying at Melboure Uni has a FIDE rating of 2182 and finished second, ahead of local boy Thomas Feng.

At an even younger age group, I recently visited Hobart, Tasmania to help coach at a chess camp. There were about 25 kids, some of whom were getting pretty good, ranging from about 7 years old through to about 13 or 14. A Tasmanian Chess Camp means lots of coaching, and lots of outdoor activities, a blitz tournament, a simul, a barbecue and lots of fun. This is all thanks to the Hobart International Junior Chess Club, and especially the efforts of Mellissa Harvey.

Nearly empty scout hut, most of the kids were outside having a break from chess coaching.

I focussed on simple messages, though some of the material was quite tricky, including some very advanced ideas about pins. Although talking about such a basic concept as the pin might not seem that inspiring, when you show pins in game situations, and then set some tough puzzles about creating pins, exploiting pins, defending pins, and checking whether pins are good or not. Tactics are always good for juniors, and adding real game settings give the concepts some context, and kids love hearing stories about famous chess players (or not so famous chess players).

A blitz tournament was held on the Saturday evening, with some adults taking part to add some tough competition for the kids. It is great that adults should take the time to do this, as kids need role models, and targets in their development. Here's my game against the player who came second, Ross George. Please remember, this was a 5 minute game, and as far as I can remember, the move order is right!

There have been some films about chess over the years, and last week there was a showing of the film, "The Polgar Variant" at my local cinema. International arbiter (IA) Gary Bekker had the bright idea of running a chess demonstration in the foyer of the cinema before the film started, and I brought along some clocks and checked things out.

Zhi Lin Guo taking on members of the public

Gary Bekker playing Charlotte Dilnutt with publicity, all good for chess.

And finally, in the red corner...

The President of Frankston Chess Club, Rafael Ward, also happens to be the impetus behind Chess Boxing Australia. Here we get a combination of chess and boxing with the first to either checkmate or knock out being the winner. This weekend sees the inaugural Fight Knight. While boxers would have a good chance of knocking out chess players, apparently a competitor has to have a certain proficiency in both disciplines to compete.....shame :D

Tasmanian Open Part 2

Well I thoroughly enjoyed playing interstate, even if my chess wasn't really up to scratch. I was able to do some sightseeing around Hobart, and it was good to see some people who I haven't seen for a while and play a new bunch of players. The second day of the tournament was pretty gruelling and I didn't get enough sleep on the Saturday night to cope. The Tasmanian Open runs 3 rounds on the middle day of the long weekend, though Kevin Bonham admits it's not an ideal scenario. The problem with running 2 rounds on the Sunday, and then 2 on the public holiday Monday is that many players have a long drive back to the north of the island which doesn't really want to be undertaken late on Monday afternoon. I can see the point, and the thing about 3 games in a day is that it is basically the same problem for everyone in the tournament.

I was struggling from the start of the day, played 3 dodgy looking openings to finish on 1/3 for the day, which is probably better than I deserved. The competition was pretty tough with all boards being competitive. While on the first day there was only one draw in both rounds, the first 2 rounds on Sunday saw most games drawn. My first game was against David Small who had won the Lightning Tournament on Saturday evening with a perfect 9/9. We ended in a hard fought draw, where we were both probably better at some stage in the game. With board 2 also ending in a draw, it meant that 5 players were tying for first. The 4th round was just as tight with again the top 2 boards ending in draws. This lined things up for the final round of the day which was essentially carnage with no draws and plenty of poor play. My game saw me worse out of the opening, equalising into a position where both players had some dangerous looking threats and then I just collapsed. I had one of those classic moments when you play a move and within about 3 seconds of putting the piece down you see what you missed, and it appears then the most blatantly obvious move on the board. It then becomes a nail biting wait to see if your opponent has seen it. Unfortunately for me, Neil Markowitz did see it, and went on to win nicely.

So with one round to go, there were 3 leaders, Kerr, Markowitz and Small, with Mason Carter and Denis MacMahon half a point behind. Bill Kerr and David Small won their games to come equal first in the tournament, while Kevin Bonham and myself won to leapfrog into joint third with Neil Markowitz.  It was a nice tournament to play in and I urge others to take the trip to Tasmania to play some chess. The scenery is beautiful, Hobart is a great little city, you'll get to play some different players and you'll be made to feel very welcome by a a very nice group of people. More on the scenery in a later post, here are some of the people and I'll try to post some game fragments later in the week.

Mason Carter (left) very nearly pulled off the upset of the tournament against Bill Kerr. Here he analyses with Ian Little

Kevin Bonham and Bill Kerr who has recently moved to Tasmania

Neil Markowitz in his thinking pose opposite David Small, with Mason Carter in the background

Kevin Bonham handing out prizes to under 18 winners Rebecca Strickland and Max Phillips

James Kim was possibly the tournament sensation winning the under 1500 prize with a rating of under 1000

Worthy winners, Bill Kerr and David Small with Kevin Bonham in the middle

Tasmanian Open

Tasmania is a beautiful little island to the south of Victoria. I've been here many times before, and have always been charmed by the natural beauty of the environment. Even the cities are small and picturesque. I flew into Hobart Airport late last night (after a delay to my flight, Tiger Airlines, you really are shoddy!) and basically just crashed out ready for the first day of the tournament. This is a long weekend so tournaments are lasting 3 days, running into Monday.

Salamanca Market. A rainbow seems to be coming out Mount Wellington in the background

A 10.30 am start on Saturday morning was very generous, and allowed me to spend the early part of the morning wandering around Salamanca Market. If you've never been to the market before, it is really very good, with lots of locally made products. I walked up to the venue from Salamanca. It only took about 20 minutes and left me totally refreshed for my first game. The tournament is being organised by the Tasmanian Chess Association, with Kevin Bonham acting as playing arbiter The tournament is being held at Princes Street School which has a decent history of junior chess participation. The venue is quite basic, but perfectly adequate and though it was a little cool at times (probably me becoming a big softie after living in Melbourne for nearly 10 years!) the playing hall was totally comfortable. Some great news from TCA before the tournament started was new events to be held on the island this year including a rapidplay championships, and a tournament sponsored by Neville Ledger to the tune of $3000 for Tasmanian residents only. This should be an excellent event, scheduled for December, which can only add impetus to chess playing in Tasmania.

King from Richard III Chess Set I saw in Salamnaca today

The field for this year's Tasmanian Open is tightly bunched at the top. I'm top seed at 2099 but 6th seed Ian Rout is only 200 points behind. It's a pretty open filed as a number of strong juniors are in playing who can take out almost anyone on their day. This was shown in round 2 when Mason Carter drew with second seed Bill Kerr, and could have very easily won the game. It will be no easy task for anyone to win the event. On day 1 there weren't too many upsets, although as I already mentioned, Bill Kerr was held to a draw by Mason Carter. The only result against the ratings in round 1 was a win by local junior James Kim. However, as we all know, juniors are unpredictable and can play well above their ratings fro the odd game, or may just be under rated. There were 20 entries and all the first round games ended in victories. Round 2 saw the first and only draw to date. I suppose this isn't too unexpected as the field sorts itself out.

Carter-Kerr from round 2. White has sacrificed a piece, but has an excellent attack while black's pieces are not really working. Mason found 1.Rd1!, but spent a lot of time choosing it. Bill then coolly replied 1..Qxd4 and Mason played 2.Rg3+, though after this he couldn't find a win. In the post mortem we looked at 2.Bxf5.

Now after 2..Qxf6 white has the simple retreat 3.Bb1 with irresistable threats such as Rf3-g3. Unfortunately Mason was down to the bare increment which is only 15 seconds (in fact, he was down to 2 seconds at one point, and very nearly lost) and he failed to convert.

Tomorrow there are 3 games, and that will mostly settle the placings. It has been thoroughly enjoyable up to now, with everyone playing in a friendly and competitive manner and I am most content to be competing in my first Tasmanian tournament. I'll try to do another round up tomorrow, though it might be difficlut with 3 games in a day.

Pawn Grabbing

It's the week before a public holiday here in Australia and I'm looking forward to a weekend in Tasmania playing chess. I'm spending the Queen's Birthday weekend at the Tasmanian Open in Hobart which should be good fun. I'll write reports from Hobart at the weekend on the event. It's a big week in Australian chess as a whole set of tournaments take place this weekend, with massive open's in Sydney and Melbourne. Leader Jack Puccini as well as a long weekender in Queensland. Although I've been to Hobart a number of times, I've never played a tournament there, so I'm looking forward to meeting up with some new players.

The tournaments I'm currently playing in are heading towards the pointy end. At the MCC, the City of Melbourne open had the 6th of it's nine rounds on Monday. Leader Jack Puccini took a half point bye but retains the lead. The gap has narrowed and he is now only half a point ahead of Malcolm Pyke. There is then a further half point to Simon Schmidt and Roger McCart who is having an amazing tournament so far. I find myself in a big group of players a further half point down (so 1.5 behind Puccini) and with 3 rounds to go, I guess a lot could still happen, and there are still chances even for those below me. As I like to mention upset results, I'll just note that both Tanya's in the event played above their rating. Tanya Krstevska drew with Peter Fry, while Tanya Kolak beat Alex Kaplan. Also Ben Frayle and Roger McCart won against players rated 200 points above them.

At Glen Eira Chess Club I'm currently leading the tournament after beating a student of mine, Max Phillips, in the fourth round of 7. I'm a point ahead of Jerzy Krysiak and David Cordover, but the tournament is being lit up by 8 year old Mahalakshme Thiagarajan who is on 2.5/4 and seems to be playing better every week. This young girl is very serious about her chess. She played in the under 1200 tournament in Canberra earlier this year, and is eager to play more events and it wouldn't surprise me to see her turn up at the Victorian Open. Both Glen Eira and the MCC have no tournament games in the upcoming week due to the long weekend schedule. This means that my next regular tournament game will be at Glen Eira on Friday 13th June, which sounds a bit ominous.

From a coaching perspective, I revisited one of the first ever games I showed to students in Australia. It is a game which demonstrates the dangers of pawn grabbing in the opening, and was played by one of the strongest ever Australian born players.

In the final position there is a great checkmate pattern:

18..Kf6 [18..Kf8 19.Qd6+ Ne7 20.Qxe7+ Kg8 21.Qe8+ Qxe8 22.Rxe8#] 19.Qf3! Kxe5 [19.Kg6 Qh5+ 20.Kf6 Qg5#] 20.Re1#

And if that isn't warning enough, there was the 11th game of the Spassky-Fischer 1972 World Championship where Fischer played the poisoned pawn variation of the Najdorf, and sadly saw his queen trapped.

Need I say more? At least I think I've terrorised kids into developing minor pieces and castling more often than not, and being incredibly careful with their queen.

A Weekend in Tassie

This weekend I have been in Tasmania teaching chess at a chess camp. Each year, The Tasmanian Chess Association and Hobart International Junior Chess Club organised the camp, although as always, what makes these things happen is the vitality and energy of a few very special people. This camp was organised by Melissa Harvey with the help of Ross George and Owen Short, and Nigel Frame who came along to help with some coaching. There were about 25 kids at the camp, varying in ages from about 7 through to about 14, and varying in abilities. However, there was much enthusiasm, some amazing raw talent, and a few pretty strong young players.

My weekend started with a flight from Melbourne on Friday night where I was seated next to a woman with a baby, so by the time I arrived in Tasmania I wasn't particularly disposed to children! But then things started going good. I was picked up by a parent of one of the kids who drove me from the airport. Thanks Dave! We went to the camp where I met up with Melissa, Ross and Owen and a chat before bed. The following day was pretty much full on coaching, though there was some time to enjoy the scenery.

A 1 minute walk to this beach brought spectacular views of Mt. Wellington

I've done these camps before, and always enjoy them. This time the kids were averagely younger than in years gone by, so I chose my material to be a little less advanced than I have when I've been before. However, the material was quite interesting and challenged the kids. They rose to the challenge, and came up with some great ideas as I extended their thinking processes, and they learnt some technical and tactical ideas which they can work on from now. On the Saturday evening, we played a thematic blitz tournament in the Four Knights Opening. I had done some preparation with the kids on this opening and they had a chance to play 7 games in the tournament. The adults who were there also played and I played, though I gave everyone odds of 5minutes to 1 minute. The kids played unbelievably well on the whole, and I felt lucky to come through the tournament with just one loss, to one of the local adult players.

A great thematic opening for kids. Our games started from this position.

The Four Knights Opening proved popular with the kids. It is simple to learn, follows basic opening principles, but allows for some interesting lines as well. The tournament went well, but special mention should  go to Will Warlaw-Kelly, a young player with great talent, who came equal first on 6/7 points!

Working out their strategies on the balcony...danger man Will is second from the right.

We also had a barbecue on the Saturday night (a Tassie chess camp tradition) and a great thing about these camps is that the kids do virtually all the cooking and cleaning up, with a bit of adult supervision.

A Tassie chess camp is not complete without the Saturday night barbie

On the Sunday we had more chess through the morning session followed by a simul. The kids had been pining for a transfer tournament, but the simul went down pretty well. I managed to go through unbeaten, but had a couple of scares along the way. Twice I blundered queens, but managed to get some compensation which later I used to gain material, but I was very lucky indeed. The last man standing in the simul was Bradley Vince who is quite an experienced player in the Primary School division. Saying that, I think he'll be a bit disappointed he didn't do better after winning my queen for 2 minor pieces and a pawn.

Yuvini won a queen against me by using a variation of a trick that I'd showed the kids the day before!

Then there was a big clean up before everyone headed off. I have to say that I was pretty exhausted by the end of the weekend, and I hope the kids took some ideas from this, but even more, I hope I gave them some inspiration to go away and continue the game.

Young Oliver has great talent for the game, and plays better with his teddy near him.