Out Of Retirement

It is time to bring this blog back out of retirement. I mean, if Kasparov can come out of retirement to play in the Grand Chess Tour, then chess lovers of the world should all be excited. And that isn't the only exciting thing in the chess world. Magnus Carlsen has become less dominant so we have a great situation at the top of the game where there are a whole bunch of players challenging to take the number 1 spot on the FIDE rating list. Magnus has a small 10 point lead over Kramnik with Wesley So only 12 behind, Aronin 13 behind, Caruana 15 behind and Mamedyarov 22 off the top spot. I'm not sure I ever remember such a tightly packed group at the top and it makes it an exciting time at the top of the game.

While the elite side of the game intrigues me, it is difficult to get to grips with their ability and I therefore tend to concentrate more on other things when I'm studying chess. I love the history of the game and I've ordered a book of the 1922 London International tournament. This was a great event won by Capablanca ahead of Alekhine, Rubinstein etc. The tournament book was written by Maroczy who was competing in the event, and I'm quite excited to read this book as I've never read any of Maroczy's writings before.

As a chess coach I'm also interested in junior chess, and it is an exciting time with Chinese superstar Wei Yi heading towards the top 10 in the world, and Indian super kid, Praggnanandaa trying hard to beat Sergey Karjakin's 15 year old record of being the youngest Grand Master in history. Pragga is not yet 12, and has come close to scoring GM norms already. His rating is sitting at 2479 which is absolutely amazing. If you want to know more about Pragga, then follow Chessbase India, which I've recently discovered, and which I find excellent. There's plenty of information about the players making these super players more accessible.

We in Australia might not have a talent quite like Pragga, but we do have some great juniors and I obviously find Australian chess interesting. I'll be following it as best I can. I've been playing lots of chess and have some things to write. My club, the Melbourne Chess Club, is as active as always and I'm currently playing in the Victorian Championships.

I'll also be writing about women's chess, or at least my take on women's chess. I've written here before that I don't like the way that women are treated in our chess community and I'll continue to write about it until things change! I've worked with a number of girls in Australia and I have listened to their concerns about the game of chess and their place in it.

I was recently coaching on a camp and I showed a game from London 1922, the fantastic Alekhine-Yates game. If you haven't seen it, then take a look. It is a strategic masterpiece with a beautiful finish. Yates weakens his e5 square and Alekhine uses it as an outpost for his knight as well as dominating the c-file. He skillfully transfers his rooks from the c-file to the seventh rank and then brings up his last reinforcement, his king as an attacking piece in the middlegame. The final position is wonderful!

Alekhine as white has just played Ke5 trapping black's rook, while mate will follow soon. Here's the full game which I look forward to analysing in some depth with Maroczy's guidance.

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Endgame Discovery?

After looking at 18th century games by the likes of Philidor and Bowdler yesterday, today I thought I'd get more up to date. I've been looking at games of Chigorin today. Yes, I know, I'm still over 100 years behind the times, but I enjoy looking at the history of chess, and an interesting position is exactly that, whenever or wherever it was played.

Chigorin is a well known historical chess figure playing 2 World Championship matches in the late 1800's against Steinitz. He lost both matches, but in them he proved himself a worthy competitor. He had a tactical flair and a great imagination, which I'd never really understood because I hadn't studied many of his games, and certainly not in any depth.

Here he is black against Isidor Gunsberg in a match they played in 1890. Chigorin came up with the magnificent line opening sacrifice 35..Rxf3!!. While the majority of white's pieces sit idly on the queen side, black's will penetrate the white position on the weakened dark squares around white's king. The rest of the game sees more imaginative moves bring black's pieces into the attack.

Of course by this stage in the development of chess, a player had to able to play in a rounded style, combining opening knowledge, endgame ability, tactical flair and defensive skills. Steinitz' new positional approach was taking hold of the game, and more comprehensive study was finding defensive resources against the old school of gambiteers.

The fighting qualities of all players is shown through their desire to win, and to play on in even positions. This is seen no more clearly in the games of the current World Champion, Magnus Carlsen. Chigorin had this tenacity too. I looked at an even endgame that he kept fighting on to eventually beat another heavyweight of that era, Tarrasch. The game has been analysed by many, including Kasparov et al. in "My Great Predecessors Volume 1" (MGP). Now I'm hardly one to criticise the great man, who is in my opinion the greatest player to have ever lived, but I think there might be an error in the analysis of this endgame by Kasparov and his team.

Here's the critical position from this endgame. The build up to this had been fascinating, as white worked hard to get blood from a stone. Here Tarrasch played 54..Rc1? "the decisive mistake" according to MGP. Instead black had to play 54..Rc2 winning a tempo by hitting the h2 pawn. The point in its effort to help promote the pawn, white's king will either have to go to c8, or c6 giving the black rook time to take on h2 and then bounce back to c2 to sacrifice itself for white's remaining pawn, giving a drawn rook versus pawn endgame.

After 54..Rc1 55.Ke5 Tarrasch played 55..hxg3 56.hxg3 Rc3 and he is indeed losing this position.

With black to move here, he would have no useful moves, so Chigorin simply played 57.Ra7! (after a couple of repetitions) leaving black in zugzwang.

My question is why did black have to capture on g3 on move 55? In my opinion, 54..Rc1 isn't a decisive mistake, but 55..hxg3 most certainly is. Instead of 55..hxg3, black has 2 defences which should draw.

Black can play 55..Rc6 cutting off black's king, or even 55..Rc2 returning to the position from before but a tempo down. I don't think that tempo makes a difference. After 55..Rc2 if white's king approaches the c-pawn then we go with Kasparov's plan of checking it until it goes to the c-file. The only other plan seems to be 56.gxh4 Kxh4 57.Kxf5

Now if black plays 57..Kh3, I can't see how white can win. Black's plan is simply to check the white king from the side until it isn't attacking g4, then take on h2. White can sacrifice the c-pawn and then win black's g-pawn with 58.c8=Q Rxc8 59.Rh7+ Kg2 60.Kg4, but according to Nalimov tablebases this is a draw.

Perhaps someone can refute my analysis, or perhaps I can be added to the list of annotators who have contributed something to endgame analysis?

Steinitz

When I was in England, I met up with a chess friend of mine, James Pratt. James, for his sins, is currently editor of the British Chess Magazine and mine of chess information. He showed me around his extensive chess book collection, and we talked briefly about the typical chess subject of who your favourite is. I remember James mentioning Morphy, and possibly Alekhine of the past masters, while I said Steinitz and Rubinstein. As soon as said Steinitz, James got a book for me to take home, "Steinitz move by move" by IM Craig Pritchett.

IM Craig Pritchett's "Steinitz Move By Move, Everyman Chess

I didn't really take much of a look at the book until later when I noticed a couple if things that annoyed me. First there is an index of Steinitz' opponents in the complete games, but there is no mention of any of the part games mentioned in the text. Now this wouldn't normally be too much bother, except that arguably Steinitz most famous game, versus von Bardeleben from Hastings 1895, isn't one of the complete games. To be honest I couldn't believe this, but I found the game as a note to a later Steinitz-Schlechter encounter from 1898. Pritchett says about Steinitz-von Bardeleben:

"The moves...often complete with fulsome annotations, can be sourced in innumerable books and websites and...needn't be repeated here."

I'm sorry, but that is just absolute tosh! If you are going to write a book, essentially as a tool for club level players, about the "extraordinary life and games of one of the greatest players in history" then it seems a bit of a cop out to mention his most famous game, en passant.

I suppose I should really be happy that the game gets a mention at all. The game which probably brought Steinitz to the world's attention was his brilliancy prize winning effort against Mongredien from London 1862. This one I can;t even find in the notes of any other games. This is the first game mentioned by Kasparov in the section on Steinitz from "My Great Predecessors: Part 1". Apparently, none other than Adolf Anderssen called it "the most bold and brilliant game" while Chigorn, in 1890 stated that "Games that were deemed brilliant in recent international tournaments were no match for this one."

So why leave out a such a seminal example from a collection of a player's games? To be honest, a lot of what I've looked in the book I've liked, though "move by move" isn't quite accurate, and should probably be amended to "move by move, when something interesting comes up". It's a shame because what on the whole is a pretty good effort by Pritchett to show Steinitz' chess development through his career, and to educate his readers through challenging questions about the games at various times and good tips and ideas, is spoilt for Steinitz fans because of the omissions.

So here is the moment when a young Austrian player became a name on the world stage. Steinitz as white played 16.Rxh7!? winning brilliantly after Mongredien didn't find the best defence of 18..Qe8! (Kasparov still proves that even the best defence wouldn't have held out for Mongredian, though Steinitz would have had to find some difficult moves!).

Here's the game, and you can judge for yourself whether it deserves to be in a section of games from his early years, or a book about Steinitz' life and games.

Improving at Chess

Today I saw a great response by Garry Kasparov on Twitter to the question of how to improve at chess in the computer age.

Still the same! Play a lot, review your games, study master play. MT @tmytrou: what is the best routine to improve with tools available now?
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) April 4, 2015

I remember as a junior having little material to work with back in the early 1980's, and I then got a bulletin of all the games of from the 1981 Linares tournament. These were bare game scores, and I went through every game (there were 66 if my memory is correct) trying to understand the tactical reasons as well as the strategic reasons why moves were played. There were a lot of styles of players from the solid Karpov through the unorthodox Larsen to the attacking Christiansen. I worked on every aspect of the game, but especially the accuracy of moves, or the tactical justification of why moves are chosen.

I remember learning a lot about positional ideas, thinking about development schemes from certain openings, the strength of different castled positions, structural weaknesses and their exploitation, and the nature of exchanging. I tried to discover some endgame secrets, but I think I generally failed at that as my young mind was more into faster methods of winning games of chess.

Anyway, I think it is time to get back to this method and start looking at a tournament as a whole, the good, the bad and the ugly. It has been a long time since I've done this, and when I studied Linares 1981, it was the thing that pushed my rating up to the 1800-2000 standard (I was also playing a lot and analysing my games as best I could).

From that tournament here is a game between surprise winner Larry Christiansen and ex World Champion Boris Spassky. The game starts as an exchange Queen's Gambit Declined, but Christensen livens things up by castling queen side. The game becomes very sharp until it reached this position.

Christiansen as white unleashed the amazing looking move 23.Ne4! where it is attacked by a knight which is pinned, and a pawn which is pinned and a rook, but after 23..Rxe4 Christiansen wins the exchange by simply taking, 24.Qxe4 as both of black pieces that can take white's queen are still pinned!

Anyway, here is the game while I'm off to find the bare game scores of a tournament that I can work through.

Doeberl Cup 2014 - Kasparov is in Town

I had intended to write plenty about this tournament, but I had a cold that turned into a bronchial infection that has really knocked me out. To be honest I should have withdrawn after the second day, but I paid my money and wanted to play the games, even though I'm playing terribly. I've played well below my usual standard, and even the games I've won haven't been great. Anyway, rating points lost today are rating points that can be regained tomorrow.

Because of my illness I haven't seen too much of the action, and have barely had the energy to look at friends and students games. The results can be seen on the tournament website or on the chess results server. The tournament is being jointly led by international Grand Masters, Nisipeanu from Germany, and Vajda from Romania on 6.5/8. From an Australian perspective, perhaps the result of the tournament has been that of Junta Ikeda (FM 2338) who has performed at well over 2500 for the event so far, including a draw with Dutch GM Loek van Wely (GM 2658). Ikeda is on 6/8 along with GM's Zhao (Australia 2573), Melkumyan (Armenia 2633) IM's Morris (Australia 2377) and Cheng (Australia 2438) and Chinese untitled player Ke Mu (2325).

There are other events taking place in Canberra. There is a Major tournament (under 2000) and a Minor (under 1600) and an under 1200 tournament that has already finished. All the sections are very competitive, and the first winner was unrated Fraser Young in the under 1200. Mildura teenager Zoe Harrison is currently in the sole lead by half a point in the minor with one round to go, while Andrey Bliznyuk is half a point clear in the Major.

Today, the chess was somewhat overshadowed by the arrival of ex World Champion Garry Kasparov in Canberra. Kasparov is on the FIDE campaign trail, and made a lot of friends with a long book signing and photo shoot. Tomorrow he is apparently giving interviews to local and national media. In the venue there was an absolute buzz of excitement all day, with people on the look out for the great man.

Relaxed looking Kasparov at the book signing

Ignatious Leong was accompanying Kasparov

I also met the President of the Guam Chess Federation at the book signing

World Chess legend Kasparov, with Australian chess legend, Ian Rogers

Having fun, and with hundreds waiting for his autograph, signing quickly!

Birthday Greetings Garry Kasparov

There was quite some excitement in Australian chess circles earlier this year, when it was announced that the 13th World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov, would be coming to Australia around Easter time, and would look in at Doeberl, probably to hand out prizes on the last day. For many of my generation, Kasparov is an absolute idol, taking dynamic chess to new limits while also possessing masterful technique, and the ability to play all types of position equally well. While Spassky and Fischer brought the idea of 'total chess' to the table, Karpov and Kasparov raised the limits of possibilities, and especially Kasparov was at the forefront of deeper than ever opening preparation that most of us amateurs dread.

It is, of course, a great pity that such an amazing talent as Kasparov should have retired from competitive chess and that he won't be playing in Canberra, but his mere presence will be inspiration enough for many. The only time I've previously seen Kasparov was at the 1986 London World Championship match which I visited. The aura in the playing hall was amazing. Grandmasters were in the audience along with patzers like myself, watching the two great players battle it out. I left the playing hall desperate to work at the game, and get to the highest level I could manage.

Well, a week before his trip to Canberra, it is Kasparov's 51st birthday today. Kasparov has played many memorable games, and produced many great contributions to chess opening and endgame theory as well as his magnificent attacks and combinations. The game that I vividly remember seeing and thinking, "my God, how good was that!" was his win in 1982 at the Olympiad against the USA team. He was playing on board 1 against Soviet emigre, Lev Alburt, when the following position occurred:

Kasparov, as black has played a Benko type game, and now comes up with a raidcal way of changing the nature of the game. 14..Bxb5 15.Bxb5 Qxb5!? A fantastic positional queen sacrifice which will gain a rook and minor piece for the queen, but will leave black's pieces very active, while white has both weak pawns and uncoordinated pieces to worry about. 16.axb5 Rxa1+ 17.Bc1 Nxe4:

Kasparov's queen sacrifice has brought his pieces to life, and left white with weak b and d-pawns. Black may not be theoretically better here, but just imagine the psychological blow on an opponent that such a change of game would bring. I'm going to fast forward now to the conclusion of the game. It was hard fought for the next 30 or so moves, until this position was reached.

Unfortunately, Alburt blundered here, but he had been under relentless pressure from his 19 year old opponent. The game went 50.Qc6? Rd2! [Threatening a knight fork on d4] 51.Ke3:

51..Re2! [Again with a knight fork on d4 in mind] 52.Kd3 e4+! [forcing the king to a bad square] 53.Kc4 Rc2+ 54.Nc3 Bf6 [There goes the knight] 55.Qxe4 [Actually, Alburt could have probably resigned here] 55..Rxc3+ 56.Kd5 Rc5+ 57.Kxd6 Be5+ and white did resign.

White's choices are to give up his queen for rook and bishop and being a knight down in the ending, or moving the king up the board into a mating net. 58.Ke7 Rc7+ 59.Ke8 Bf6 [threatening 60.Re7#]

I was only about 16 when I first saw this game, and things like positional queen sacrifices were mysteries that only the greatest of players could hope to achieve. I was aware of Kasparov's tactical flare, but this game seemed to be something bigger, grander and more than just a display of tactical fireworks. Perhaps it isn't Kasparov's most perfect game, but it shows his ability to change a game situation, his tenacity, and both his positional and tactical awareness, albeit at prototype level!

Happy Birthday, Garry Kasparov.

Jet Lag

It's that feeling you get when you've traveled a long way, especially across time zones. Jet lag is a condition which many people suffer from after long flights and it's basically to do with our internal body clocks and biorhythms. Since I returned from the USA 4 days ago, I've felt tiredness, a bit groggy at times, occasionally disoriented and lethargic. Apparently it takes about 1 day for every time zone crossed to readjust. How this works with going across the International Date Line I'm not sure. All being well, I hope to bumble my way through this week and then be ready to start life properly again next week. Luckily I have had a staggered start back to work, so things haven't been that hectic for me, though from next week things look full on. Apparently scientists in Japan are working on a pill to remedy the effects of jet lag, though I'll believe it when I see it.

I am presently using the tried and tested method of "grin and bear it" to make it through the week. Meanwhile my running program has been put on hold, but will be renewed this weekend as I become inspired by the Melbourne Marathon which is on Sunday. I have no great desire to run a full marathon, but I would love to give a half marathon a go. Maybe I need to set myself the target of 2014 Melbourne Half Marathon? Meanwhile I have friends who are cycling the week after in the Round the Bay in a Day event. Caroline is putting me to shame by riding in a women's group that are taking on a 50 km ride, while David is going for the full thing I think which is well over 200 km. I'll be a cheerleader for them, before sneaking off for a coffee in a non bay suburb!

Engrossing reading, detective novel, Navajo style

What I have been able to do is read a lot. While gradually wading through a 1000 page fantasy novel, I am breaking things up by reading other books at the same time. I just finished a book called Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman. I bought the book in a second hand bookstore in Flagstaff. We had just passed through the Navajo nation on our roadtrip and a detective novel set in modern day America but based around the Navajo culture appealed to me. This novel also touches on the religion and culture of the Zuni and coincidentally, I bought another book from that shop on Zuni Fetishes.

Flagstaff, Arizona's cool second hand bookstore (image from yelp)

As for chess? I'll be posting about that next, but I was interested to see Kasparov throw his hat in the ring for the 2014 FIDE leadership campaign. If you're not into chess, then FIDE is the world governing body of chess, and our president is a crazy guy who claims to have been abducted by aliens, and who chummed up to General Gadaffi so as to hold a chess tournament in Libya (among other things). Suffice to say there is a lot of discontent with the current leadership of the chess world, much as in the real world of politics. Will Kasparov make a difference? No doubt he will, though since retiring from chess the ex world champion has been trying his hand at politics in his native Russia. However, he has found that Putin doesn't play fair, and Kasparov is now one of his biggest critics. If the last election campaigns was anything to go by, these will be great fun to follow over the next year. :)

Hennig Schara Gambit

Everyone has favourite systems, and we all try to defend openings that get a bashing. Even some pretty decent openings come in for a bashing every now and again. Take the King's Indian Defence, or the Sicilian Dragon. Then again, if you're going to play a fighting opening, then you will also have to fight to defend your opening's reputation.

The system that I have a soft spot for is the Hennig Schara Gambit. When I was a young player, Kasparov was not yet World Champion and was playing the Tarrasch Variation of the Queen's Gambit (among other fighting systems). It was back then in the mid 80's that I first really became aware of the Tarrasch and the amazing piece play that black can generate at the expense of pawn weaknesses. Certainly at club level a player who is good with active pieces should consider openings such as the Tarrasch which offer excellent play for the expense of a pawn.

Black immediately challenges the centre, and after 4.cxd5 exd5 we will have a position where white can give black an isolated queen's pawn. In fact, positions with an isolated queen's pawn for black were those championed by Kasparov on his way to the World Championship in 1984. He successfully used the defence against Beliavsky, Korchnoi and Smyslov, and even used it against Karpov in their first match in 1984. Here is (essentially) the deciding game in the 1983 Candidates Final. It left Kasparov 8-4 ahead against Smyslov, needing only a draw to progress which he duly scored in the next game.



It wasn't until the 1990's that I became aware of an interesting sideline of the Tarrasch, the Hennig Schara Gambit. Instead of accepting an isolated queen's pawn, black sacrifices a pawn again for great piece play. I didn't really take it too seriously at first as I can't really say I am that inspired by gambit openings generally. I'm more the sort of player who grabs poisoned pawns and tries to hold on to them! However, I was fully converted by 2 articles written by Irish correspondence GM Tim Harding. Harding has been writing a monthly column at chesscafe.com since the mid 1990's and many of his early columns were about odd openings that tend to crop up more often in correspondence play that over the board. His articles on the Hennig Schara (no 1, and no 2)were beautifully written and were good enough to make me believe in the opening. I've used it on a number of occasions, and have every intention of trying it out some more. As pawn sacrifices go, it is very enterprising, and there is no easy way for white to get anything out of the opening. The mainline goes 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 cxd4!? [The Gambit] 5.Qxd4 Nc6 [While white's queen grabs a central pawn, black is able to develop quickly and aggressively] 6.Qd1 exd5 7.Qxd5 [Now white will be a pawn up out of the opening, but with the centre wide open it's anybodys game] 7..Bd7 [Black can play a pawn down in a queenless position as well which is also interesting. 7..Be6!?] 8.Nf3 Nf6 9.Qd1

So here's the main tabiya. After 9..Bc5 black has excellent minor piece deployment, and to add a further random feature to the game, black most often castles queen side to whites king side castling. My own favourite game, a win against ex Australian Champion Doug Hamilton was in this opening, but rather than singing my own praises, take a look at this recent game where a 2600ish GM gets smashed by a 2300ish player. Enjoy :D

Chess in the Future?

This weekend I was fortunate enough to be involved in a chess tournament with a massive amount of technology. Chesskids organised a Victorian Youth Championship which was held at Swinburne University's new KIOSC building, a state of the art technology centre. The tournament was for kids below 15, but it was envisaged as an elite junior event as chesskids already runs a number of tournaments for players who are new to tournament chess, or have little experience.

Interactive Touch Screens

While the kids were playing in near by classrooms (large laboratory style spaces, with lots of natural light) the main hub area of the event was a room with amazing facilities, including touch screen monitors, and computer  to wall display projectors. Thus we were able to link the touch screens to interactive chess sites, such as chesstempo, promoting self improvement plans to kids and parents.

Projected Wall Displays

Live Commentary with IM Robert Jamieson

Projecting computer screens on to the wall allowed us to commentate on games, give lessons to kids and parents, and follow the action live as it was happening. Yes, I do mean live, and this was because of another innovation. Chesskids have developed their own tournament management software, tornelo. Tornelo is more than just a pairings program. It processes tournament entries, acts as a pairing program and allows for games to be entered and stored. This last facility was the big one for me this weekend. With the support of Swinburne University, we had the use of a number of Ipads which the kids used as score sheets to record their games. This meant that we saw the moves as they were being made (and some parents with their own laptops/Ipads were following their own kid's game).

Scoresheet of the Future

"Where's my Ipad?"

Some still preferred pen and paper

The significance of this technology has never been apparent to me. I guess I'm just too old to see the way these things work. Well, my eyes were opened this weekend. As I was commentating on some games it suddenly struck me that we were able to see games by players, some of whom are pre-school and who probably wouldn't be able to write their moves down. Wouldn't it have been amazing if this would have been  around to record the games of an infant Fischer, or Kasparov, and on the other hand, I also wondered whether we were recording the games of future Grand Masters?

Technology aside, this was still a kids chess tournament and all I saw was kids having fun, playing chess, socialising with friends and generally enjoying their competitive weekend. The results can all be found on the tornelo page, along with a database of over 200 games (check out the link at the top of the page). The winners of each section won $150 but more importantly, they each won a trophy!

Joint Winners of under 7's admiring their prizes!

Visitors to the Olympiad

The past couple of days some notable chess celebrities have attended the Olympiad in Istanbul. Former World Champion Garry Kasparov turned up in Istanbul to cheer on the Russian team. In fact, I guess having Kasparov in the building probably turned up the pressure on the Russians to actually win the event this time. Kasparov's presence has certainly done the trick, as the Russian number 1 Kramnik, beat his arch rival Armenian Aronian on top board with a nice piece sacrifice.

Here, Kramnik as white played 23.Nxb7 sacrificing his knight for both black's queen side pawns. After 23..Rxb7 24.Qxa6 Rbc7 25.b4 Qd7 26.Qb6 black's pieces are in a terrible tangle and white went on to win.




Unfortunately for Kasparov, Kramnik's victory was not enough for a match win. The Armenians managed to draw with the Russians, but since then Armenia lost to China while Russia beat Hungary and stand in first place a match point ahead of China and Ukraine. Tonight sees the big match up of Russia against defending champions Ukraine!

While Kasparov witnessed Russian victories, former women's World Champion Susan Polgar was in town, while her sister Judit is playing for the Hungarian team. Judit did her part in the match against the Russians drawing with World number 7, Karjakin, though the Hungarians narrowly lost. Good news for Judit was not just that Susan was in town, but her other sister Sofia also showed up.

Judit, Sofia and Susan Polgar (courtesy of @Arman Karakhanyan on the Olympiad site)

Of course, there could be other reasons for the appearance of people at the Olympiad. Those with political ambitions (such as Kasparov) will not have a better chance of meeting such an amount of national chess dignitaries, and FIDE itself has its congress at the Olympiad. I'm sure that Kasparov, among others, will be checking out some of these activities, as well as spectating the Olympiad. Susan Polgar will no doubt be supporting her sister, but may also be in Istanbul as a coach and a journalist. One person who is not there as a journalist is Evgeny Surov, the editor in chief of the Russian chess news website. He has been denied accreditation as a journalist by the organisers (actually it seems Turkish chess President Ali Nihat Yazici is behind the action) which has caused quite a storm. A number of grandmasters and officials have signed an open letter protesting the treatment of Mr Surov. With only a few rounds to go this won't help Mr Surov at this Olympiad, but if it does anything to stop the political ambitions of Yazici, then it will be a good thing.

The Evans Gambit

I've never played the Evans Gambit with the white pieces. I really don't know why, as white seems to get excellent piece play for a minimal investment. And the resulting positions allow white an initiative while black has the difficult task of defending for a long time, not something that many players below GM standard really enjoy doing. And I suppose that when I was growing up the Evans was not a frequently played opening, even at club level (the King's Gambit was always more popular).

Then came the 1990's, and Kasparov started playing 1.e4 and among other strange, old forgotten systems he bashed out the Evans. Of course, Kasparov was not the only top player to try it out, but there couldn't have been anyone more high profile. Anyway, the children of Kasparov's revolution are far more comfortable with the Evans than my generation. But then again, it still has to be a certain style of player who gives the Evans a go, especially at the Grandmaster level.

One such player is Australian board 1 at the 40th chess Olympiad, David Smerdon. I'm never particularly surprised by what Smerdon plays anymore, I just expect the unexpected. I remember walking into the State Library of Victoria a few years back to browse through some of the books, and there was David Smerdon, checking out some theory on the Scotch Gambit....or was it the Max Lange?

Yesterday, Smerdon played board 1 for Australia in the Olympiad against a very solid Norwegian team amd with the white pieces went all out for activity, putting his 2498 rated opponent onto the back foot. After prolonged pressure, black finally broke and David was rewarded with the full point. For what it's worth, I think that Smerdon's plan of 13.Rd1 and 14.c4 has not been played before, though the idea has been suggested, eg by Costa in Opening Encyclopedia 2011.



Another solid performance by the men's team, with a 2-2 draw with 2014 hosts Norway (without Magnus Carlsen), while our women came on the wrong end of a very strong Indian team who beat us 3.5-0.5. This means the men have a pretty tough assignment in round 3 against Mongolia, while the women take on Macedonia. Good luck to all our players!

ps. this includes the youth players, who have started their tournament with a 4-0 win and followed it up with another win 2.5-1.5, but I'll get to the Junior event in another post :)