Australasian Masters - The Unsung Heroes

IM Leonid Sandler, making "The Right Move" as organiser of the 2015 Australasian Masters, attracting strong GM's like Arturs Neiksans

The 2015 Australasian Masters finished earlier today. The tournament was a resounding success for Australian chess with Max Illingworth scoring his final GM norm and qualifying for the title. More was to follow as a second GM norm was achieved the day after when Kanan Izzat scored his first GM norm. As GM norms are a rarity in Australia, having 2 in the same tournament is a big success for the organisers.

In fact, the organisation deserves a big thanks. The Australian Masters, now called the Australasian Masters, has been a privately run event for over 25 years. What this means is that whoever can be bothered to put the effort in to get it together makes a ring around, organises things and then has to go through the process of pulling one's hair out when players pull out at the last minute and replacements need to be found. I am saying this from my own experience of running the Australian Masters in 2006. It came together in the end, but not without a number of headaches.

When Chess Victoria President Leonid Sandler took over the running of the event, he had big plans for it, moving it from a low category (often category 1 or 2) IM norm possibility, to a GM norm event. This eventuated 2 years ago with the first GM norm Australasian Masters. The tournament has steadily developed under Leonid's organisation, and now the third GM norm event has finally brought Australia the much desired norms. Hopefully Leonid will continue to run this tournament, using his influence with Australian and international chess to attract strong Grand Masters to Melbourne.

IA Kerry Stead, arbiter and chess scoresheet decipherer

Leonid's organisation was backed up by IA Kerry Stead, the arbiter for the event, who doubled as bulletin writer and pgn game editor. To make Kerry's life a little easier, Phillip Drew was on hand to manage the DGT boards which were in use for the GM section games, bringing the event live to the public. But even with just 5 games to manually input, Kerry had his work cut out at times deciphering scoresheets. It would seem that many chess players would not win neat handwriting competitions!

Phillip Drew ensured the DGT technology broadcast the games from the GM section

There were some other unsung heroes that are worth a mention. ACF President Gary Wastell was often on hand helping out, as were MCC committee members including Elizabeth Warren, Simon Dale and Thai Ly.

ACF Prez Gary Wastell with his back to us, was one of the background figures who helped ensure the tournament ran smoothly.

The heroes of the tournaments:

GM Section
1st IM K Izzat
2nd IM M Illingworth
3rd GM A Neiksans

IM Section
1st IM I Bjeobrk
2nd FM C Wallis and FM E Schon

I think all the players in both sections enjoyed the experience of playing in what was probably the most professionally run Australian Masters in its history, and whether we played well. or not so good, we have a big debt of thanks to those who made the event possible.

A New Grandmaster

Australia's newest GM, Max Illingworth

The Australasian Masters is the only round robin event in Australia to offer norm possibilities. Over the 28 year history of the event, it hasn't always qualified for norms, and even when it has players haven't always achieved the required score. But this year we have had something special.

In the Grand Master section, IM Max Illingworth has scored the GM performance with 2 rounds to spare, with an incredible 6.5/7. I don't know of anyone who thinks Max is not worthy of the title and his occasional hiccup just shows that he is human. In fact, although undoubtedly talented, it could be argued that Max hasn't been the biggest prospect to arise in Australian Junior chess. But what is evident is that Max's workmanlike attitude, and dedication to the game, have meant that he has been able to continue his rise after his junior years, which so many players fail to do. Although I'm probably not qualified to say, it appears that Max is still improving, so where he will end up is anyone's guess. But if determination and effort are the criteria to judge someone by, then Max is right up there. This is the third GM norm for Max, and seeing he has been over 2500 (and may have risen over 2500 again due to his performance here) he should become a GM as soon as it is ratified by FIDE.

IM Izzet (left) needs half a point for a GM norm vs GM Johansen, 3 times winner of the Masters.

Max has had only one draw in the first 7 rounds, and that was to IM Kanan Izzat, the Azerbaijani teenager who is studying in Melbourne. Kanan has also had an amazing start to the event with 6/7, and he stands in second place with only half a point required to achieve his GM norm. Like Max Kanan has shown excellent opening preparation, strong tactical awareness, and great determination. This latter quality was shown to vivid effect in his endgame win against top seed GM Neiksans from Latvia.

The Grand Masters have not had the best of tournaments, but Neiksans has now moved into third place on 5/7. To be fair, this would be a good score if the two young IM's weren't blazing through the field. However, both Papin and Johansen have been out of sorts, which is a shame to see.  The other young players will probably have mixed feelings about the event. I'm guessing James Morris and Anton Smirnov might be a bit disappointed, though their scores and play show they are competitive at this level, and under other circumstances might even have done better. Bobby Cheng lacks tournament practice, so his 50% must be seen as a good comeback to chess. Bobby will continue into the Australian Championship and hopefully this will be a full comeback for a player who has been Australia's only World Champion at the youth level. Melbourne High School players Ari Dale and Luke Li have found the going tough, but again, have proved competitive, and especially Ari could have been better if he'd been able to convert some promising looking positions.

IM Igor Bjelobrk can afford to relax with his 7/7 start in the IM event

In the IM event that I'm playing in, it is all about IM Igor Bjelobrk who has scored 7/7, and stands 2 points clear with 2 to play. Igor, to put it simply, has not had any trouble at all in any of his games, and his solid style and ability to punish errors has proved too good. In the 7th round he converted a difficult opposite coloured bishop ending against FM Chris Wallis, which put a dent in Wallis's IM norm chances. Chris is currently in second place on 5/7, but he will be focusing on winning his last 2 games, as that will get him his second IM norm. With a good performance in the Australian Championship, Chris could conceivably score another norm, and could be close to reaching 2400. I wish him the best in his last 2 games.

Chris has to face IM Richard Jones, the top seed, who is having a pretty tough tournament. Richard is only on 3/7 but Chris will still have to be aware that Richard could kick into his top form at any moment. The other IM, Mirko Rujevic is in equal third with FM Eugene Schon. This is a funny pair as we have probably the most optimistic player sitting on the same score as probably the most pessimistic, regarding their own positions. Mirko is certainly not short of self belief, while Eugene probably suffers from the complete opposite.And while Mirko sits at the top of the veterans list in Australia, Eugene is only in his early 20's and has a lot of development still hopefully to come.

Last minute replacement in the IM section, Alpaeus Ang is the lowest rated competitor but has scored 2.5 so far.

The rest of the IM field are probably just a little below par, or roughly where they should be. There have been no big breakthrough performances in this event. My own play has become weaker as the week has gone on. I could blame tiredness, but really it has been a lack of my own stamina and determination to perform, so I'd do well to look at those qualities of the leading players from the GM event is I want to improve my results in the future.

Finally, a game from the GM event. Kanan Izzat is a bit better from the opening against Neiksans, but after about 40 moves we are in a rook ending that looks pretty difficult for either side to win. Neiksans was quite short on time at this point, and allowed Kanan to show his endgame technique. Here's a position from the endgame. How confident would you be of beating a 2600+ GM from here?

Izzat as white did exactly that, winning a seemingly drawn position. This was the longest of the GM event so far, and epitomises the fighting determination of the young breed of players. This game and all the others from both sections can be downloaded form the official website, along with arbiter IA Kerry Stead's excellent daily bulletins.

MCC Champion

A big congratulations to IM James Morris for winning the Melbourne Chess Club Championship with a magnificent score of 8.5/9. James joins a list of Victoria's who's who in chess terms, winning with a commanding 1.5 point margin. Coming equal second were IM Mirko Rujevic, and Hoai Nam Nguyen who scored 7/9, both having played well against strong fields. I came in fourth with 6.5, and a large group finished half a point behind on 6. The most notable finisher in this group was Tristan Krstevski, the teenager scoring way above his rating, while the group half a point behind included WCM Sarah Anton, who won her last 3 games in a strong finish. The top player under 1400 was young Jody Middleton who also had a strong finish winning her final 2 games to finish on half points, 4.5.

It was a well run tournament by both the committee, and the arbiter IA Kerry Stead. The tournament was played in a friendly spirit but with great competitiveness, which was borne out by the amount of upsets each round. The MCC were fortunate to gain some strong juniors from Box Hill Chess Club after their move from Canterbury. If they remain at the MCC players like Zhi Lin Guo, David Cannon, William Maligin and Jody Middleton will soon be challenging the top players, much like MCC juniors IM Ari Dale and FM Jack Puccini etc.

I'm pretty happy with my performance. I lost a tough game in the last round to Hoai Nam Nguyen who played excellently against me and deserved the victory. There was one point of the game that was a bit confusing to me, though. We reached the following position where I have a problem of a bad bishop against a good knight.

The game continued 38..Rg8 39.Rb6 Ra8 40.R6b5, bringing about the following position:

The game then continued 40..Ra6 41.Kd2 Ra8 42Ke2 bringing about the surprisingly familiar following position:

At this point I stopped the clock and claimed a draw by repetition of positions. I called the arbiter over and was told that the claim was illegal and that it only stood as a draw offer. and that the claim by repetition of positions didn't count. To be correct, I had to write my intended move down, then stop the clock, and then claim the draw without actually making the move. To be honest, I couldn't believe it, as it seems counter intuitive to the whole procedure. First, one usually makes a draw offer after making a move, while secondly the position hadn't been repeated 3 times until I'd made my move. So as an ignorant player, I naturally felt that I had to complete the process of the repetitions for a claim to be made.

Alas, I was wrong. I never doubted Kerry's knowledge of the rules, and finished the game which Hoai won in excellent, and deserved style. But the rule seems so ridiculous to me, and counter intuitive to the way the game has been played. Rules are meant to be designed to assist in our play, to clarify situations, not to make things more confusing. I will certainly adhere to this rule in the future for as long as it exists, but it doesn't mean I agree with it. Hopefully, my experience will help others to understand a law and make the correct claim in the future, as I'm guessing there are a lot of players out there who don't know about this particular rule. I could go on about this and other issues, but I'll save that for another blog.

Olympiad Coverage

Day 2 of the event and there were still a lot of mismatches. That didn't stop there being some amazing upsets, but they were few and far between. Most notably, Ivanchuk lost to the board 1 of Norway's second team, and the Ukraine who are seeded second in the event were held to a draw. The teams that I'm following seemed to put in good performances. England won their match comfortably against Singapore, while Australia kept defending champions Armenia to a 3-1 scoreline. Sensational results by David Smerdon who held world number 2 Aronian to a draw, and Max Illingworth who held Sergi Movsesian to a draw were outstanding efforts. In fact all the Australians put in good performances but were outrated by 200+ points per board.

Lower down the field, Hong Kong managed a 2-2 draw with Afghanistan and Bhutan scored a half point against a pretty solid Trinidad and Tobago side. Unfortunately, all the island teams from close to Australia went down 4-0. That is Palau, Solomon Islands, and Fiji. The pairings will start to bring sides closer to their own levels from the next round, though, so it will start to get more competitive across the matches. My own favourite result of the round came from the board 1 match between Seychelles and Romania. Seychelles had scored an excellent 4-0 first round win against the GM led Turkmenistan team. In reality, Turkmenistan had failed to show, and the Seychelles found themselves in unusual territory. However, their board 1, Peter Meier rated 2039 stepped up to the plate against Romania's top board, 2626 rated GM Constantin Lupulescu, and came away with a draw. In fact, the game had looked good for Meier earlier, and in the end Lupulescu forced a repetition to hold the game.

Lupulescu as black is faced with a number for threats around his king with Qxh4+ or Nf7+ with Qxg6+ to follow being the major threats. The Rumanian player bailed out with the perpetual 35..Nf1+ 36.Kh1 Ng3+ 37.Kh2 and Peter Meier came away with a draw against a player 600 points his senior!

In the meantime, perhaps the game of the round was the all GM Fried Liver battle between Shirov and Sulskis.

Now I seem to remember an article in New in Chess a few years ago suggesting 11..Qh4 as an attempt to improve black's play. Sulskis played the sensible looking 11..Kd6 getting out of the discovered check, but after 12.d4 he soon found his king facing a typical Shirov onslaught. To be honest, I'm not sure what black was thinking allowing the Fried Liver against one of the most creative attacking players of our times. Anyway, here's the game.

Finally, here's some other places to follow the Olympiad. The coverage is truly excellent with chess24 and TWIC providing superb coverage of games and news. Facebook and Twitter are full of photo's and news from people on the scene but I'm following the blogs of Kerry Stead, Shaun Press, and David Smerdon. Of course, these all have a typically Australian flavour to them, and I'll be looking for blogs from players and visitors from other countries too.

My Tournaments Update

Time to reflect on the tournaments I'm currently participating in. Firstly the current FIDE rated one game a week tournament at the Melbourne Chess Club is the City of Melbourne Open, and I'm not setting any remarkable standards here. The tournament has just completed round 5 moving into the second half of the 9 rounds. I'm currently sitting on 3/5 after dropping a point to Simon Schmidt and having to take 2 half point byes due to work commitments. To be honest, I'm not sure if I'll be able to complete all the remaining rounds, and have considered my options if this is the case. The tournament allows for 2 half point byes to be taken and I've already reached that limit so if I can't play again, it will be a whole point lost. Then again, it's not as if I'm fighting for a top place, so it hardly matters I guess!

The tournament now has a clear leader with Jack Puccini winning his 5th straight game to be the only player on a perfect score. Jack has been playing a lot of high quality chess recently, and may well be the next Melbourne junior to break through the ranks and jump up to the 2300 level. I certainly hope he manages to. If he can hold things together in the second half of this tournament he'll certainly be making some decent gains from this tournament. He finds himself a point clear of 3 players: Malcolm Pyke, Paul Kovacevic and Marko Grabovac. A further half point behind these on 3.5 are Simon Schmidt and Roger McCart and then comes the group that I'm in.

There are meant to be some games published, but I can't seem to find them. Keep an eye on arbiter Kerry Stead's blog for some updates on this. For now, I'll nominate this game for a brilliancy prize award:

The winner of this game, Sarah Anton, is also playing at the other tournament that I'm competing in at Glen Eira Chess Club. This tournament I'm actually leading, though I am rated 200 points more than anyone else. Sarah had to miss some games through other commitments at the start of this event, which moves into round 4 out of 7 this Friday. We have 20 players entered which is a nice consolidation for us after our first event. The top 3 players will qualify for the end of year club championship which already has IM James Morris in the field, and $1000 to play for. While this event has stepped back a little, there will be a third qualifier starting in July which might be the best of the three.

Here are a couple of tactical moments from Friday.

Sarah Anton again! Playing white Sarah has just seen her opponent's bishop come to d3 hitting her rook. Taking advantage of black's central king position and the awkward pin of the Nc6, white played 15.Nd4!? the game continued 15..Bxf1 16.Rxf1 when the threats to c6 proved too much for black who decided to give his queen for the rook on f1.

But I wonder what would have happened after 16..Qd6? I'm not sure if Sarah had analysed this position, but one move that appeals to me is 17.Ne6 defending d5 because of the fork on c7, threatening g7 and preventing black's king from castling. It's really hard to find good moves for black!

Meanwhile, I had a nice finish to a game that caused me some headaches earlier on. My opponent, Jerzy Kryziak played Alekhine's Defence to which I grabbed some space, put my pieces on threatening squares and felt good about my position until Jerzy started finding ways to move his pieces around my centre. However, I managed to find a good finish in the following position.

Working on the basis that all checks and captures should be examined I came up with 25.Bxf5. This is a very annoying move to have to face and towards time pressure it isn't easy to defend. Probably the best move is 25..Re8, but that accepts that white has won a pawn and black's king is still under threat. Jerzy blundered with 25..g5? which loses quickly to 26.Ne6 Bxe6 27.Bxe6+ Rf7 A sad necessity.

I now finished with 28.Nf5 where 28..Qg6 loses to 29.Ne7+ winning the queen, or 28..Qf8 29.Qxg5+ will be mate shortly! When the tactics work chess is easy!

So I guess the main question is what would have happened if Jerzy had taken my bishop with 25..gxf5 leading to the position above? I had planned 26.Nxf5 Qg5 27.Ne7+ forcing black into an unfortunate discovered attack. 27..Kg7

28.Ne6+ which opens an attack on black's queen.

Glen Eira Chess Club is very enjoyable and no less competitive than other chess clubs, though perhaps not as deeply serious. I saw this blog by one of our members the earlier which I think is very good and I hope that the blog continues and am sure that Barnaby (and his talented son, Fergus) will improve because of it.

Australian Chess Championships

The 2014 Australian Chess Championships have had great coverage so far. The website is excellent, there is coverage on TWIC and besides this blog, 2 others are writing about tournament: IM Alex Wohl is writing as well as playing, and Chief Arbiter Kerry Stead is also writing about the event as well as working tirelessly arbitering, entering games, and anything else that needs to be done. So an official view, an international chess news view, a competitor's view, an arbiter's view and a spectator's view. What more could you want?

Top seed, Russian GM Vasily Papin

The tournament has begun to take shape, with visiting Russian GM Papin the man to beat. On 3/3 today he was paired with one of Australia's great hopes for the future, IM Bobby Cheng. The game ended in a draw by perpetual after 30 moves, and I guess both players will be satisfied with that result.

IM Bobby Cheng focussed against GM Papin

The draw between the 2 leaders gave others a chance, and it was IM Moulthun Ly who took full advantage with a win against IM Max Illingworth. Behind the 3 leaders there is a group of 6 players just half a point behind, GM's Tu and Johansen, WGM Sukander, IM's Solomon and Bjelobrk and FM Anton Smirnov. Tomorrow should be a big sorting out with another double round, and it will start with some great pairings as Aussie young guns IM's Ly-Cheng face off on board 1, while visiting GM's Papin-Tu play on board 2. This is definitely a round to follow live!

GM Johansen (with his back to us) moves into equal second with a win against IM James Morris

IM Moulthun Ly (right) making an early move in his victory against IM Max Illingworth

Indonesian WGM Irine Kharisma Sukander  also in the group just half a point behind the leaders.

This position made it onto the daily newspaper Chess Today as one of the puzzles of the day! It comes from the first round game between  Jason Tang and Anton Smirnov. Anton as black has an amazing protected passed pawn on b2 but how to take advantage of this? Anton played the fantastic 36..Rb3!! based on the fact that the rook can't be taken and threatening to play Rc3-c1. Jason prevented the rook coming to c3 with 37.Kd4, but Anton then just started taking pawns 37..Kxd6 and the h-pawn will soon fall also.

Future Australian Champion (?) Anton Smirnov

I'm not going to say much about the Reserves and Challengers tournaments until the rest day on Monday. However, it is great to see admininstrators doing well over the board, so congrats to Mark Stokes on leading the Challengers, while it is also good to see a not too frequent player doing well in the Reserves; congrats to Derek Yu who is the only player on 4/4.

The final thought for the day. The hardest thing in chess must be to play a good friend. I've always found it difficult, though thankfully haven't had to play really close friends that often. Imagine what it must be like to play a sibling, or close family relative?

Stojic Brothers Svetozar (left) and FM Dusan in round 4. They are also both on the organising committee for the tournament

Melbourne Chess Club Championship

It was good to see a few more players enter the Melbourne Chess Club (MCC) championship bringing the number up to 39. This is still a bit disappointing compared to last year's total of 46, let alone the heady numbers of 2011 when we had around 60. Compared to other clubs it is also not a good sign. Currently Box Hill Chess Club and Noble Park Chess Club have FIDE rated tournaments running. Box Hill have a very respectable 64 players in their Autumn Cup, while Noble Park have 47 players for their Club Championship which is about a 10 player increase over last year. Should this be a worry for the MCC committee? I certainly think they should be asking why numbers are dropping for the club's flagship event. It may be unrealistic to maintain numbers in the 60's (though it may not), but I would have thought a field of at least 40 should be the yearly target.

The committee should not be too concerned over the quality of the field. 13 of the 39 players are rated above 2000 FIDE which means it is going to be a strong performance by anyone to win the championship. There is a live game being transmitted each week and yesterday was a great fight between IM Guy West and  David Beaumont. David played a Sicilian but Guy didn't go into the Open systems. Guy had to use all his strategic skill to aim at weaknesses in David's position. In the end David couldn't hold out, and Guy took the full point. Guy is joined on 2/2 by FM Chris Wallis, FM Dusan Stojic, Ari Dale, and Justin Penrose who took the scalp of IM Mirko Rujevic. Justin played the Centre Game and he and Mirko played an absolutely wild game which can be found on arbiter Kerry Stead's blog.

Paul Kovacevic followed up on his excellent win last week with a draw with ex club champion Malcolm Pyke. These 2 are half  point behind the leaders where they are joined by FM Dragicevic, Urban, Michaille, and Drew. Of course there is a long way to go, but it is always good to have points in the bag. Next week is teh last chance for late entries, so hopefully someone will enter and bring the total to 40 which would seem the minimum for respectability. I had intended to go to the club this week but events were against me. I will do my best to visit the champs next week.

Melbourne Chess Club Open

I've been playing in this tournament, though as I'm on holiday it doesn't really seem that much has been happening. In fact, the tournament has settled into a pattern resembling the Club Championship. Dusan Stojic has raced to 4/4 and leads a pack of players of which Guy West is the top seed. Guy and Dusan are yet to play, and that may once again be the clincher for this tournament, though as we've only had 4 rounds it is a bit early to be predicting things like that.

Dusan has beaten myself and IM Mirko Rujevic in consecutive rounds to lead the field. In my game, I thought the position was dead level, and then realised I was virtually in zugzwang after about 15 moves, took about 30 minutes to come up with a bad move and was slaughtered about 10 moves later.

Here, Dusan as black coolly played 15..b6, reinforcing his queen side and I spent 30 minutes realising that my position was bad. I had many ways to lose material, but I decided to maintain a material balance and give my opponent a quick win on the dark squares. I have to admit, his knights in this game were absolutely awesome.




I bounced back this week with a long, hard, struggle against Paul Kovacevic on the black side of a Queen's Gambit Exchange. Paul made the same mistake as I did against Dusan, playing a little passively at the end of the opening. But it puts me on 3/4 which I'm pretty happy with. I'm alongside some very good players, IM's West and Rujevic, Malcolm Pyke, Ari Dale and surprise package Jason Chew who had a great victory last week against David Beaumont.

Dusan is one point clear of all of us, but in the middle is M. Dizdarevic on 3.5. It's good to see Mehmedalija at the club, as this is his first tournament here this year. The tournament is getting good coverage on Kerry Stead's blog, and Kerry is as ever doing a great job as arbiter!

Playing Again

I've had a bit of a break from playing chess (a couple of months) and feel fully refreshed and ready to give it my all in the latest Monday night event at the Melbourne Chess Club. The MCC Open is a 9 round swiss event which started last night and runs until 12th November. So far 30 players have entered with the favourites being IM Guy West, FM Dusan Stojic and IM Mirko Rujevic. I'm sat at number 5 seed, which meant that I started in the top half which usually means an easy point. However, it seems to me that easy first round points are getting harder to come by, and in fact, a few games went against the odds. Thai Ly was the highest rated player to drop points, Alex Kaplan again scoring a good draw. But Finley Dale probably caused the biggest upset of the night beating Gary Lycett. Gary had been in excellent form in the recently finished Malitis Memorial, which made young Finley's win even more impressive. Tanya Kolak and Abraham Widjaja were the other upset winners beating Anthony Hain and Paul Kovacevic respectively.

While I'll be taking a personal view of this tournament, arbiter Kerry Stead is reporting on the event on his blog, while another MCC member, Paul Cavezza (who is largely responsible for the reconstruction of the MCC website) will also be blogging about the tournament.

From my point of view, I have had to build my playing schedule around my work as a chess coach. I now don't work on Mondays, so I have an easy run in to the tournament. But that is where the fun ends. Tuesday is my busiest day, starting at 8am and finishing at 7.30pm (I leave my house about 7am, and get home about 8pm!). So while I give my all in my games, I apologise now to players if I rush off without analysing our game. And though I will look at the games in some depth at some stage, it probably won't be until later in the week. What I will say about this game is that I played very safe at the start of the game and felt I had no tangible advantage for the first 15 moves. I didn't like Bill's 16th move pinning himself and was able to win a pawn, though I'm not sure I managed to do this in the best way. I was worried about possible opposite coloured bishop endings, and if Bill had played 28..Bd6 instead of 28..Ra8, we may have been in for a late night.