Back to Chess

I have been on a chess free vacation for the past 2-3 weeks and it is time to get back into the swing. It seems while I was away I missed much in the chess world, though there is now so much top class chess happening and being reported on that it doesn't really matter much. It was no surprise that Yifan Hou regained her World Championship, though perhaps the ease with which she defeated Anna Ushenina was. And while I was away there were men's and women's Grand Prix tournaments, that now seem to happen so frequently that they are just more of the same old thing. This time round, Koneru won the women's event, while the men's tournament was jointly won by Caruana and Gelfand. The World Junior Championships were won by the top seed in the boys, Yangyi Yu while my tip for the girls title, Aleksandra Goryachkina won the event. It is reassuring that one of my tips has come through, though I probably know more about girls chess than the top level of chess at the moment.

Personally, I am about to start playing again. Next week I am playing a small one day event at the Melbourne Chess Club. The MCC Quads are designed for players who have little time but want to play long play chess. Players are allocated into 4 player groups and have to play 3 games of about 60 + 20 in a day. I think it is a great idea, and while I know it will be tough to play at a constantly good level for 3 games, I am eager to play some rated chess again. In fact, it will be interesting to see how far off my play has dropped after not playing any serious competitive chess for about a year. I certainly expect a bit of rustiness, especially tactically. The question is, how to prepare for the event? Should I try to play loads of online chess? Should I study some openings? Should I be trying to solve as many tactical puzzles as possible? Hmmm, I guess I'll just continue to do what I normally do and play as best I can on the day. I'll be blogging some things here over the next week, so you'll see some of the things I'm doing to prepare.

One thing I'll be doing is following the games from the Russian Championship Final which started yesterday. The men's event is really an amazing field with Kramnik the top seed. Inspired by the fact that I recently got something right, I'm going to go for Peter Svidler for this event, he always seems to pay well at the Russian Championships. Yesterday, in the first round he started with a win, but then again so did Kramnik on a day when all the games were decisive. Number 2 seed, Karjakin lost though this was with black to Andreikin who proved just how good he was in the recent World Cup.

Finally, did I say my tipping had improved? Not really, I got one right and this has gone to my head a bit. Well, to come back to earth, I also suggested that Mirko Rujevic was going to be tough to beat in the MCC Open. Tough to beat he no doubt is, but not impossible as was proved last week by Justin Penrose. The previously unbeaten Rujevic is now on 3/4 with a large group of players while Penrose takes a half point lead into the 5th round played tomorrow. The tournament is still wide open, and Mirko must still be considered one of the favourites. Round 5 sees Penrose playing black against Dizdarevic on board 1, while the top 2 seeds, Rujevic-Pyke, play on board 2.

Right I'm off to do some preparation for next week's tournament. In America I bought a book and am going to find a good coffee and browse through it. Hopefully some of the games will get that far.

Formula 1 on St Patrick's Day

I was driving down Jacka Boulevard through St Kilda on my way to Port Melbourne. If you've never been to St Kilda, it is a bohemian wonderland that doubles as a tourist magnet. It has it's good sides such as a beach, great cafe culture, art and artists and excellent clubs and venues. It also has it's bad sides with drugs and prostitution openly available and it gets madly overcrowded throughout the summer and most weekends through the year. I personally dislike crowds too much to want to be in St Kilda at the moment, but I like hanging out around Acland Street when it's colder and there's room to move.

Anyway, as I was driving through St Kilda I saw signs by the road saying that it's an alcohol free zone, as is a big expanse of suburbs around the Grand Prix in Albert Park. To be honest, it was no skin off my nose as I don't drink and drive but I wondered how long this drink ban was going on for and whether it would be successful in keeping alcohol off the streets. The same policy was used during the St Kilda Festival a few weeks back which to my mind makes a lot of sense with so much emphasis on providing attractions for families. But today is not family festival day...

Today is, in fact, St Patrick's Day. Again, for those who don't know what I'm talking about, St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and so this day has become a celebration of the great Irish tradition of getting absolutely pissed. This can be done in a number of ways, but it is usual to wear something green that identifies you with the Emerald Isle, find an Irish Pub of which there is at least one pretty much anywhere you travel in the World, and drink as much as you can while complaining about how bad Guinness tastes outside the homeland (whether you've been to Ireland or not!). In fact St Patrick is a fairly serious Saint who has been mythologized and celebrated throughout the centuries. There's a pretty good article about him here.

I also noticed a strange phenomenon concerning the scheduling of the the London Candidates tournament. The tournament started slowly and was eclipsed by the media heavy Red Nose Day in the UK. Coinciding the start of a mind sport event such as chess with Red Nose Day (comic relief) seems a bit strange, but then the tournament is scheduled to end on April Fool's Day. I wonder if someone in marketing is trying to make chess appear a more fun event to the general public? Unfortunately, none of the players wore red noses on the opening day of play, but I have hopes of perhaps a big green hat being worn by one of the players today. And if not, maybe we'll be lucky enough to see Magnus Carlsen in the last round needing to win and reaching for his h-pawn, hovering his hand over the flank pawn, and then smiling and saying "April Fool"!

While round 1 was a bit lame, round 2 came alive with 2 of the games decisive. I was watching Carlsen-Kramnik and you just have to admire Kramnik's ability to not lose games of chess. I mean, I know he does lose games, but he really found equality easily with the black pieces against the world number 1. The decisive games came when the old guys Gelfand and Ivanchuk (damn, both younger than me), lost to the number 3 (Aronian) and 4 (Radjabov) in the World. To be honest, the games were not classics, with the losers playing badly rather than the winners playing excellently. The other game between Grischuk and Svidler was a draw which leaves Aronian and Radjabov as the early leaders of the event.

London Candidates 2013

This is going to be the biggest tournament since the World Championship tournament of 2007. That was a great triumph for the current World Champion Anand with 6 of the 8 participants from the 2013 Candidates also present in 2007. The current number 1 and 4 in the World, Carlsen and Radjabov, were not playing, and both will hope to be significant factors in London. Meanwhile all the 6 who played 6 years ago will certainly believe they are better players now than then. And so what we have is the promise of one of the greatest tournaments in history, with the fantastic format of a double round robin.

There is a little over 24 hours before the event begins and after last week's whinge about the lack of coverage, my hopes picked up. First Chessbase started to preview the players, with short biographies and results and chances against their opponent's. Unfortunately, they have only managed to preview 5 of the 8 players, which is rather disappointing especially seeing that Carlsen and Kramnik haven't been examined yet! Still, they have looked at Svidler, Grischuk, Ivanchuk, Radjabov and Aronian and that is certainly good.

Of course, we in Australia like to tip winners and so when I saw a tweet form Chessvibes saying that some top players had made their predictions I was intrigued. I have to say that it is an excellent article, but I was a little disappointed with the punditry. Caruana completely sat on the fence, as did Ponomariov. Gawain Jones stated the obvious (as did all the pundits) in as much as Carlsen is the favourite, but almost anyone can win (actually Jones only mentioned 6 players with Gelfand and Radjabov missing out). Dutch GM Erwin L'Ami is the only one to stick his neck out and say that Carlsen will win (if he is in form) and the only ones to stop him are Aronian and Kramnik. He also says there could be a surprise outsider such as Svidler but I don't think L'Ami thinks he will win the event. Other tipsters have been Anand (total diplomacy) and Anish Giri who feels Carlsen is 80% favourite to win, while interstingly he doesn't rate Aronian's chances and seems to only rate Kramnik as a challenger to Carlsen.

So it's time to stick my neck out, get off the fence for once. So first I'll state that I'll be happy if almost anyone wins as long as the level of play and competition is high. I'd really like to see Aronian do it, but like Giri I'm not sure I fully believe in him. Nevertheless as the last player to beat Carlsen in a tournament I'm going to go with Aronian to win the event. I guess I could be eating my words after the very first round when the pairing of Aronian-Carlsen comes up, but even a first round loss for any of these players will not spell disaster.

As well as social media sites such as twitter and facebook, I'll be following the news primarily from the official site (at least the FIDE official site as I'm not sure the Agon official site is being fully updated), the internet chess club (icc) and The Week in Chess (TWIC). I'll be passing on my own impressions here but won't be watching the games live due to the time zone difference which means the games will not start until abut 1am here. It's about time we had a big event in Beijing, and if the World Championship is held in Chennai, that will be better for us in Australia!

Where's the Hype?

In 10 days time the chess world has a most exciting prospect, a Candidates tournament offering the winner a shot at Anand and the World title. However you'd hardly know about this as there has been so little coverage in the chess media and especially by the organisers, Agon. Now when Agon were invited to organise the World Championship cycle by FIDE it sounded as if chess would be pushed into mainstream media and that coverage of the events would be highly jazzed up. But on the contrary, chess coverage is where it has always been and the website for the Candidates Tournament doesn't seem to be something to revolutionise the way chess is perceived.

Am I being a bit harsh here? Maybe the true litmus test will be the World Championship Match proper and the coverage it receives. I mean, do other sports hype the qualifiers for the World Championship, or pinnacle event? And if so, how long before the event does the build up begin? I know that soccer is constantly hyping itself, but it would probably be optimistic to put chess into the same category with the World Game. However if chess does want to grab headline news, then somehow it has to hype itself and events where the top 4 in the World battle out for a single World Championship place seems something that everyone can understand whether they are into chess or not. Add to that elements of youth versus experience, the top 4 players in the World doing battle, a World number 1 who didn't care about the World Championship now competing, and for a country with little World class chess pedigree. I have to say it has some newsworthiness if it was only presented right. Or if it was presented at all!

I've been hyping this championship at my classes and I now enter a class and kids are asking me who is winning. I have to remind them it doesn't start for 2 weeks, but then they get excited about who is going to win. Most kids I teach want Carlsen, some because he isn't from Russia, some because he's number 1 and they like a favourite, some because he is young, and some because his name is a bit like mine! But there are others who want other players and among the hundreds of kids I teach chess to each week, I reckon that every player in the candidates has at least one fan. And we are talking grades prep to 6 (5-12 years old), so not the kind to normally take much interest in the chess world, but who would rather just be trying to beat their best friend.

So let's hype these guys. This is what the kids hear from me:

Carlsen: World number 1 and unbeaten in tournaments for a year.
Kramnik: World number 2 and Mister Solid....the no. 1 from the World's top country.
Aronian: World number 3 and more of a risk taker...the last man to beat Carlsen in a tournament.
Radjabov: World number 4 and the mystery man, a great resourceful player.
Grischuk: World number 10 and great in time trouble which he always gets into.
Ivanchuk: World number 13, ex number 2 and on his day able to beat anybody, but very nervous.
Svidler: World number 14, a big soccer fan and 6 times champ of the strongest country Russia.
Gelfand: World number 18, last year's beaten challenger though he was really close to taking the title.

This is the sort of things the kids can understand, simple qualities that they can relate to and the kids that I'm teaching can't wait for the event to start. But then again, they've had constant weekly reminders for the past 6 weeks.

I must admit I was getting worried that I'd imagined the whole event and have been waiting for some announcements and hype. Thankfully, Chessbase have started the ball rolling with a profile of the players. Perhaps by this weekend I'll be complaining that there is too much Candidates Hype....I doubt it though!