Glen Eira Chess Club

The club seems to have settled into a routine now, after being open for a bit over a year. We have about a dozen regular players, about another 5-10 occasional players, and a number of players who come along once in a while. Our year is made up of 4 tournaments and a load of free nights where social chess can be played. The four tournaments are all Swiss events with the first 3 being 7-round tournaments which qualify for the end of year 9-round championship.

We are currently into the last of these 7-round events and 2 of the 7 rounds have been played. There have only been 14 players involved in the tournament which is somewhat small compared to other events in the series, but the field is pretty good. I have had some enquiries from some other players, but I think we will probably have seen the field set now. Details of the tournament can be seen here, and I'll be putting out provisional draws each week:

https://au.tornelo.com/tournaments/glen-eira-last-chance

The third round saw the first games between the top seeds. John Nemeth had to play against me, and it was the sort of game that neither player would really want to remember. I walked into a typical f7 sacrifice that had my king wandering around the centre of the board, but amazingly, John missed a clean win, and the game fizzled out to a position where I had a piece for 2 pawns, but my king was rather open. I offered a draw which John accepted. The final position was one that neither of us really fancied! Next door to me, IM James Morris was winning handily against Jerzy Krysiak while Nick Husek and Axel Ahmer were able to overcome tough opposition from juniors to win through.

Here's the moment when John dragged my king into the centre. 10.Bxf7+! Kxf7 11.Ne6!! sacrificing 2 pieces to bring black's king into the firing line. The king has to take, as the knight threatens to take black's trapped queen 11..Kxe6

The congestion behind black's king and an inevitable opening of lines in front mean that black is pretty much doomed here. James Morris made an interesting observation after the game. He was surprised that John didn't finish things off as James thought that calculation was one of John's great strengths. I guess that having too many tempting moves can be an issue and while John played a variation that looked unbelievably promising, I managed to throw some spanners in the works and ended up in relative safety. 12.Qc4 d5 13.Nxd5 [13.exd5 looks immediately terminal] 13..Bc5!? [Allowing double checks, discovered checks and threatening nothing, but trying to untangle the clump of black pieces]

Now what to play for white when there are so many tempting moves? A knight check, or double check, develop a new piece into the attack? Stockfish suggests 14.Bg5 which coincidentally is what James thought was the best move in the post mortem! John played 14.Bf4 which also looks rather good, but that appearance is artificial and I was able to give a piece back to survive with 14..Nxd5 15.Qxd5+ Ke7 16.Bg5+ Nf6 17.Qxc5+ Qd6 when black is still a bit shaky but is not getting mated, and black is still a piece up for 2 pawns.

Glen Eira Chess Club

The Second Qualifying tournament of the year has finished, and the club is taking a short break. It was a good tournament for the girls as Sarah Anton came first with Rebecca Strickland second. Both players qualify for our end of year Championship. Third place went to our Dutch visitor J.J Nuitjen, but unfortunately J.J. will be heading back to Europe soon, so the third qualifying spot goes to young Daniel Poberezovsky. Daniel has had a good period of chess recently, scoring 4/7 at the Victorian Open, so it was a just reward that he got the third qualifying place.

That means with 2 tournaments down we have the following 6 players qualified for our end of year Championship:

FM Domogoj Dragicevic
Carl Gorka
Avto Frodiashvili
WCM Sarah Anton
Rebecca Strickland
Daniel Poberezovsky

The third, and final, qualifier starts on Friday July 24th and runs for 7 consecutive weeks. Besides the usual club members, IM James Morris has said he is a definite starter for this tournament, which will liven the event somewhat. James is defending champion at Glen Eira Chess Club, so it is good to see him back again!

Daniel Poberezovsky resetting the black pieces at the Australian Junior Championship in January 2015. Across the board is fellow Glen Eira member, Alistair McCutcheon

Glen Eira Chess Club

Glen Eira Chess Club will be restarting after a short Easter break. The club will open this coming Friday (17th April) and the next tournament starts in the first week of May and will run for 7 consecutive weeks except for the 5th June where we will not hold a round due the Victorian Open being held. This second tournament costs $10 per player to join, and there is a $5 per week playing fee. The tournament will be ACF rated and the top 3 unqualified players will be able to play the Club Championship.

The first tournament of the year is finished! Glen Eira Chess Club had a successful start to 2015 with about 20 players regularly showing up to play at the club for the first quarter of the year. Meeting on a Friday night, Glen Eira Chess Club now has a regular group of players who give the club a nice vibe. There are players of all strengths, from beginners through to masters, and we take a slightly more relaxed approach than some of the more established clubs.

The first tournament of the year was the Glen Eira Summer Swiss, a 7-round event from which the top 3 players qualify for the end of year Club Championship. The 3 qualifiers were Carl Gorka (me!), Avto Frodiashvili, and FM Domagoj Dragicevic. The full standings can be seen on the tornelo site. It's was interesting to see the fight for third place in the tournament, with a group of players all in contention. Avto is a great addition to the club. Born in Georgia, he was strong as a junior, but gave up chess when emigrating with his family to Australia. He decided to take the game up again, and if I had to estimate his strength, I'd be putting him somewhere between 1700-1900. The other player in the tournament who greatly impressed me was Alistair McCutcheon, who has just started high school and has proved he can compete at a decent level. I think he is poised to jump to the 1400+ category which will make him a contender for a place in the Championship.

Future Glen Eira Club Champion? Alistair McCutcheon looks relaxed at Ballarat Open

The Club Championship will be starting in October and there are 3 qualifying places in each of the three regular swiss events held through the year. There are no exceptions made for anyone. If someone wants to play in our end of year Championship, then all they have to do is play a qualifier and come in the top 3 places. In fact, the 3 players already qualified may play again, and if they finish in the top 3, then it will be the fourth player who qualifies.

Glen Eira Chess Club

As a Junior in the southern English town of Basingstoke, the first chess club I went to was not far from where I lived. At Westside chess club, I was able to develop my game against players of various strengths, juniors, seniors, beginners, and international competitors. I learned much chess wisdom there as well as etiquette and  chess culture. Unfortunately, Westside chess club ceased to exist, though chess clubs carried on. I moved from Westside to Brighton Hill Chess Club, where a new group of players broadened my horizons, and I followed to a number of other clubs.

I envisage Glen Eira Chess Club providing the same opportunity to players here in the South East suburbs of Melbourne. A very nice core group of players have now developed at the club and there is a great vibe on a Friday night when we meet. I originally started the club partly to meet the needs of a group of juniors who were getting too good for school chess and needed a different environment to develop their game. A number of these have become loyal members of the club along with some adult players.

We meet at 6.30 pm on a Friday evening at Carnegie Library and start tournament games about 7.15 pm. The games are rated on the ACF rating list and are played at a rate of 60 minutes + 10 seconds per move. We are currently coming to the end of our first 7 round event of the year. There have had 18 players competitors and full standings can be seen on the tornelo site. The first 3 players will qualify for our end of year championship and I'm currently playing very well and leading the event with 4.5/5. Half a point behind on 4/5 is FM Domagoj Dragicevic who was last year's Championship runner-up. Jerzy Krysiak is currently in third place on 3.5 but a large group of players are just behind, and with 2 rounds left to play, more than half the field could still qualify.

There will be 2 further 7 round swiss qualifiers throughout the year before the Championship final which starts in October. I'm sure the juniors in this event are getting invaluable experience and learning important lessons.

A position not unlike this was reached in a game between 2 of our junior players last week. It is one that all players should know how to defend, but easier to understand once you have played it and lost, just like the young player with black did!

The points to understand are that black's rook is cutting off the advance of white's king, but white's king can advance under cover of his pawn. However, when white advances his pawn black has another method to attack white's king. Black's king is cut off on the back rank, but it is positioned in front of white's pawn.

1.c6 Ra1! Black's rook takes 'checking distance' from behind white's king. This is the technique that must be remembered. 2.Kd6 Rd1 and white cannot escape checks while simultaneously defending his pawn.

Losing a position like that above, and then learning the proper technique so that it sticks in one's mind, is a great lesson for a young player and one that will regularly occur at a chess club.

Ballarat

I visited the annual Ballarat weekend tournament today, and although I'm tired after the 3 hour round trip with plenty of junior coaching through the day, Downton Abbey is coming on TV so I've got to find something to do.

Top seeds, IM's Kanan Izzat and James Morris

This is the 49th edition of the Ballarat weekender, organised and run by Ballarat Chess Club,, and next year we are due for a big one with lots of plans already in the pipeline apparently. Saying that, the numbers this year are a bit disappointing based on recent figures. There are short of 100 players with 14 players above 2000 rating and 5 IM's. Last year there were 117 players, while there were over 120 players fort he previous 4 years. The strongest I remember was 2012 where with a rating of about 2150 I was seeded 17th out of a field of 131.

The 2015 event has already seen a few upsets, but the tournament hangs in the balance. Top seed is IM James Morris, but he has already conceded 2 draws to Aleks Safarian and 5th seed IM Ari Dale. Second seed IM Kanan Izzat has had no such trouble winning all his first 4 games in fairly short order. The big round 5 game sees Izzat playing against the other IM on maximum points, Chris Wallis. Chris has also looked at ease in his games so this one should be a cracker!

IM Chris Wallis (left) starts with a perfect 4/4, including a win against an old rival, FM Dusan Stojic

The games can be followed on Noble Park's server and there are lots of games stored on Tornelo. The game that everyone was talking about this morning when I walked in was Kevin Sheldrick's escape against Angelo Tsagarakis.

Angelo is black and giving over 300 rating points to his opponent here. Black is 2 exchanges up and while there are probably many ways to win, the move that Angelo tragically played was one of the few to lose. 38..Rb2?? allowing Philidor's legacy after 39.Nf7 when Angelo resigned rather than being subjected to 39..Kg8 40.Nh6 Kh8 41.Qg8 Rxg8 42.Nf7#. I am guessing that being so dominant for so long, Angelo relaxed in the belief that he couldn't lose.

I was coaching local kids for most of the day, as Chess Kids were running a camp. Some of the kids got the chance to play a game in the tournament, but most were not ready for that sort of commitment. There will be a junior tournament run at a rate of 25 minutes + 10 second increment tomorrow alongside the Weekender and we're hoping that a lot of local kids show up to take part in it. The kids I was working with today had great thinking skills, and a huge desire to learn. Given the chance, some of these will become Ballarat Chess Club's future.

Age is no barrier in chess!

Glen Eira Chess Club

I was half expecting a low turn out for last Friday's Glen Eira Chess Club. The weather was terrible, with strong winds and hail and rain, while there seems to be lots of minor illnesses around. So I was pleasantly surprised to see everyone present who was expected. Of the top seeds, David Cordover took a bye, while Domogoj and I had to play. Smari is the other highly rated player in the tournament, but he had to take a bye the week before due to illness.

The top game of round 3 between myself and Domogoj was a hard fought game, where I felt I had an advantage, then wasn't too sure, then was wondering whether I would come away with a draw, only to finally win the game after a blunder by Domogoj. To be fair, we were both short on time, as the time control of 60 minutes + 10 seconds increment and we were down to less than a minute each.

As white I played 1.Be6 freeing up my rook to go to work. Black must now go on the defensive as white has a threat. However, with only about 20 seconds left, Domogoj took the pawn. 1..fxe3? [1..Nb6 2.Bf5 will probably be heading towards a draw, though I'd rather be black] 2.Rc1 Nb6 [too late] 3.Rc8+ and because the bishop is guarding c8, the game is effectively over.

Most of the games went with the ratings, though young Gabi Rips managed to score a draw against his experienced opponent. The results, scores and provisional 4th round draw can be found on the tornelo site. The top 3 players who haven't previously qualified will make it to the end of year club championship.

Last Day of Chess Camp

The 2013 Chess Kids camp finished with a day of serious play.After clearing out of our cabins, the kids had one more coaching session this morning before getting on with tournament games. The kids had been placed into 7 teams, and they were to play a round robin event. Before today, they had played 4 rounds so there were 3 games left to play. There was a great deal of tension around the games as each player was trying to win their board prize. In the end the event was very close which meant that our seeding of players into teams worked well. Before we headed off there was a prize giving, with loads of books, t-shirts, caps and other things given out tot he kids.

I think everyone had a good time and I'm sure all the kids will go away with some great memories of this camp, and with a better appreciation of chess endgames, and a better understanding of chess generally. Some parents came along, and they did a great job helping out around the scenes, making the jobs of the coaches somewhat easier. It meant I had more energy to spend on actual coaching, as I needed to do less child minding over the 4 days. I've already been talking to David Cordover about next year's camp. Last year we had a good time in Hobart, Tasmania, but we wanted to make it even better this year, and I think we succeeded. We won't sit still though, and hope to make it even better next time round!

I'm pretty tired after the camp so I'm leaving this post fairly short. Here's a final few photo's of the last day of the camp.

Good play is encouraged, good sportsmanship demanded

The Winning Team, l-r Ryan, Ethan, Oliver, Daniel and Yoni

Top board 1 player, Rebecca

Ballarat round up.

The finale of the 47th Ballarat was truly spectacular. Going into the last day, 3 players were on a maximum 5/5, IM James Morris, FM Chris Wallis and Brodie McClymont. In the 6th round Wallis beat last year's joint winner McClymont, while Morris was held to a draw by Luke Li. This set up the final round pairings of Morris-Wallis, while McClymont played fellow Queenslander IM Stephen Solomon. The best that the board 2 players could hope for was second place, and Brodie secured that with a powerful performance winning against top seed Solomon. This left the top board game in progress with the winner taking the title. Morris played for the win, taking an Isolated Queen's Pawn and active play, and it payed off after Wallis misplaced his pieces. So IM James Morris adds to his already impressive set of titles with an outright win, and a first prize of $1500. This left FM Chris Wallis in joint second with Brodie McClymont, and they were also joined  by Karl Zelesco and Yi Liu.

Further down the field there were both success stories and disappointments, but this is nothing to do with the tournament which was again organised excellently by the Ballarat Chess Club and run ably by the arbiters Gary Bekker and Jamie Kenmure. There were a few issues that need pointing out, but to my mind these were fairly minor. The playing conditions were pretty tough. The temperature was in the mid 30's outside, and with no aircon to speak of, it seemed even hotter inside. Players were not looking to work their way up the boards but were eager to play on boards nearest the fans that had been strategically placed around the venue. In the final round a player complained of headaches shortly after the round started and offered his opponent a draw on move 1! After consulting the arbiter whether this would cause a penalty if accepted and discovering not, the player agreed to the draw offer. The arbiter did mention the moral obligation of the players to them, but without penalties the players were well within their rights to take that draw. Hopefully the headaches will pass, and I'm sure that the prize money that both players secured through this draw would ease those pains!

The other main issue was the pairings and the tournament management system being used. Apparently I misunderstood the arbiters in one of my previous posts when I said that they had not been provided with the SP master file. They had been provided with a draft SP file, but they were not allowed to use it with the Tornelo tournament management system. So the arbiters had to use Swiss Perfect to create the draw and manually input data to tornelo to display events online. This, of course, created an extra amount of work for the arbiters which to their credit they pulled off, though not without some hiccups. The pairings that were displayed on tornelo were often incorrect until updated manually which sometimes caused players to think they were playing someone when in fact they were playing someone else. There was also a fair deal of criticism of the draw based on the data in tornelo, though some of that data was not correct. To be fair to players, once that was explained to them they accepted it and things ran pretty smoothly and in a friendly manner.

Ballarat has got to be one of the most enjoyable tournaments on the calendar. The Ballarat Chess Club members are very welcoming, and it is always strong and with a good sized field. This was the 47th edition and the organisers know that the big 50 is coming up. I talked a little with Patrick Cook who said they were already talking about the upcoming 50th even though it is 3 years away. They have some big plans and hopefully it will go off well, much like the 50th Doeberl last year. Patrick then reminisced a little about Ballarat chess history. For instance, I didn't know that the first Ballarat chess club was formed in 1856! It would be older than the prestigious Melbourne Chess Club (1866), except it hasn't run continuously for all those years. Patrick also seemed to think the first Australian chess tournament had been held in Ballarat, though he wasn't 100% sure. He was completely sure that the current Ballarat chess club in 2013 was holding it's 48th club championship and that one player, fellow weekender organiser Kevin Perrin, had played in all 48! An absolutely amazing feat, Kevin, and 2 more for you to get to the magic 50 championship appearances!

Ballarat Chess Club's Patrick Cook

More on Ballarat

A couple of nice moments from the first round. I was looking into the top board "pit" area when Domagoj Dragicevic found a nice tactic to trap his opponent's sidelined knight.

Domagoj now played the odd looking 23..Qg4. However, when you actually think about it, it traps black's knight. Black can't take because that terrible looking isolated h-pawn will become a star and trapped black's knight. Balck tried 24.Qxa2, but the intermediate 24..Ne7+ removes the knight from danger and gains a tempo to win the knight on h5.

While I was looking at this, IM James Morris pulled me aside and asked me if MCC member Anthony Hain was just winning with a central capture. I have to admit, I wasn't looking at the game, but when I went back to the board, it seems James might have had a point:

Here Anthony played 17.a3 to open lines on the queen side for an attack. James suggested 17.Nfxd4 the move favoured by Stockfish! the point is 17..exd4 is impossible as 18.Bf4 wins material.

The top games from Ballarat are being published on Tornelo and I'll add a couple of good wins by MCC members David Beaumont and Angelo Tsegarakis.

Critical Chess Observations

Time for some Grumpy Old Man Moments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australian Juniors Lucky Day 7

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

Stormy weather on the Gold Coast

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

Australian Bush Turkey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australian Junior Championships: Major titles resume

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australian Junior's 2013 Day 2

Our great venue, Bond University on the Gold Coast

It's the middle day for the under 10's and under 8's while the older kids are getting into the swing with a double round of games today. In his introductory speech yesterday, Andrew FitzPatrick of Gardiner Chess spoke of the beauty of the surroundings. The tournament is being held at Bond University on the Gold Coast, and a walk round the campus promises beautiful views of the lakeland surroundings.

A university on a natural conservation area!

Great lakeland surroundings

Plenty of food and drink in the University Market Square

Colourful lakeland surroundings

Water fountain dominating the lake view

Bond University is the host and major sponsor of the event, and have provided excellent facilities for free. The playing area is a sports hall with air conditioning while the analysis rooms are spread around the sports centre. The main analysis rooms are in squash courts with carpeting put down. Apparently, the NSW room wasn't up to scratch because they moved to another room (though that sounds a bit soft to this "whinging Pom"!). There has also been some rumblings concerning the necessity of Charles Zworestine's pre round "readings from the book of Caissa", though this may be due to people seeing them before. Are they part of the Australian Junior tradition? Should they be?

As for the chess, things are going according to plan in the younger sections. Kevin Willathgamuwa of NSW is the player to beat in the under 10's, and so far no one has managed even to draw against him in the first 6 rounds. In the under 8's, Victorian Christopher Lim has proved equally successful and sits at the top of the table on 6/6. However, there are still 3 games to go and anything could happen in these tournaments with a number of players in with a chance.

Boards 3 and 4 in the under 10's hot on the heels of the leaders

Under 8 leaders, with unbeaten Christopher Lim in the red shirt

Top boards in the under 10's minus leader Kevin Willthgamuwa

The chess at the tournament has been easy and exciting to follow due to the use of the Tornelo management system and Andrew FitzPatrick's energy at uploading games live as they happen. The kids are then asked to upload their games to the system when they finish their games (though I have heard that some kids are being told not to do this by their coaches) so as to make the organiser's job easier in producing a pgn file of the event on its completion. So far, 204 games have already been uploaded by the kids themselves, along with some assistance from the team of arbiters and some parents.

The under 18's and under 16's had their tough day today with 2 games played and it left interesting standings. In the under 18's no one has made it to 3/3. Instead a group of 3 players are unbeaten on 2.5 while a big pack sits close behind. It is early days here but one of the favourites, Yi Yuan, lost a game today, and he'll have to find better form against the top players if he is to overtake them (Pengyu Chen, Gene Nakauchi and Yi Liu). The under 16's does have an outright leader on 3/3 with Punala Kiripitige winning all his games so far. Again it is early days, but this tournament looks wide open with some definite under rated players floating around. Take, for instance, local boy (well, Brisbane which isn't too far away in the scheme of things) Clint Therakam with a rating of 1191 finding himself on board 1 in the third round after wins against Eddie Han (1595), and Alex MacAdam (1720). Unfortunately his run came to an end when Punala beat him, but what a start to his tournament!

Under 16 top boards, giant killer Clint Therakam sits in the foreground on the right!

In this position from round 1, Clint Therakam as white tried to trick his higher rated opponent with 35.d7!? The game would probably have ended in a draw if black had played 35..fxe4 36.Qc4+ Kg7 37.dxc8=Q Qxc8 38.Qxe4 as pure queen endings are notoriously difficult to play, especially with little time on the clock. However, black fell into white's trap playing 35..Bxd7? Clint notched up his first scalp of the tournament with the snappy tactic 36.Qxd7! attracting black into a knight fork if he takes on d7 (Nf6+) so black kept his queen and soldiered on a piece down for a while, but in vain.

Australian Junior Chess Championships 2013

Today the 2013 Australian Junior Chess Championship started on the Gold Coast in Queensland. The tournament is a 9 day festival of Junior Chess in Australia broken into age group divisions. The under 18's and under 16's play one game per day for 9 days (they actually play 2 games tomorrow), while the younger age groups play for less days. Currently, the under 10's and under 8's are in progress, their's being 9 round tournaments over 3 days with 3 games per day.

The tournament started with an opening ceremony with speeches and instructions for the players.

In control, Andrew FitzPatrick

Words of wisdom from Chief Arbiter and AJCL President, Charles Zworestine

A word from our generous sponsors...

President of Queensland Chess Association, Mark Stokes

After the speeches, the tournament commenced pretty much on time in the sports centre of Bond University. While the older kids started their week long event the main focus for the first couple of days is the very youngest competitors who are sometimes quite high maintenance. The results and games are being recorded on the Tornelo management system so there is already plenty to see (91 games, though I haven't looked through that many yet!). Starting with the very youngest, the Under 8's are playing 3 games a day, and it really will be a test of stamina for these young kids. There is no outstanding favourite for this event, and my belief is that the winner will be the player who can still focus adequately towards the end of day 3. In the field of 17 players there are only 2 on 3/3 and they'll meet tomorrow, so good luck to Christopher Lim from Victoria, and Dashiell Young from Queensland. The under 10's sees an outright favourite in Kevin Willathgamuwa who is some 400 rating points higher than his nearest challenger, Luis Chan. The field is made up of 41 players and there are still 4 players on a perfect 3/3.

Hopefully, tomorrow I'll have some positions and stories from the event, but for now, some of the really little players...

The playing hall filling up

Oliver from Tasmania trying to remember his game plan

Jay from Victoria checking his carbon copy

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!

Best in the West Day 2

It's a bit darker in the playing room today so the photo's will have to wait until later. Round 3 saw more upsets as the new generation of young players look for scalps to take. Perhaps the biggest result in this respect in the whole tournament was Max Phillips win over Kyle Gibson. However, Haran Salasan's (661) draw with Roland Brockman (1559) was a pretty good effort too. The swiss draw has produced a few draws in the past few rounds, which has left just 4 players at the top, Canfell, Tan, Matheson and Dragicevic. With only 2 rounds to go, there is no fear of quick draws happening on the top boards, and the game Tan-Canfell is an opposite side castling English Attack in a Scheveningen Sicilian while Matheson-Dragicevic is a Spanish where white has played an early d3 and no pieces have been taken leading to a complicated strategic game. Anyway, these players know that if they don't win, the group behind are ready to take their places at the top.

I must admit, I am really enjoying sitting and watching the progress of this tournament. It is giving me the desire to play chess again, and I think I will resurface at the MCC Open and Noble Park Open. I am analysing games of kids and kibitzing with players and it's great fun. I'm having to remember all those Open Games tricks for the benefit of the kids and then look at strategic considerations in complex middlegame positions that the top players are contesting. And, I'm actually getting to see the games, and the body language of the players, something I usually miss out on when I'm playing as I stay so focussed on my own game.

The top boards are reaching crescendo point. Tan-Canfell is a classic with thrust and parry, and when it is uploaded to tornelo it will be a game not to miss. Last I looked Justin had all the play, but Greg was a pawn (at least 1) up. Justin seemed unhappy, but the position is so complicated I cn't begin to fathom who will win. On board 2 Domagoj is a pawn up, but Laurence has some compensation in better piece placement, though maybe not full compensation.

We have a clear leader now. Domagoj converted his material advantage against Laurence, and unless I'm fully off the mark, it will be an all Noble Park leaderboard, as it looks to me as if Justin Tan is beating Greg Canfell. I for one will not be wanting to play the black side of the Sicilian against Justin in the near future as this game shows just how awesome he has become....Ok, so what do I know. As great an attack as Justin built up, Canfell is up to the defence. Lesser players would have crumbled, but what makes the top players so good is how they can defend. Greg Canfell is now winning a game that most of us would have lost earlier. With both players in time trouble, Canfell held his nerve and defended all that needed defending. This is a must see game!

It's interesting talking to these 2 players after the game. Both were happy with their positions. Justin was looking at lots of breakthroughs and missed a bishop move that lost him the game. Greg, on the other hand felt that he could always defend, and was happy with Qf8 that he felt held his position together. With both players down to about 5 minutes each at that point I guess that adrenalin and time become factors in the final result as well....Greg Canfell is uploading the game now, so we should be able to see it in full in the next minute or 2!

Here it is. Enjoy!