Chess on my mind

Today it was a privilege to be at an informal training session for some Victorian kids alongside IM Robert Jamieson. Robert is a demanding coach who gets the kids to think outside the box, stretching their imagination and vision on the chessboard. The material he uses is always excellent, and the questions he poses push the kids to the limit of their ability. Today we were looking at some games from the current tournament, the Australian Open Championship. Here's a couple of positions he tortured the kids with today:

What would you play as black here? Most of the kids opted for castles, as did IM Ly in the game. Unfortunately, a quick check for all checks and captures reveals that after 10..0-0 11.Nxd5! wins at least a pawn

Fast forward to this position. The question the kids had to answer was how did IM Andrew Brown cause black to resign in 2 moves? Getting kids to visualise is important, especially seeing more than one possibility in a variation. 18.Rc1 seems the obvious try but how will the bishop be trapped after 18..Bb2? So other tries were given, such as 18.Rb1 and 18.Ra2. But it came down to the mainline, so what can white do after 18..Bb2? The first thought was 19.Rc8, though this doesn't achieve anything. Finally someone saw 19.Rc6 which wins time by attacking the queen. Black resigned rather than move his queen and lose his bishop after 20.Qb3.

Robert also talked about the game Li-Zhao which he told the kids was one of his favourite games in the event so far. This was an unbelievably tough game in the Noteboom opening where white tried every trick in the book to unseat his GM opponent. In the end black came through but Zhao must have been pretty happy to win this game in the end.

We then started watching the live games introducing the kids to kibitzing techniques. Though we didn't have time to see the conclusion of the games, the result of the day was certainly 15 year old FM Bobby Cheng's victory over GM Igor Khenkin. This leaves Bobby in clear first which hopefully he can maintain till the end of the tournament.

Of course, running workshops with great players can only fuel ones own interest in the game. So I would like to give a big thanks to the inspirational Robert Jamieson. I came home today, picked up a chess book and drove to the bay! I'm eagerly looking forward to Wijk aan Zee starting at the weekend, where 3 World class round robins are taking place, all with interesting fields. For Australian fans, Ari and Finlay Dale are competing at Wijk in lower sections and will no doubt have some great stories to bring back to Australia. Then next week I'll be flying to the Gold Coast to coach at the Australian Junior Championships.

Looking into the future a little, I have to decide whether to play in the Melbourne Chess Club Championship. It is always one of my favourite events of the year, but it is very tiring for me, finishing late on Monday nights when I have an early start on Tuesday. I'll probably leave the decision until I'm in the Gold Coast! By the way, it is a pretty exciting time at the MCC. IA Gary Bekker has organised a Women's International that starts this weekend, the traditional Australia Day Weekender will take place over the last weekend in January, while GM Igor Khenkin is going to be at the club after the conclusion of the Australian Open!

Easter is fairly early this year, but that probably won't stop me from going to Canberra to play in Doeberl. This tournament should start just before the finish of the Candidates tournament in London in March. This will give us a challenger to Anand for a World Championship match in November! What an exciting year for chess, my head is absolutely spinning! And I won't even get started on the amount of tweets I'm picking up about cheating in chess, though I will say that Mig Greengard's opinion that cheating in chess is a small problem while promotion of the game in its educational and sporting forms is a bigger problem that needs tackling is one I subscribe to.

Premature Results

I know what this title has you thinking about and you will be disappointed! I was running some chess holiday programs this week and I noticed some kids giving in too easily. So it's back to the well known subjects of resignation and draws in chess.

Firstly I am now aware of a group of chess players who believe that resignation shouldn't be allowed. This play till the death lobby are taking things a bit far, but for beginners and juniors resigning denies many chances to earn draws, or even learn technique on how to win games that they, in turn, can use in their own games. At Chesskids we vehemently recommend our kids to play to the end. Here's an example of what can happen at junior level chess that occurred in one of my classes only today:

White would have been happy with a draw before the game began, but it was black that was playing for the draw now. The game continued 1.f5 Kh7 2.f6 Kg8 3.f7+ Kh7 [setting up a clever trap that his young opponent fell straight into]

The young player with the white pieces couldn't contain himself and without a second's thought promoted his pawn to a queen realising a moment later that he'd stalemated his opponent 4.f8=Q 1/2-1/2

I find it quite amazing that kids can find incredibly difficult tactical chances for themselves, but have great trouble in spotting what I consider simple stalemating tricks. I even wonder if most kids think about draws, or whether they are playing on in the hope of winning even with minuscule material? Anyway, after a tactics session where the kids were working on some easy and not so easy checkmate patterns, I showed a classic endgame with a stalemate theme.

This position is from the game Reshevsky-Geller Zurich Candidates 1953. I asked the kids what they thought black played here and I received Kg4, Ra5 (defending the pawn) Ra2+ but no one worked out what was actually played without some help. 1..Rf3+ is obvious once you realise that the rook cannot be taken because of stalemate, and that black is actually going to be happy with a draw here!

On the related (sort of) subject of premature draws we also encourage our kids not to agree to draws but to play on in level positions to try to win them. Hopefully this will give them invaluable endgame experience, and we try to explain to kids that losing these types of games is better for them than agreeing to draws. It certainly sweetens the bitter taste of defeat though how much I'm not sure! Anyway, one of the things I've been trying to undertake this week is analysing live games as they are happening. We've been lucky in Australia to currently have the Australian Open Championship with the live games starting at 1pm in the afternoon. It is great to introduce the kids to the country's top players and some local talents. They can relate to 15 year old Bobby Cheng and 12 year old Anton Smirnov while Grandmasters like Zong-Yuan Zhao and Darryl Johansen are promoted as favourites.

I was showing the live games on Monday to my group of young students but 2 of the 4 games finished as relatively quick draws and my students wondered why they'd agreed to draws. I have to admit, I had some trouble working it out myself so lets have a look at the positions.

This was the final position of the game Zhao-Cheng. It is a very interesting position and most of the kids were getting excited about Bobby's centre against Australia's number 1. When I pointed out his king might be a bit open they shrugged it off! (typical junior optimism!) However, they were generally disappointed that this game went no further.

Most of my juniors are a pretty patriotic lot and they were all cheering for Melbourne based GM Johansen. Here, as black against Yita Choong the kids were happy that they were supporting the guy who was a pawn up. As it is not possible to take on b7 with the bishop because of the forking Qb6+ it would appear that black will maintain his material advantage. I had real trouble explaining why this one might have ended in a draw here (as I don't fully understand myself!) and the kids seemed genuinely disappointed. I'd be interested to know what prompted the draw offers and their acceptance by the players themselves.

However, excitement was provided on the other 2 boards, and the kids seemed fascinated by Junta Ikeda's time trouble and they liked top rated German GM, IgorKhenkin's following move:

Black here played 19..Bxb2+ which was greeted with "He's lost his bishop! The top guy's gonna lose!" Then when they'd calmed down we worked out why he'd played his bishop to a square where it can just be taken. If 20.Kxb2 then 20..c3+ discovers an attack on the e2 bishop from black's Ba6. The kids had to admit that it was a pretty neat move. They still want an Aussie to win though!