Reading List

Now I haven't been reading much lately so it's time to get back into it. I have a kindle on my new laptop, so I'm going to read from that, but also got a load of books sitting on shelves waiting to be read. Usually I read fairly lightweight novels such as fantasy and crime fiction genres. I guess this is because the majority of the stuff I read is about chess and is usually pretty technical. However, when I actually do manage to read something with a bit more depth, I usually enjoy it. So this year I'm going to try to balance things out a bit, mixing some nonsense with some genuine literature.

A short while back I read an excellent book, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. It is one of the best books I've read for ages, and getting close in quality to my all time favourite, "The Remains of the Day" by Ishiguro. In fact 'Harold Fry' was so amazingly good in my opinion, that I couldn't believe it had been beaten to the Man Booker Prize, especially by an historical novel. So I bought that novel, "Bring Up The Bodies" by Hilary Mantel and intend to read it. Actually, it the sequel to "Wolf Hall" which had previously won the Man Booker Prize in 2009 and that is the first book I intend to read.

However, this book sits on my laptop and will be read on the kindle there. I will not always have my laptop with me, so when I'm driving around to and from work I really need to have a book with me. Now I could reread the Harry Potter series, or Tolkien (which I've already done too many times) but I intend to only read books that I have never read before this year. So here are the next 5 books that I've lined up to read:

1. A Street Cat Named Bob - James Bowen (This sounds great, a busker and a stray cat making their way together in London)
2. The Big Over Easy - Jasper Fforde (I've never read Fforde, but have read loads of Robert Rankin and thoroughly enjoy this type of novel comically satirising a genre of writing)
3. Moonlight Mile - Dennis Lehane (Mystic River is one of my favourite crime novels and I never read anything else by Lehane)
4. The Winter Ghosts - Kate Mosse (All her works are excellent weaving modrn and historical stories together based around the south of France)
5. In Pursuit of Glory - biography of Bradley Wiggins (I'm not usually a biography fan, but this one intrigues me. I'm interested to see if there is any mention of the seedier side of cycling)

This combination of fact and fiction should be light enough for when I'm travelling around, and in the meantime I have my kindle with some heavier books. I am always looking out for new fiction to read, so would be obliged by any recommendations. I also intend to read a fair bit of non-fiction this year (other than chess which sometimes comes across as quite fictional in a bizarre way!) especially history which used to be my pet subject when I was younger. On the kindle I currently have:

1. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (Booker Prize Winner)
2. Bring up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel (Booker Prize Winner, but is it really better than Harold Fry?)
3. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austin (I've never read this, and recently visited Austin's memorial stone in Winchester Cathedral)
4. The Jerusalem Puzzle - Laurence O'Bryan (Follow up to the Istanbul Puzzle, which I've already read, these are great reads in the Dan Brown style of writing)

Jane Austin's memorial in Winchester Cathedral

I do intend to use the kindle more, and am considering subscribing to History Today or some other history magazine on kindle. Any advice or ideas about reading material would be gladly received. :)

On Pubs

To be honest, since I've been in Australia which is nearly 8 years I haven't been a frequent pub goer. Perhaps I'm a different person to the one that left the UK in 2005, or perhaps the pub culture here is just different to that which I left behind? Ok, let's stop beating around the bush, I think the pubs in Melbourne are crap compared to those in England! Actually that's a slight generalisation as there are some pubs in England I wouldn't dream of going into, and some that I've been in and then left pretty quickly. But generally, pubs as I know them are much better in the UK. Here in Melbourne, pubs are too often dressed up gambling halls with pokies machines, and betting on horses/dogs. To add respectability there are often restaurants in the pubs, but I find the buildings more like big social clubs rather than pubs.

The Cat and Fiddle

One thing I especially miss about the UK is the country pubs. When I was back over Christmas we went to a few including the one in the picture above, the Cat and Fiddle which is an isolated building sitting on the Western fringe of the Peak District not too far from Manchester. It is the second highest pub in England, and a favourite with motorcyclists, cyclists and walkers. They serve decent food and real ales (I was designated driver that day so couldn't sample any) and if you're lucky you can sit next to the open fire.

UK pubs have a rich history and are often named after people such as royalty, places and animals, but there are many different pub names, and some with a great sense of humour. When I was growing up there was a contest to name the new local pub in my area, and the winner was the culturally pleasing Brahms and Lizst. Of course, this was rhyming slang for "pissed" so the name never was chosen, though the 2 bars were called the Brahms Bar and the Liszt Bar! And some of the pubs are old, very old. For history lovers, we are talking over 1000 years old in some cases! Just the architecture alone makes a tour of great pubs a worthwhile thing, let alone the interior, ambience and the real ales. (by the way, I've been in 2 of the pubs in the link above, wonder if you can guess which ones?).

England's oldest pub

The Olde Fighting Cocks is in the Guinness Book of Records s the oldest pub in England. How could anyone walk past this beautiful pub and not stop in for a drink? Of course, pubs in towns tend to have a different feeling, some of which are quite rough, but these are places I would avoid. A summer's evening, in a beer garden, with real ales and chatting happily to friends is an unbeatable experience. Let us visually compare this with an Australian offering!

Outside terrace of the Black Swan, Stratford Upon Avon

Possibly the best pub in Melbourne, The Rose Hotel in Fitzroy

I might be sounding a bit of  beer snob here, but Melbourne's best pubs are a long way off matching the quality of their English counterparts.

Time for some Classics

My lessons recently have focused on the tactical and some great attacking games. I think some of my young students are ready to take a look at some classic games. In his book "Modern Chess Preparation" Ukrainian Grandmaster and Olympiad team Captain, Vladimir Tukmakov devotes over a third of his book to looking at classic games claiming that for improving players, the "games of Capablanca are far more instructive than the extremely complex works of modern super-grandmasters". He goes on to say that strategic rules should be learned from "simple and logical examples" and that "the games of Capablanca not Alekhine, Botvinnik not Bronstein and Karpov not Kasparov" should be looked at.

So with this in mind, I am inspired to show my pupils 2 of the most famous games in history, both of them appearing in Tukmakov's book, as well as many other sources and I'll share them on this blog. In fact a little earlier this evening I looked through one of the games for the first time in a long time, and see in it one of the greatest knight outposts I can remember. Of course, this is the game Lasker-Capablanca St Petersburg 1914. I can't wait to see the kids faces when the queens are exchanged early on. Hopefully their disbelief will turn to resourcefulness when they are challenged to join Lasker in making the most of his other pieces. Another issue that is of paramount importance in this game is space which Capablanca had little of, and a permanent weakness on d6. Strategically it is a masterful game, and I hope the kids appreciate it for what it is.




To make things up to Capablanca I intend to show one of his masterful performances. I intend to show his game against Marshall where he had to defend against the Marshall Gambit. This will introduce the concepts of gambit play, attacking methods and defensive techniques, including giving back material which is something kids are always reluctant to do. I will again be interested to see the kids reactions to a game where the attacking player is the one who ends up losing.

Why Study Chess?

What inspires a player to study? Does one do it to improve, to research, for the fun of it? We are all eternal optimists hoping that we can still improve. I guess the fact that strong players maintained their strength late into their lives gives us all inspiration. However, the fact is that a player like Kortchnoi or Smyslov were absolute greats from a young age, so staying stronger later in life wasn't so much of a problem for them. Most of us aren't going to get much better after we hit 40 so why not just play and forget the study? Well, speaking personally, I find studying the game fascinating, its history, its characters, the games both great and relatively normal and the whole cultural melting pot that makes up this game of kings.

I coach kids and see very different reactions to the lessons I present. Some kids love stories and remember the most bizarre of things. Other kids enjoy puzzles, and even some chess based logical problems. There is an excellent monthly article at the Chess Cafe website by Jeff Coakley with some great testing puzzles. But what about adults? There are loads of products around to help players improve. For instance, there are books, DVD's, databases, computer playing programs, online chess clubs with online coaching. In fact there is so much stuff out there that it is almost impossible to know what will help you improve the most.

In my opinion adults can improve, even those of us above the dreaded 40, but having some knowledge of yourself is a very good place to start. We all learn in different ways, so do you prefer visual, audio or written learning? I love books and a chess board, but I probably learn more from playing through games in a database. I don't really enjoy DVD's, though I find short youtube type reports excellent. I hate playing computer programs, though I don't mind playing games at online chess clubs. What I find particularly useful is watching live games online, especially with Grandmaster commentary. As I said, we are all different so my likes and dislikes will be different to yours, but getting to know what you like can help you devise a program of study that can be enjoyable and rewarding. It may also be a good idea to ask a strong player to help you choose some products if you want to buy books or DVD's. There is so much that it's difficult to know what to get. Employing a coach for a few sessions can also guide you in the right direction.

Saying that, any study is better than none, though study directed at your own level will obviously be more effective. As for me, I enjoy looking at games of great players of the past (instead of beefing up my opening repertoire, or working on my positional understanding). I have some particular favourites who seem to somehow resonate with me. I particularly enjoy playing through the games of Reshevsky and Korchnoi. Both were immigrants, which I can empathise with, and both were great fighters which I fully appreciate. Although both were positional masters, they were both great tactical players and attacking players so when looking through their games you get the full range of types of game. Here's a couple of games that you wouldn't necessarily associate with these 2 heroes of mine, both in that most romantic of openings, the King's Gambit.

Firstly, the young Reshevsky playing a simul in Berlin aged about 8. Sammy was white, though I don't know the name of his opponent.

Secondly a game with Korchnoi as black against a King's Gambit specialist. This was played shortly before he emigrated in probably his last round robin in the Soviet Union before he left.

Time For a Completely Random Post

The beauty of writing a blog is that you can write about whatever you want to. Ok, so this one is supposed to be about chess and coffee, but these are just the main subjects that interest me, and the blog is, after all, about me and my world view. Now I've just finished my first week back at work after a long summer vacation (for those of you in Europe, Asia or North America who live upside down, it is summer here in Australia) and had about enough of chess. It's a shame, because there are some great chess events just finished, in progress or about to start, but today I can't bring myself to think about them, or anything else to do with chess.

I know what you're thinking. I'm currently speeding on caffeine and don't know what I'm talking about. Life without chess!! Sacrilege!! Well, you're wrong. I have had one coffee today, but in the heat of a 35C day, I tend to drink more water than anything else. And for the past week I've been feeling dehydrated from some gastro type bug that has me short of breath and tired. So no, I'm certainly not overfuelled on coffee. In fact, perhaps I haven't had enough recently. When I was in Queensland I was worried that there would be no good coffee, but I was pleasantly surprised. I was staying in Nobby's Beach on the Gold Coast and the local row of shops and cafes had some good coffee. I tried a few places, but really liked a little place called '52 espresso' which was cosy and had a pretty decent long black.

Blackboard Cafe, Varsity Lakes Queensland

I also need to give a big thankyou to Andrew FitzPatrick who pointed me in the direction of the best coffee in the University grounds (according to someone who told a friend of his who might have mentioned in passing etc). I have to say that Blackboard Coffee do a pretty good drink. Actually it reminded me somewhat of the coffee I had in Chez Dre the week before, with a fruity tang to it. All in all, I was pretty impressed, especially seeing the last time I was in Queensland I couldn't find a decent coffee anywhere! Then again, I was in Brisbane!


Anyway, enough about coffee and on to cats. If I appear to be rambling, then I have got the style just as I want. I also ought to apologise to any chess readers who are wondering when the chess content is going to appear. Take a look at the Chess tag and you'll find some chess content. I always considered myself more of a dog person than a cat person. But really, does such a thing exist? I mean why would an animal lover prefer dogs to cats? They are both great companions with admittedly different traits, but still we're talking cuddly domestic pets. Here's a funnier take on the differences:

So when my wife said to me about 4 years ago, lets get a cat, my initial reaction was "What? I prefer dogs!" Now my wife, Caroline, also loves dogs but our situation with work and life would limit the amount of time we could spend walking and caring for a dog. So it was agreed to get a cat. We got the black and white one in the picture below, called Candy. Actually, I have to admit that I almost immediately became very fond of my new little kitten. So did Caroline, and we decided to get another cat, the light tortoiseshell below called Alice. The 2 of them are great friends, with very different personalities.

My 2 cuddly companions

Anyway, yesterday we had the nightmare scenario of one of our cats not returning home. Alice, the tortoiseshell, went AWOL for about 36 hours. It's an unbelievably stressful experience, as you can't help but imagine the worst things happening to them. There's the possibility of abduction (more common with top breeds), injury, getting trapped somewhere, being frightened and running away from their own territory, as well as a number of other explanations for their disappearance. Knowing all this, and having a plan to recover your cat is really useful to know and I was indebted to this site for easing my mind somewhat about the likelihood of certain events.

And to end it this rather random set of musings, congratulations to the English Parliament for approving same sex marriages. Well done to the archaeological team for establishing the remains of Richard III (and I wish luck to the teams now trying to find the remains of Alfred the Great). I haven't run for too long, I need to start reading again, I want my holiday in the USA to start now (only 212 days to go), and I never knew that today was the day in 1819 that a certain Mr Raffles founded Singapore! Did you know that Changi Airport in Singapore has a butterfly garden? Neither did I until I went on a little exploration during my 2 hour stop there on the way back from England! Ok, now I've descended from random musings to utter gibberish, like an internet forum poster, so I'd better stop!

Butterfly Garden (courtesy of the butterfly consultancy)

MCC Championship

This is usually one of the strongest club events of the year in Australia, and this time round looks no exception to that rule. The field includes 2 IM's, MCC perennial's Guy West and Mirko Rujevic and another 10 players rated above 2000. There are a number of strong young players including Justin Tan and Ari Dale so it looks both strong and interesting. There were only 36 entries on the opening night, which might be considered a bit disappointing, but late entries are accepted up until round 3, so perhaps some more might throw their hat in the ring.

Most of the seeds seem to get through the first round, though there were quite a few draws for a first round of a swiss. The biggest winner of the night was MCC stalwart Paul Kovacevic, who upset young talent Justin Tan. Paul usually finds himself near the top boards facing a big seed in the first round of MCC events, and usually makes the seed sweat, even if he doesn't come away with a result. I remember Paul completely outplaying Guy West last year, or the year before, only to blunder at a critical moment allowing Guy a nice king hunt. This time Paul was clearly worse against the higher rated Justin, but he just kept making moves, and with queens on the board anything can happen, and it did:

Justin as white is a pawn up with the preferable combination of queen and knight versus queen and bishop. All he has to do is get out of check. 32.Kh1? Paradoxically, in this position the king is safer in the centre than the corner. Both 32.Kf1 and 32.Qd4 were better ways of escaping the check, and would have left white with a clear advantage. 32..Qf2! Immediately taking advantage of the situation, with mating threats on g2 and e1, white is forced to sacrifice a piece. 33.Nh5+ gxh5 34.Qg3+ Qxg3 35.hxg3 and black soon won.

The tournament is a nine round swiss so it is early days. Personally I'm interested to see how the Dale brothers go after their trip to Europe. Both Ari and Finley played lots of chess, experienced lots of chess culture, and (presumably) learned loads about chess. Ari's strength has not been fully tested yet as he won against Felix Wyss who he out rates by about 400 points, but Finley has already caused an upset holding FM Domagoj Dragicevic to a draw.

Next week I intend to drop in on the tournament and blog from a live perspective so hopefully the report will be a little more detailed. For a more detailed report, check out arbiter Kerry Stead's blog!

Finally I wish to thank the many people in the Australian chess community who showed friendship to me and disbelief in the system that made me write the last post on this blog. While I might not join in with the FIDE rated events anymore, I still intend to be an active member of the Australian and Victorian chess community!

The End of My FIDE Playing Days?

In the February FIDE rating list, my name didn't appear, and there seems to be no trace of me. Actually, this didn't come as too much of a surprise to me, as I'd been waiting for it to happen. You see, I'm a player who doesn't really fit into the new levels of professionalism that the international chess body seems to want to impose upon the chess world. But let's start at the beginning, because I'm not totally blameless and a Kafkaesque victim here.

A long time ago, I was a member of the British Chess Federation. This organisation changed to the English Chess Federation (ECF) which I have never been a member of. The main reason for me not becoming a member is that I emigrated to Australia and I felt the ECF no longer represented my interests (there are some other issues, but I'm not going to go into them here). FIDE require that all players be members of their federation, and I am not, and do not intend to pay the ECF for that privilege. So that is why I've been delisted in the FIDE rating lists.

Of course, I could change my federation to Australia, where I live and am now a citizen. In fact I inquired about this of the then International Ratings Officer Greg Canfell, who was pretty helpful and sent me all that I needed to provide to him for the switch. However, a stumbling block for me was the transfer fee that FIDE required for a player of my strength (2100-2200). To change federations would cost me 250 euros, which seems to me to act as a deterrent for players rather than an investment. I'm a player in my mid 40's who isn't likely to improve, but could be an active member of the chess community for many years to come, and a typical stepping stone type player for improving juniors. However, that is not going to happen, as I have no intention of paying 250 euros to change federation, and I have no intention of paying the ECF a membership.

So where does that leave me? I'm an amateur who enjoys long play games, not a professional or a master strength player. Firstly, I can still play chess games not rated under the FIDE system, which might turn into the majority of tournaments if FIDE continue with their new plans regarding player registrations. Also, if I want to change federation without incurring the 250 euro cost, then I have to play no FIDE rated games for 6 years, and prove residency within the country I wish to adopt. To me this is the preferable course of events, because I'm thoroughly sick of the amount of money the international chess federation wants to bleed from the players of its member constituents. I have toyed in the past with attempting to achieve FIDE and International Arbiters titles, and with gaining the FIDE Trainer qualification. But at the end of the day, it's all just a massive money making process for FIDE and doesn't really help member states or players at all. I think GM Kevin Spraggett sums it all up perfectly.

My immediate future will consist of writing this blog and other articles, coaching chess (without a FIDE Trainers qualification!), playing online at ICC, and playing some local tournaments when I can find the time. I'll continue to support my chess club, the Melbourne Chess Club, though I don't think I'll be able to play in many of the events there. I might go back to blogging live some of the rounds! Maybe after 6 years, I'll come back to the FIDE rated scene as an Australian. The way things are going though, I highly doubt it.