An Unexpected Day Off

I had a day off today, and an unexpected bonus befell me when my wife's scheduled shift was cancelled. This meant that my 1 day off of the week was shared with my soul mate. The only problem is that this can lead to plans and schemes. To start with we had a late start and went for a late breakfast together in one of our favourite cafe's in Albert Park Village. The Dundas Place Cafe is friendly, spacious and comfortable with a great menu and great coffee. My favourite breakfast is porridge with butterscotch bananas, which is what I had this morning.

Caroline on our recent roadtrip

While we were at the cafe we were discussing things ranging from novels we have read and want to read, to what we should have for dinner later, and how amazing our holiday was and where we would like to go to in the future. We have plans to go back to New Zealand next year to wonderful Queenstown in the south island. Then we were thinking of another roadtrip but this time to Europe. A trip to France and Italy to experience the historical and culinary sounds fantastic. In fact, it sounded so good that our dinner tonight was inspired by this. We drove round the short distance to South Melbourne Market to buy the vital ingredients for a French Onion Soup which I then came back home to make. I used a recipe from the Not Quite Nigella site that I follow, though winged it a bit as well. Besides the ingredients in the recipe, we had:

1. French Stick
2. Triple cream Brie (not for cooking, we bought some Gruyere for that)
3. Bottle of Arrogant Frog Cabernet Merlot (partially for cooking with)

Tonight's French meal, Onion Soup with Gruyere, Brie and French bread

This rounded things off pretty well, but we talked of another plan. My bucket list the other day included a trip to India, and Caroline entered the spirit of things at the Cafe saying how much she'd like to go to India. But it's a big place so where should we go? I would love to see Everest and it was Caroline who suggested he go to Nepal and Kathmandu. This started us thinking and looking at the East of India. Kolkata seems like a main hub, and probably a good place to fly to, and then there are places such as Puri on the Bay of Bengal and Varanasi in central north India. We'll see where we go with the planning of this trip but the Ganges and Everest are starting points.

I guess that reading 'The Accidental Apprentice' by Vikas Swarup put thoughts of India foremost in my mind. This was a beautiful novel from the author of 'Q and A' which most of know from the film, Slumdog Millionaire. It is written as a modern day fable, and follows the exploits of a young woman who is given the chance of a lifetime to become the CEO of a multi billion dollar empire. She has to pass through some tests and these bring our attention to some real issues in Indian culture, such as the treatment of women in rural India, religion, corruption and bureaucratic procedure. The plot twists wonderfully and the ending is powerful. However, if every time I read a book about a different country it makes me want to go there and start planning there will definitely be some places that miss out. The latest novel I read is possibly my favourite of the year so far. 'The Messenger' by Australian author Markus Zuzak is another fable and wonderfully written. The main character is so believable, especially for us who live in Australia. That the things that happen to him are so unbelievable doesn't matter, because the characters who he meets and interacts with are just as beautifully created. The interactions bring laughter and tears to the reader and this is one of the few books I've given 5 stars to this year on the Goodreads site.

So to sum up today, my wife had the day off and I spent it with her when I didn't think I would, I went out for breakfast when I didn't think I would, I planned a future adventure when I didn't think I would, I cooked a meal that I didn't think I would. It's always good to be prepared to expect the unexpected in life.

World Chess Championship

We're on the verge of one of the most eagerly awaited World Championship matches ever. So what were the great matches, and which ones were eagerly awaited? I mean, Capablanca-Alekhine was a great match, but I don't think it had much of a build up as the only person who gave Alekhine a chance before the match was Alekhine himself. The all Soviet matches were probably eagerly awaited in the USSR, but it wasn't until we get to Spassky-Fischer that things really started to heat up. After that epic match, there were the cold war follow ups of Karpov-Korchnoi, and then the Karpov-Kasparov battles. Ok, since the 1993 split things have been a bit shonky. In fact, the matches since 1993 have been so unappealing that the latest New in Chess Magazine fails to mention the 2010 Anand-Topalov match in its list of World Championship matches without Russians/Soviets.

To be honest, I am looking forward to it and I'm not the only one. The number of articles about the match, the players, and anything else nearly related tot he World Championship or chess is cranking up every day. I've personally read articles by Shipov (New in Chess), Giri, Sasikiran, Negi, Kasparov and Harikrishna and have an article by Rogers to read (I've just seen a tweet by Nigel Short about a new article he has written). Nigel Short tweeted a couple of days ago that

#AnandCarlsen already feels like the biggest title match in years - and they have not yet begun!

Tomorrow will see the opening ceremony and the games start on Saturday. And if one top game a day isn't good enough the European Team Championships starts tomorrow, though the Norwegian team aren't quite at full strength. It is an unbelievably strong tournament with over 20 players above 2700. Russia are the favourites, but Armenia and Ukraine are always good at team tournaments, while I'm hoping that the strongest English team in years can put on a good show.

One last thought about World Championship matches. If you're like me, then an upcoming match makes you think about previous events. And if you're like me, then there will be some matches that you know a lot about, and some that you know hardly anything about. For instance, I've not really looked much at the 3 Botvinnik-Smyslov matches from the 1950's. I'm not sure why, as these were full blooded contests. The first match in 1954 ended in a 12-12 tie with only 10 draws. Combative openings such as the French and the Grunfeld were regulars in this match. Smyslov won the next match in 1957 by 12.5-9.5 and this time there were more draws, though the play was still hard fought. The next year saw a rematch and Botvinnik bounced back to regain his title 12.5-10.5 in a sharp see saw match. So that was nearly 70 games in the space of 4 years with a slight edge to Smyslov overall. If you want to see combative, check out this game. It was the final win for Smyslov in his winning match of 1957. Botvinnik was already 2 points down and played the sharp Winawer to try to create complications and draw closer in the match. Instead, Smyslov saw his way through the complications and won the game (Botvinnik resigning after the first time control) and effectively the match. Let's hope that the oncoming 2013 match produces some breath taking, memorable games as well.

Instead of the Melbourne Cup

Melbourne has a public holiday on the first Tuesday in November each year for the 'race that stops the nation', The Melbourne Cup. The thing is, what do you do if you're not into horse racing, or getting pissed, or wearing fancy dress? Today is still a day off from work but what is there to do if the Melbourne Cup is not your thing?

Well, of course, you can just sit around at home and chill out, or clear up, or plan for the future, or even catch up with things that should have been done. There are days out which avoid (mostly) the Cup such as heading into the country or to the beach. Then there is just imagining that the day isn't anything special at all, and treating it much like any other day off work. That has been my approach to this year's Melbourne Cup Day.

A year ago, this is the view I woke up to, on the Murray River, Mildura. No thoughts of horse racing.

Last year I managed to avoid the whole shabang as Caroline and I took off for country Victoria with our friends Nick and Zoe to spend a week on a houseboat in Mildura. As much as I'd like to be doing that again, I'm not really complaining about missing out after just coming back from America. However, thinking about these things does bring to mind typical 'bucket list' thoughts. I'm rapidly approaching 50 so I guess time is running out for me to get everything I'd like to do completed. So here's 10 things (not in any particular order) I'd like to do before I get too old:

1. Have a book published (I'd love to write a novel, but I think I have more chance of writing a chess book if I can think of a worthy subject)
2. Go back to New York
3. Travel India (I would love to see Mt. Everest)
4. See the Northern Lights
5. Roadtrip Europe (this is already in the planning stage)
6. Run a marathon (I'm planning a half marathon next year, but the whole thing is the big challenge)
7. Touch every continent (Never been to Africa or South America, while Antarctica may be a problem)
8. Visit Japan
9. Go to St Petersberg
10. Roadtrip USA II (north of where we just went, Glacier National Park and Alberta, Canada)

This seems like a good starting list. Is there anything else that should be on this list? And are any of these things on anyone else's bucket list? You might have noticed I have no chess ambitions. I never really have had any, maybe get to 2200 FIDE which I've already done. I would like to see my students excel and become as good as they can, but I'm happy just to play and think about the game a bit.

Oh well, apparently the race is over now, so I guess the fancy dress will start deteriorating as the booze gradually flows more and more. My evening will be spent reading (Markus Zuzak's, "The Messenger"), going for a run, and chilling out. I'll prepare a bit for the classes I have this week, which is pretty much what I'd be doing on any other Tuesday. I'm grateful for the day off, but have no interest in the horse race.

Writer's Block

I apologise for not updating this blog recently. Since coming back from my roadtrip to the USA I've had a lethargy, a kind of post-holiday blues. The whole experience was so amazing that I've found it difficult to readjust to everyday life. However, I think I'm finally getting there and with under a week before the World Chess Championship it's none too soon. But I've also decided that this blog will not be as concentrated on chess as it has been. It's still going to have a fair deal of chess content, and there'll still be a heavy emphasis on the local scene in Melbourne and Australia. But chess isn't everything, and I thoroughly enjoyed relating my travels in the USA, so expect more non chess posts from now on. Though maybe chess will take centre stage during the upcoming Anand-Carlsen match.

Recently my tips have been pretty good with Svidler winning the Russian Championships, so I'll take a shot at the upcoming match. I'm going to choose Carlsen to win the match with at least a game to spare. I have nothing against either of the players, and would like to see a great competitive match, but I think that Anand will struggle to maintain his strength of play for the full match. If it is a close match, then it will be interesting to see how Carlsen copes with the nerves towards the end, and should the match be decided on tie break, then anything could happen.

As for me, I'm still defying FIDE and their events. I did wonder whether I should pay off FIDE and just start playing again, but it won't be happening this year. Without serious competition I'm a bit directionless when it comes to studying the game. It seems rather pointless to work on repertoire and technique when I'm not going to be using it anytime soon. I've hardly looked at any chess, though I have been playing a load of games on chess.com. Some of these have been in thematic tournaments, so I'll try to post some ideas from these openings in the near future.

In the meantime the Melbourne Chess Club was the last place I played and there are currently 2 big events in progress. The regular Monday night event is currently the MCC Open, and I tipped IM Mirko Rujevic to win this. Mirko then went down to Justin Penrose and it looked like my tipping curse might remain intact. However, since then Mirko has bounced back and with just one round to go, he leads David Hacche by half a point. Both have black in the final game, and Hacche's draw seems a bit tougher as he plays Penrose (half a point behind Hacche, so theoretically can still catch Mirko), while Mirko has Tom Kalisch who has had a pretty respectable event up to now. Tom sits on a group of players half a point shy of third. This long weekend sees the MCC staging their annual Cup Weekender. The 9 round swiss started Friday night and has 2 games per day over the holiday weekend including the Monday which is not officially a public holiday. This year the tournament has attracted a decent sized field with a strong top end. Among the 64 players are 5 IM's and after 5 rounds the tournament is being led by local Master James Morris on 5/5. Should he win, James will be an incredibly popular winner, but he is facing tough competition with FM's Luke Li and Bill Jordan half a point back, and IM Max Illingworth, FM Dusan Stojic, Karl Zelesco and Jack Puccini on 4/5. And with another 4 rounds still to go, players further down the field will still fancy their chances.

Classic Album of the Moment

Are you of a generation that can remember buying vinyl records? Or even cassettes? If you are, then you probably can recall getting home with your new record or tape and playing it to death again and again until every word, melody, riff have permeated your mind. You will have sung along to the singles, but more deeply appreciated the album tracks, and if it was one of those albums that had no singles, then you could lose yourself in discovering the new music. I'm sure this is still possible in the post CD era of i-tunes and MP3 players (and probably gadgets that I don't even know about...God I'm getting old) but with so much music free (or cheap) to stream on apps like Spotify and youtube the mystique of buying an album seems to have disappeared.

Anyway, true to my younger self, I'm going to indulge in discovering some albums that I wished I'd have bought when I was younger but never did. Yes, they will be on CD, but I will listen to them again and again until I have immersed myself in every thing they have to offer. There'll be no Greatest Hits Albums here, though I have nothing against them. I want to hear some album tracks, some tracks that are new to me.

My favourite Beatles album (from beatlesbible)

So where to start? I've got about 50 years worth of popular music to choose from and some of the albums I may have heard before, but not for a long time. I recently lost myself in Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks. I must have listened to it 100 times this year, with Tangled Up in Blue possibly my favourite Dylan song. Time to move on. I've played the Beatles Revolver a few times recently. It really is a fantastic album with some beautiful songs, and was an early popular psychedelic creation. It's easy for us in 2013 to forget how innovative and trend setting the Beatles were. However, Revolver was released before I was born (only just!) and I was thinking more of my own recollections from when I was starting to buy records, or at least ask for them as presents.

The Jam's 1978 Album

I started secondary school in 1978, which was a pretty exciting time for music. Besides the fact that rock music was becoming more accomplished (Pink Floyds's 'The Wall' was released the year after) punk and new wave were taking over. An album that I wish that I owned but never did was The Jam's All Mod Cons. (Coincidentally, the Jam used The Beatles 'Taxman' guitar riff for their number 1 hit 'Start', Taxman being the opening song on Revolver).

The album was apparently influenced by British 60's invasion music which is most notably seen in their cover of the Kinks track, David Watts. As I could also listen to the Kinks and that brand of 60's music, this is the perfect album for me to start reminiscing about. According to Q Music, All Mod Cons is the 50th greatest British album of all time. The list is headed by Revolver!

Inspirations

What is it you want to do? And where do you get your inspiration from? I obviously have a passion for chess, and I remember seeing a program on TV in the 1970's called The Master Game which inspired me to carry on with the game through my teenage years. Yesterday I was also playing chess, but inspiration came from a different event. Yesterday the Melbourne Marathon was being held. Nearly 7000 people participated with the best runners producing world class results. It has been a while since I last ran, but I took inspiration from yesterday and went for a brief jog today after work. It was hard work, as I knew it would be, but I enjoyed it immensely, and plan to carry on with running in my own modest way.

Setting goals and then making plans is always a good way to achieve results. I have set myself 2 targets. One is simply to lose the weight that I gained on holiday in America, and since getting back when I did very little. This is about 3 kilo's, though the more the merrier. The other is to run a half marathon, and I've set myself the target of running the Great Ocean Road Half Marathon which is held in May. That gives me 7 months to build up to the 21 km distance and I currently feel pumped up to take it on, even if I am a little puffed after my 5 km run earlier.

I also read a fair amount of fiction and am inspired to read new authors and new titles. Joining the online site Goodreads was great for building up ideas, and I must admit that I've read novels this year that I wouldn't have done if not being a member of a book club on Goodreads. If talking about books with other book lovers, comparing ideas and critically discussing books isn't inspiration enough, tomorrow sees the 2013 Man Booker Prize winner announced. While I'm not usually swayed by what awards novels and their authors may have won I must admit that I've hardly ever read a novel shortlisted for the Booker Prize that I haven't enjoyed. Kazuo Ishiguro's Booker Prize winning "The Remains of the Day" is still my favourite novel, and I'm currently reading "The Yips" by Nicola Barker which segues between acerbic dialogue, strange encounters, and some of the most beautifully written descriptions I've ever read. In fact, earlier today I was stunned by the power of feeling that a particular passage evoked. And this novel wasn't even shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2012. In fact neither was "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce which is probably the best novel I've read this year so far.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a literary snob who only reads award winning high literature. I'm happy to read novels from almost any genre: historical, comedy, sci-fi, fantasy, detective, thriller etc. In fact, labeling novels under certain categories can sometimes be a little misleading. I guess a good example of this is the rise in stature of books labeled 'Young Adult'. This covers a massive range of books, spanning all kinds of subjects and genre. Earlier this evening on Twitter, I discovered that one of my favourite authors, Joanne Harris was labeled as 'Chick-lit'. Before seeing her tweet I never even knew there was a chick-lit genre, let alone what it entailed. Joanne Harris' reply to this categorisation has been my final inspiration for this evening. Don't just sit there and take the crap that people give you.

Sorry, did I say my final inspiration? I just found out it's National Chocolate Week in the UK. As an expat I feel it would be remiss of me not to participate. Unfortunately, I was unaware of International Chocolate Day which was on September 13th, but it's in my diary for 2014 and next September 13th will be eatchocolatetillimsickday!

What We Miss In Our Games

There is some truth to the idea that the strength of a player can be judged by the things they miss. Today I played in a tournament for the first time in a year and although I did better than  I expected, in all of the games I missed fairly obvious things. The tournament was played at the Melbourne Chess Club and involved groups of 4 players in round robin format. The event is called a "quad" and, assuming the players are of an equal strength, is an excellent format for a one day tournament. Today, 8 players turned up so there were 2 sections played at a rate of 60 minutes + 20 seconds increment per move. Although this is a fairly fast time control in longplay terms, it is still long enough for the games to be rated on the ACF standard list. So these were the first games I'd played that were rated under this system for the past year.

To be honest, it felt good to be back at the MCC in a playing capacity. There have been times during my self imposed exile when I've considered caving in, coughing up the money to FIDE, and playing again. Then the chess world does something to make me wonder whether I really want to contribute to it and I feel good about myself. The latest news story involves Andrew Paulson, the guy who was supposedly hired by FIDE to arrange, organise and set up the Candidates matches and World Championship with great promises of increased interest in chess from the wider world. Well, something happened that is somewhat mysterious, but the end result is that Andrew Paulson now has nothing to do with these events, or FIDE it would seem. Except that yesterday, he was elected President of the English Federation. Now I have no problem with Mr Paulson, but why are the English Chess Federation electing an American as President, when there are plenty of good English administrators around? I hope that Mr. Paulson will do good for English chess, but the cynic in me can't help feeling he has his own motives in becoming President of the ECF, and I guess we'll see what they are in the next year.

Anyway, enough moaning and on to the chess. In the first round I played pretty well as black against Dmitry Partsi, and was probably better when I allowed a perpetual. So I can notch my first 'miss' of the day down to not looking at all my opponent's checks.

Black to move, and though I spotted that white is threatening Nf5 forking g7 and d6, I didn't notice it was also hitting h6. The best move is probably 1..g6, but I played 1..Rfc8 2.Nf5 Bf8 when a draw was agreed due to the h6-f7 knight check perpetual.

No worries, the other game between Jack Puccini and Sylvester Urban was also a draw so we were all tied after one game. In game 2 I had white and was lucky that my opponent, Sylvester Urban blundered an important pawn early in the game. Even then, I missed a check later in the game and was lucky to be far enough ahead for it not to matter.

As White I'm 2 pawns up and thought that I just need to develop my last 2 pieces. I played 1.Bd3 and was lucky that 1..Nb3+ wasn't enough to pull Sylvester back into the game. Instead I should have played 1.Qg5+ covering the d2 square. Then after a king move, I can play Bd3 and if black plays Nb3 I can just move my king to b1.

Never mind, I should count myself lucky to have missed 2 such simple moves and be on 1.5/2. At this point I found myself equal first with Dimitry who had beaten Jack Puccini. In the final round the 2 leaders both had black and both of us lost. I don't know about Dmitry, but I was smashed! This time I missed a pretty nice blocking manouvre which completely destroyed my king's meagre shelter.

To be fair, my black Najdorf has already gone pretty badly. I have to defend f7 and chose the least wise option 1..0-0. I had some grovelling ideas in mind when I suddenly saw that Jack could play 2.Rf6 and I was completely busted. It didn't take long for Jack to notice this, he played it and the game finished soon after.

So not bad for the first real chess in a year. I won one, drew one and lost one, missing one rather monumental move for my opponent in each game! The tournament was great fun, and the fact that it ended in a 4-way tie for equal first was pretty fitting as no one was dominant. The second section was jointly won by Ben Frayle and Endre Simon 2/3 ahead of Surjeet Singh 1.5, and Daniel Dobos .5, and looked to be just as fiercely competitive.