Highs and Lows in the French Alps

Sunset over Lake Annecy

The French Alps has to be one of the most beautiful regions in the world. Caroline and I based ourselves in Annecy which must be one of the most beautiful alpine towns I've ever been to. Lake Annecy is picture postcard stuff, one of the cleanest lakes in Europe. What more could one possibly want?

Lake Annecy, one of the cleanest lakes in Europe

 Ok, the stunning beauty counts for a lot, but one certainly pays for it. We drove to Annecy via autoroutes and the tolls were quite expensive. And as one would expect of a tourist town, the price of food, drink, souvenirs is a bit over the top. But our answer to that was to eat at our hotel from a supermarket, with cheese, ham, bread and yoghurt on the menu.

Palais de l'Isle, Annecy

Palais de l'Isle, Annecy

Archways, alleys and medieval buildings are a pleasure to walk around in Annecy

The price is something that we expected, but what we didn't expect was for our hire car to break down. This was an annoying episode which cost us most of a day in sight seeing. We drove the car out of the hotel parking lot, and within 50 metres, it just cut out and stopped. A mechanic came out and didn't know what was wrong with it, and then our rental car company towed it away and replaced it with another, which we thought was a pretty good result for us. The only problem was that we had to pick up the car from Lyon airport which is about 125 km. Hertz came up trumps and sent a taxi to pick us up and drop us at Lyon where we got a new car and drove it back to Annecy. The main hassle was that a whole day had been wasted by doing all this.

We put this behind us and chalked it up to experience. Our new car did get us to Chamonix the next day, though, before we head west towards the Pyrenees. One of the things we wanted to do was see Mont Blanc, Europe's biggest mountain. We were blessed with good weather, and a comfortable drive.

Mont Blanc towers above Chamonix (and everything else!)

Alpine rivers flow quickly, and wherever you are in Chamonix, Mont Blanc isn't too far from view

European Roadtrip: Amsterdam to Annecy

The wonderful Place Francois Rude in Dijon

My experiences of road trips have been that sometimes, there are real treats to be had in the least expected places. After landing in Amsterdam and spending a day around the city, Caroline and I had planned to drive to the French Alps where we were to stay at Annecy. We were taking a fairly straight route down through Belgium, into the Ardennes region of France, and then down the Eastern side of France with overnight stops in Charleville-Mezieres and Dijon. We weren't too sure what to expect along the way, though we had planned to stop at Domremy la Pucelle to see the memorial to Joan of Arc.

We left Amsterdam and immediately became lost in roadworks, driving in the wrong direction for about 15 minutes. This would become par for the course. We found the right way and headed towards France. Neither of us had spent much time in Belgium, and I really don't know why as it is such a beautiful country. Much of our route followed the Meuse river in the Wallonne region of Belgium, a truly beautiful area of the world with Dinant being our favourite spot. Having been born in England, I still have trouble believing I hadn't even heard of Dinant as a town when it really is stunning.

Dinant, on the Meuse River

We carried on our wending way to Charleville-Mezieres, the capital of the Ardennes region of France (and Belgium). This was where our navigation problems really began to surface. It was beginning to get dark as we reached Chareville-Mezieres, which made things harder, and we were both tired from the drive, and I guess a bit of jet lag catching up. Anyway, we couldn't find the way to go, got lost in one way systems, and the peculiarities of French road signs didn't help. Luckily, my minuscule knowledge of French, coupled with a strangers minuscule knowledge of English allowed me to gather directions for where our hotel was. But the problems didn't stop there, on what was turning out to be a very long day. We were low on fuel, and couldn't find a petrol station. we were directed to an automated petrol station, but I didn't have a credit card on me, only a debit card, which the machines wouldn't accept. We went to sleep a little stressed, very tired, and a little worried about our ability to get fuel.

Woinic Boar, symbolic of the Ardennes

The morning brought clarity to our thinking, new hope, and determination to just get on with things. A delicious breakfast, and directions from our kind hostess allowed us to fill up with no problem. The previous evening, the only stations open in the vicinity were automated, but in the morning all petrol stations were open. With a full tank and clear heads, we headed to Domremy la Pucelle, the birth place of Joan of Arc. But we took the wrong road again and ended up in Reims! Still in the general direction we wanted to go, we decided that we'd spend a couple of hours in Reims and forget about Joan of Arc. We managed to navigate the town better this time, and went to the Cathedral, a truly spectacular gothic structure. Reims Cathedral was the place where many kings of France were crowned and it has a brilliant array of stained glass, foremost of which was a window designed by the artist Marc Chagall. No photos I could take would do it credit, it really is beautiful craftsmanship.

Wonderful stained glass at Reims Cathedral

From Reims we headed south to Dijon which we found ok, although again we became lost in the maze of the old town, and again were helped by a local who guided us to where we wanted to go (we were actually very close!). We had a little stroll in the evening, and spent a couple of hours around the old town the next day. Dijon is very old, pre-dating Roman times even, though much of what can now be seen comes from the middle ages onwards. The interesting fact that I learned about Dijon is that the city has an affinity with owls, which can be seen dotted around the architecture and in the pavements. Apparently, visitors to the church of Notre Dame can touch a bas relief carving of an owl for good luck. I didn't know this, and although I saw the church I never touched the owl. However, luckily, I don't believe in luck.

Palais des Ducs, Dijon

We left Dijon in good spirits, having been charmed by the city, managed to navigate out of the town well, and dropped on to the right road towards Annecy, where we arrived to witness a sunset over the lake, which lays claim to being the cleanest lake in Europe. We have 3 nights in Annecy to check out the alpine air and surrounds. So far this roadtrip has taught me:

- be open minded and accept that changes of plan aren't necessarily bad things
- trying to communicate to people in their language gains respect...and the French are a generally helpful people
- French road systems and road signage is not easy for non-French to understand
- French food is amazing, and I will probably arrive back in Australia the size of a small planet!

Sunset over Lake Annecy

Nostalgic for Amsterdam

When I travel I love to experience new things, whether it be people, landscape, culture etc. This roadtrip will be taking in some new things as Caroline and I drive around France. But before that, we flew from Melbourne into Amsterdam and spent a day in Holland's cultural capital city.

Our flight with Emirates was smooth but exhausting. We took a 3 flight route, with brief stops in Kuala Lumpur and Dubai. Each leg of the trip was about 7 hours so there were no ridiculous 12 or 13 hour legs. But the flying time was still the same, which means that it is still exhausting. The first flight left Melbourne at about 2.40 am Sunday morning and landed Amsterdam at about 8.00 pm Sunday night. This was good as it meant that after a quick shuttle ride to our hotel, we could crash out at a reasonable time, which is what we did.

We are staying close to Schipol Airport and today we commuted to Amsterdam for a chilled out time before starting the drive tomorrow. It was a little strange going back to a city where I'd spent quite a bit of time before, albeit a long time before. We walked around a bit before meeting up with an old friend. In the early 1990's I went to Amsterdam a couple of times as a sort of apprenticeship in the art of street performing. At the time I was in a double act and we learned our skills in Amsterdam. While I met a lot of people in Holland, I've only kept in touch with one, a woman called Marion. Today, Caroline and I met up with Marion at a cafe that we used to go to over 20 years ago, De Balie.

Caroline meeting Marion for the first time in over 10 years

It was actually a very odd experience sitting in a cafe for the first time in over 20 years, waiting to meet someone who I hadn't seen for over 10 years (Caroline probably hadn't met Marion for 15 years) in a city that is 10,000 miles away from my home. But meet up we did, and we had a great time chatting with Marion and her family, and catching up on what she is doing (a mother to a 2 year old daughter and nearly full time work) and reminiscing about the past.

Chess Pilgrimage Site

Besides plenty of walking and sightseeing I managed to visit the Max Euwe Centre, though it doesn't open on Mondays and we had pancake for dinner, a typically Dutch dish. So the first day was a chilled out affair, but pretty tiring as we got through quite a bit. It was pretty much a perfect start to our European trip.

Central Station, Amsterdam

Restaurant of the Five Flies

Typical Dutch Architecture

Coffee is Taking Over from Chess for a While

Just to let you all know that this blog will be turning into a travelogue for the next month.

I'm taking a vacation which starts in about 7 hours (currently taking a break from packing and cleaning the house)  which will take Caroline and I to Holland, Belgium, France and England. We might pop into Switzerland and Spain on the way round, who knows?

While we are road tripping, we will have a few stops on the way. So we're spending a short time in Annecy, Le Puy and Carcassone to explore those areas a little more, before getting to England where our time will be split between Caroline's and my own families.

What am I looking forward to? Well besides hopefully seeing some beautiful French countryside, and experiencing some of the culture and history of rural France, it is the food that is uppermost in my mind at the moment, and especially the bread and cheese (yes, I admit that this could turn into a bit of a Wallace and Gromit blog).

The Emirates flight from Melbourne will take us to Amsterdam via Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, and will leave at about 2.30 am Sunday morning, and land at about 8 pm Sunday night. We then have a full day in Amsterdam before heading south to France.

So far, all the roadtrips I've had with Caroline have been amazing, so I'm getting pretty excited about this one. Here's a couple of memories from the last roadtrip in the USA.

Caroline touching a Dinosaur Bone

Me at Arches National Park in Utah

Glen Eira Last Chance

It is getting to the final stages of our last 7 round Swiss qualifying event for 2015. The Last Chance event has seen 6 out of 7 rounds played, and the only qualifier for the championship so far is John Nemeth. It is great to have John along at the club, away from his usual Noble Park Chess Club. Noble Park are coming to the end of one their events too, and we are not far away from Noble Park's annual weekender.

The Noble Park Classic is an excellent weekend event, rated on the ACF system and run under a 60 + 10 time control. This means that there can comfortably be 7 rounds played over the weekend. The tournament will be held over the weekend of 19th and 20th September, and I would urge everyone to play in it. I've played before and had a great time there.

Anyway, it is great to attract players to our club from other clubs, and hopefully we are making them feel welcome. John is currently tied in first place with me on 5/6, we drew with each other and both took a half point bye. In third place is IM James Morris who was unable to play today because he was playing a catch up game in the Noble Park event that finishes tomorrow! James is on 4/6 and will qualify for the championship next week if he draws or wins.

After that there are a bunch of players lined up for the final qualifying place. Young Daniel Dessau has 3.5 and sits in clear 4th in the tournament, but he will have to avoid losing to a tough opponent if he wants a chance of making it to the championship. Then there are 3 players half a point behind, 2 of whom are looking for that final place: Axel Ahmer, and Alastair Locke, who had a great victory tonight against Alistair McCutcheon. There is an outside chance for Jerzy Krysiak to qualify, as he sits on 2.5, but other results will have to go his way.

Interestingly, the games between the juniors tonight were the longest games, with Mahalakshme Thiagarajaran and Gabriel Rips playing for 2.5 hours, and the Alastair-Alistair game lasting 2 hours. All the adults tonight were finished earlier!

I was quite happy to be told by IM James Morris a few weeks back that he thought my endgame play was a strength of mine. So here's a nice study that I found. I've been showing to some students.

White to play and win

I'll give you all a few days before giving you the answer!

Australian Championship 2016 Quality Assurance

It is still early days in the build up to the 2016 Australian Chess Championship, organised by the Melbourne Chess Club from 2nd January to 12th January.

Early entries include the exciting young players IM Ari Dale, and FM's Jack Puccini and Gene Nakauchi, all of whom have proved capable of competing against GM opposition. 

Chess Victoria President Leonid Sandler announced this week that Latvian GM Arturs Neiksans (2596) will be playing in the Blitz Championship. It will be interesting to see if the 2016 Australian Championships gains other players who are coming to Australia for either the 2015 Australasian Masters or the 2016 Australian Women's Masters tournaments.

If these factors aren't enough to persuade you of the quality of the event, take a look at this beautifully crafted promo video. A lot of time and effort is being devoted to this event by a talented organising team, and that will ensure the quality.

Malitis Memorial Wrap Up

Last night was the final round of the Malitis Memorial. This year the tournament had been split into 2 sections, an 8-player round robin for the top rated players, and a swiss for all others. This had the desired effect of getting a larger than usual number of players to attend. A total of 43 players competed across the 2 divisions and I'm sure this is something the MCC will look at repeating in the future.

The Round Robin section had already been decided before yesterday's final round. IM Mirko Rujevic was 1.5 clear before the last round, but relentlessly won his final round game to score a clean 7/7 picket fence. Second place on an excellent 5/7 was junior David Cannon. I'm not sure if this is David's first breakthrough performance, but it will certainly not be his last. The improving youngster deservedly came clear second. I managed to salvage a bad start by claiming third place on 4.5/7. Not a brilliant performance, but not bad either. Somehow, I felt that I didn't play well enough to credit the +2 score.

The Swiss section was won by another veteran, Mehmedalija Dizdarevic, with an excellent 6.5/7. Mehmedalija could still have been overtaken going into the last round, but he secured victory with a win against Irishman Eamonn O'Molloy. The field was very competitive, which makes the winner's result even more impressive. Second place was shared by David Lacey, Rad Chmiel and Gary Bekker on 5/7. The strength of the field can be seen by the fact that no one in the top 18 was FIDE rated below 1700, with the top rated player being 1946. Roger Beattie proved to be the best under-1700 player, though Axel Ahmer finished on the same score as Roger, 3.5/7 but couldn't receive a rating prize because he is unrated. I don't think it will be long before Axel has a rating of at least 1700.

The MCC offer brilliancy prizes for each of their FIDE rated tournaments. I am, unfortunately, probably my own harshest critic, and instead of seeing the brilliant in my games, I tend to focus on that which was less good. Oh, and endgames, but it isn't often that an endgame wins a brilliancy prize! So while I've played some ok chess in this tournament, I haven't been too impressed overall with my play. Last night against Malcolm Pyke, I was gifted a positionally strong position out of the opening, and then converted it. There were some interesting tactics, but as is often the case, these were in the variations, rather than that which was played. The key position was:

This is a fairly typical Sicilian Rauzer type position. I can't say I know too much Rauzer theory, but I know that if white castles king side, it takes a little out the sting of a black exchange sacrifice on c3, but offers little in the way of playing for an opening advantage. As I tend to be the safety first type of player, this suited me. I thought that the game would continue with 8..Qa5 which virtually forces white to play 9.Bxf6 when we have  dynamically difficult position for both sides to play. I was also considering 8..Be7 in the above position, where it looks more like a Scheveningen, though white has played Bg5, rather than the more common Be3.

I was surprised to see 8..Rc8?! played. It is obviously what a Sicilian player is thinking of, putting a rook on the semi open c-file, but it leaves d6 weak. In the game, I was thinking that I'd seen this type of thing but without black having played e6. However, I haven't looked at the Rauzer for quite a while so I might have been mixing things up. Anyway, I played 9.Ndb5 hitting d6 twice, and black is already on the defensive. Malcolm saved his pawn with 9..Qe7, but it is not the sort of move that he would have wanted to play.

Black's pieces are all in the way of each other. I chose a plan to weaken black's light squares, and it worked out nicely. 10.Bf4!? e5 11.Bg5 losing a tempo, but taking over the d5 square, and the light squares.

Now, a white knight is going to land on d5 with plenty of force. After the moves 11..a6 12.Nd5 Qd8 13.Na3 Be6 14.Bxf6 gxf6 15.Bg4 black is in a very difficult position, which I was able to maintain, and develop into a winning advantage later in the game. 

By pinning the Be6, white maintains the knight on d5. Black is cramped for space, has weaknesses to aim at, and no counterplay so the win was relatively straightforward from here. I think that if I was black here, my chances of surviving against an equally rated player would be close to 0%.

My play in this tournament hasn't been brilliant. I have played some solid positional chess and some decent endgame play, but my openings are still rather shaky, and my calculation has been off at times. I can't play in the next event, The MCC Open which starts next Monday. It's a shame as it looks as if it's going to be another good field.