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 Junior Championships: The Winners

I am finally over the problems that I encountered leaving this event and travelling home, and I apologise for not getting this final report on the championships out sooner. In my opinion there was some good and some not too good to come out of the Championships, but that is probably the case with all tournaments. I'll start with the good, but this is all just my own opinion, so don't think I'm stating any official position here.

The venue wasn't spectacular (last time I was in Queensland the juniors shared a luxurious hotel with the senior championship!) but was more than adequate for the event. I've played in many sports halls for chess events, and always found them fairly comfortable. The surroundings of Bond University were pleasant, and there was plenty of safe outside space for kids to play in, though I'm not sure how many took advantage of this. The tournament was organised well by Andrew FitzPatrick and Gardiner Chess, and events ran more or less smoothly. The Tornelo management software worked well and enabled quick upload of games and results. The players conducted themselves well, and generally put their whole effort into each game. The competitiveness of each section can be seen by the fact that only one age group division (under 10's) was decided before the last round.

So a big congratulations to the winners. In the under 18's Gene Nakauchi was really the stand out and worthy winner of the event after his good showing in the Australian Open earlier in January. I think it was at Ballarat last year that IM Stephen Solomon told me in passing that Nakauchi was about to break through in a big way. It seems Stephen's prediction was right! In the under 16 top seed Oscar Wang found himself under pressure early, but fought back with an impressive run scoring 6.5/7 at the end of the tournament to overtake Punala Kiripitige and win this section. The under 14 was all about the Willthgamuwa brothers moving up divisions and much talk was whether either could win (many thought one of them would). But both were pushed back by Tom Maguire who gave away just 2 draws to win the title on an impressive 8/9. The under 12's was (predictably) the most competitive section ending in a 4 way tie for first. The play off was won, perhaps surprisingly, by Kerry Lin. I say 'surprisingly' because Kerry had only managed to finish =9th in the under 10's which was won convincingly by Kevin Willathgamuwa with a round to spare. The under 8's was also won convincingly by Christopher Lim, who also moved up to compete in the under 12 event where he finished on half points, a very good performance for a 6 year old!

The girls events were bundled into 2 divisions and the titles went to Nicole Chin (under 18), Zhi Lin Guo (under 16), Chloe Chin (under 14), Fiona Shen (under 12), Emily Lin (under 10) and Kamryn Durden (under 8). All the results are available on the tournament website.

The effort by all the players was excellent as there were some pretty grueling schedules and they managed to upload their games (965) after playing them. The coaches were working flat out to help their students, either with technical advice or moral support. My favourite coaches moment was sitting near to Jim Cannon who was working with some under 8 girls and having them in hysterical laughter over something or other. Good work Jim, let's make the game fun first and produce winners once the kids love the game!

Actually, that's left me in such a good mood that I'm going to leave the critical parts of this report till a later blog post. Congratulations to all players who put in such a great effort, and especially to the new Champions.

Travel Tips for those getting home from extreme Weather Affected Regions

The first and most important tip is don't expect anything to go your way. If you expect the worst, then you probably won't be disappointed and will manage difficult situations better.

The second tip is don't let your frustrations get the better of you. Getting angry only really wears you down more, and people are more likely to be responsive and helpful if you are calm and polite.

The third tip is try to laugh and keep your spirits high. It is easy to get stressed and upset, though the situation is really out of your control so not your fault. High stress levels are a serious health hazard and will also affect one's judgement, thought processes and energy levels, all of which will be needed in good supply during these types of extreme situations.

Extreme Queensland Floods: This is already becoming an iconic image of this year's disaster, courtesy of 7news

Case Study:

Travelling Virgin Australia from Gold Coast, Queensland to Melbourne, Victoria while Tropical Cyclone Oswald makes its way down the length of Queensland.

I was due to fly back from Gold Coast, Coolangatta Airport on Sunday 27th January, but a major cyclone blew into the region in the south east of Queensland sometime on Friday and by Sunday there was plenty of rain affecting the whole area. We'd seen and heard on the news of flooding to the north, where the cyclone was coming from and were on edge as to whether we would be able to fly home that day. However, it was still a bit disappointing when the call finally came to us from Virgin Australia that our flight had been cancelled (when I say we, there were a lot of families in the group I was with and many worked together to try and help each other out).

At this point contingency plans start to be looked at. So, was it possible to transfer to the bigger neighbouring airport at Brisbane, or was it possible to hire a car and drive, or would it be necessary to sit tight in a hotel and wait for the storm to pass? As the drive home involved 2 full days of driving, and no one wanted to stay any longer than necessary, the plan was to transfer the booking to Brisbane. A phone call from one of our group to her son in Melbourne had him waiting on the line to the Virgin call centre (no doubt everybody else affected had the same idea, as he was on hold for the best part of an hour) and eventually he managed to get a big group of us booked on to a flight leaving Brisbane on the 27th at 7pm. We were told we would have to make our own way to Brisbane, though in fact we later found out that buses were shuttling passengers from Coolangatta to Brisbane and we could have done this. Instead we all jumped on train and paid out for the 1 hour 45 minute journey to Brisbane Airport.

The train journey took us through flood ravaged areas, and didn't inspire hope of getting away. At Brisbane Airport, we were greeted with high winds, lashing rains and long queues. We waited for about 2 and a half hours for a flight which was delayed from 7pm to 8pm. We were boarded sometime near 9pm though it still seemed unbelievable that we would take off. The plane was rocking in the high winds while stationary so I personally was somewhat worried about how the plane would fare during take off. Then came some particularly poor customer service actions by Virgin Australia staff.

1. Pilot informs us that he has flown too many hours and will need to be replaced. This causes us to wait another half hour on the plane.
2. New pilot introduces himself and complains that he was dragged away from the TV where he was watching the Australian Open Tennis Final. He also informs us that the cabin supervisor changed flights and we have to wait for another cabin supervisor.
3. Another 20 minutes passes before we're told that the flight we're sat on has been cancelled as no more staff can be found. No apology offered, but we are told to pick up our bags, go home and call the Virgin helpline to get a new flight!
4. Staff back in the airport just repeat the message already told to us, and offer no further advice.

So we have no choice but to stay another night in Queensland, though we are told that Virgin will recompense us for our hotel bills (we will see!). Thank heavens for 21st Century technology, as smart phones, tablets and laptops were all immediately put to use to find a place to stay and we all managed to get in the same hotel (14 of us). By this time we were tired and despondent and it didn't really help the nerves when the hotel's electricity cut out soon after we arrived. I think it was a difficult night's sleep for many in the group who were worrying about how the following day would go, but I managed to sleep ok for maybe 6 hours. The next morning it was back to the phones, though my plan was to go straight to Brisbane Airport to try to sort things out at the Virgin service desk. This is eventually what I did, though others in the group had managed to reschedule flights, though they decided to leave Brisbane early and fly home via Sydney. En route to the airport, more signs of devastation became apparent with trees blown down and major flooding. At this point I think most of us had to admit our frustration the night before at being stranded in Brisbane had been wrong, and perhaps we were lucky that the plane hadn't tried to take off in the terrible conditions.

The scene outside my hotel after a night stranded in Brisbane

Back at Brisbane Airport, at the service desk I was able to smile and act friendly and I was soon placed on a flight direct to Melbourne at 4.55pm. I dropped off my bag, got my boarding pass and went through the security to the departure lounge for the long wait for my flight. At this point all of the group were splitting up. Half were off to Sydney, while half of us were going on later flights direct to Melbourne. We started to laugh about our situation and likened things to the TV show, The Amazing Race. (Today, I received an email looking at our situation from exactly this perspective. It's pretty funny, but especially for those who were there). All our flights were delayed, as were most of the flights that day, but we all managed to get off and all of us got back to Melbourne that evening.There were some doubts going through my mind until the plane was actually speeding down the runway and I'm sure that the others had the same doubts.

Due to the chaos of the day, my bag had been left in Brisbane, while another family had their luggage left in Sydney but they were all luckily returned to us today. It has been a nightmare travel experience for all of us but the worst we had to endure was some discomfort, some stress and disappointment and an extra night away from home. The real sufferers are those who are having to live through the floods in areas of Queensland and New South Wales and my heart goes out to those people affected by it. The images shown on the news have been truly frightening, and even that which I witnessed personally were pretty scary.

I'll leave you with a before and during image. Last Tuesday, I'd been walking around the Gold Coast having a beautiful day out. Just a few days later the storm came in, completely changing the surroundings.

Burleigh Heads beach on a typical summer's day (22nd January 2013)

The same beach on 28th January 2013, as reported on 7news

Last day of the Australian Juniors

This post has been cancelled due to bad weather!

So far, due to high winds and torrential rains caused by Tropical Cyclone Oswald, I have had the most weird of days. First I discovered my flight from Gold Coast Airport back to Melbourne had been cancelled. Then I discovered that I had been rescheduled on to a plane at Brisbane, except there was no idea given on how to get there, so with some other parents and kids in the same condition I jumped a train to Brisbane Airport. I then stood in a queue for about 3 hours before being checked in and am now sitting at the gate, waiting to board my flight which is already 35 minutes late. So I will not be back in Melbourne before about 11pm local time.

Therefore, thanks to the Queensland weather this blog post in cancelled due to bad weather conditions. I'll be writing it in full tomorrow.

Surf up on the Gold Coast

Torrential rain and heavy winds at Brisbane Airport

A very wet Varsity Lakes train station on the Gold Coast

Australian Junior's and Double Chins

The Chin sisters on board 1 in the under 18 girls

Sorry, but I couldn't resist the title! The penultimate day of the Australian Juniors saw some sorting out happen. In the girls under 18, the top seeds have risen to the head of the event, with Nicole Chin (right in the picture above) having a 1 point lead going into the final round. In round 7, she played her younger sister Chloe (left in the picture above) who is also playing well and currently in joint third. I'm not too sure who is in which position at the different age groups (U-18, U-16 and U-14) but all will be revealed tomorrow.

In the boys events, things have generally become clearer. In the under 18's Gene Nakauchi is now a point clear of Yi Liu who is himself a point clear of Yi Yuan and Pengyu Chen. The under 16 tournament is led by Oscar Wang who is half a point ahead of Punala Kiritipige who is a further point clear of the rest. Tom Maguire won both his games in the under 14's today and has taken control of the under 14 event, a full point clear of both the young Willathgamuwa brothers. And in the under 12's Denny Han has a clear point lead from a pack of 5 players!

The under 10 and 8's girls had to play 4 games today, and there was actually 1 draw, spoiling a perfect set of results. Those 2 girls who drew with each other, Cassandra Lim and Emily Lin are currently that half point ahead of the field. There are 2 more games tomorrow for these girls which should be a nerve tingling experience.

Tom Maguire (right) clear leader of the under 14 boys

Tomorrow should be pretty exciting as a number of minor places are up for grabs, and no one has actually won a title. There may be play offs to determine champions, and then there will be the prize giving, which is what all the kids want to be a part of. There is a combination of trophies and cash prizes, though there has been some debate as to whether cash prizes are appropriate, especially at the younger age groups. I don't remember winning any money prizes in junior competitions, but being elated to walk away with a trophy, or better still, a book prize! Then again, we are talking pre computer and mobile phone days. In fact colour TV hadn't been around too long in my house when I started playing junior chess, and Fischer was still World Champ, though only just! Anyway, enough old-man talk, here are the trophies.

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.

A Quick Australian Junior 2013 Post

Ok, it's late, and I'm exhausted so this will be brief. First the weather has taken a turn for the worse here, which is great for chess enthusiasts!

That large white block of cloud above the North East of Australia is Tropical Cyclone Oswald which is heading South towards where we are on the Gold Coast about half way up the eastern coast. Today there was plenty of grey clouds, and a fair amount of showers though nothing particularly heavy. What we get over the next few days is anybodies guess!

Anyway, with this weather there's no excuse to go outside and play, so chess is the order of the day. So, starting with the oldest, a draw on top board secured Gene Nakauchi's overall lead in the tournament, but helped the rest to close up. Yi Yuan and Yi Liu are half a point back and Thomas Pinnock (who is the next to tackle Nakauchi) a further half point down. Top seed Oscar Wang has finally taken the lead in the under 16 section. He is a point clear of 3 players, Punala Kiripitige, Martin Jack and the still impressive Clint Therakam who must really go down as the man of the whole Australian Juniors. Today Clint notched up another upset win against George Carolin-Unkovitch who is rated about 550 points above Therakam!

The under 14's might well be the closest of the lot, and it is unbelievably competitive. No one has reached 4/4 and a group of 4 players sit at the top on 3.5. However, there are a further 10 players within a point of these, so anyone that starts to accumulate points from now is going to be close to the top at the end of the tournament. To be honest, no one player has particularly stood out for me yet, so tomorrow might be a big day in establishing an order for this event. There is an outright leader in the under 12 in Kevin Song of Queensland. He is closely followed by a group of 5 players headed by top seed David Cannon. However, David hasn't played the most convincing chess and will hopefully find his full strength over the next full days.

From round 3, David had gotten into a horrible mess as black. If Max Phillips with white had played 43.Rxf7 Kxf7 44.Qc5, the game would probably have not lasted much longer and we would have had an upset. However, White played a blunder, 43.Ne2? and David took his chance with 43..Rxf2 44.Kxf2 Rf6+ and white's king has no good squares and black wins the knight and soon after went on to win the game. David has been pushed hard in most of his games, which I suppose comes with the territory of being top seed!

The girls under 18 event has a clear leader in Rebecca Strickland who has convincingly moved to 4/4. She is half a point ahead of Nicole Chin who is half a point ahead of 3 more players. This field is spreading out, but I'm not sure of the sections that the girls are qualified for, so it's difficult to know who is leading which event as the under 18's, 16's and 14's are all together. I'll try to get to grips with this and work out who is trying to win which section tomorrow. The younger girls are also bunched together in under 10's and 8's. These start tomorrow and have the onerous schedule of 3 games tomorrow, 4 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. There are going to be some very tired girls on Saturday evening!

And finally here are the winners from the lightning events!

Under 12's champion was Kris Chan from Victoria who scored an amazing 10/11, while the under 18 championship was won by Yi Liu of Queensland with a perfect 11/11. Congratulations to these 2 speed specialists. Full results can be found on the tournament website.