I'm Stunned...

I wake up this morning to the most stunning news in the chess World:

- Magnus Carlsen has lost with white against struggling Ivanchuk

- Kramnik beats Aronian with black pieces to take the outright lead

- MCC's Richard Voon is on a display board at Doeberl Cup!!!

The Candidates has gone completely nuts with a big change at the top. Vladimir Kramnik takes outright lead for the first time in the tournament after Levon Aronian failed to hold on in what apparently was an even endgame (I'll have a look at some of these even endgames later). Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen loses his first game since the Grand Prix Final in Sao Paulo last October (against Caruana) and finally cracks under what must surely be the most amazing pressure. So with 2 rounds to go, there are really now only 2 possible winners of the event, Kramnik and Carlsen. Aronian is now 1.5 behind Kramnik so while he has a mathematical chance, I think we can count him out and call it a 2 horse race. So it remains to be seen whether Carlsen can bounce back after a loss, or indeed whether Kramnik can maintain his amazing form in this second half of the tournament where he has scored 4.5/5. Personally, I would like to see Carlsen take the event if only so that we get a new challenger for the World Title. However, as I said right at the start at the event, whoever wins will no doubt deserve it, and if that is Kramnik, then good on him.

In Canberra, the Premier tournament continues to see upsets with lots of draws holding players up somewhat. One player who isn't being held up is Levante Vajda. Last year he came equal first after starting with a strong 4.5/5. This year he has started just as strong with 4/4 and is currently involved in a stodgy battle with Indian GM Sethuraman, the sort of game that has brought him success this year. Sethuraman is also on 4/4, and they are half ahead of top seed GM Li Chao of China who dropped half a point to Australian prodigy FM Bobby Cheng. Cheng won the Australian Open in January and has continued in fine form at the start of Doeberl, sitting on 3/4 in a big group of players just behind the leaders.

My club, the Melbourne Chess Club (MCC), is well represented in Canberra. In the Premier we can claim Cheng who is a life member of the club, FM Dragicevic who is also on 3/4 after starting the tournament in excellent form beating IM Ly and GM Varga already, GM Johansen (another life member) and FM Stojic both on 3/4. IM James Morris sits on 2.5, (as does Justin Tan who I'm not sure has joined the club this year, but has been an active member in the past...we at MCC wish Justin well whether he is a member or not!), David Garner and Ari Dale on 2, David Beaumont and Jack Puccini are on 1 point, while Felix Wyss is yet to get off the mark.

In the Major (U-2000), MCC have a player on top board, none other than veteran Richard Voon. Richard is one of 11 players on 2/2 in the 7-round swiss which basically is a lose a game and your out type of event! Half a point behind the leaders are a large group including MCC regulars Dimitry Partsi, Jason Chew and Andrew Saint, while Gary Bekker, Rad Chmiel, Anthony Hain, Finley Dale and Sarah Anton all sit on 1/2. Also playing from the MCC are Ray Yang (.5) and Angelo Tsagarakis (.5, unable to recreate Ballarat form).

The Minor (U-1600) is another 7 round swiss with an MCC presence. Daniel Dobos is one of 11 players on a perfect 2/2, while Gerard Barta who I haven't seen for a long time is on 1.5. Hannibal Swartz is on 1/2 while Paul Cavezza is on .5/2.

Again, I wish everyone good luck in their games and especially MCC players. By the way, my apologies if I left anyone out from the MCC, just let me know and I'll add you in. :)

It's a Good Friday for Chess

Well, it all happened yesterday and no mistake. The London Candidates which has already surpassed my expectations for excitement brought up some new drama. Having gone to bed before the action started, I awoke this morning to a draw for Carlsen, a loss for Aronian and a win for Kramnik. These 3 players are really bringing this event alive and one of them must surely be the winner. Carlsen retains his half point lead, but now it is ex-World Champion Kramnik in second. He has leapfrogged over Aronian who is a further half point back with just 3 rounds to go. As I said in the last post, Carlsen holds his destiny in his own hands, especially as he has white in 2 of his 3 remaining games. If Carlsen can avoid losing, then it is hard to see anyone overtaking him. And a lot will depend on the momentous clash between Aronian and Kramnik later today. It will definitely be a battle of nerves in the final 3 rounds, and alas for my tipping, it looks as if Aronian's nervous energy is shot away. After over pressing against Boris Gelfand a couple of days ago, he self destructed against Peter Svidler by throwing his g and b-pawn's 2 squares down the board on consecutive moves creating serious weaknesses which were easily exploited by Svidler.

But the game that interested me most was the Grischuk-Carlsen clash. This is mainly because Grischuk chose a line of the Grunfeld that I had a look at a while back, the Zaitsev variation. It's a funny system that gets right into black's face, which, to be honest, is what black attempts to do to white when playing the Grunfeld.

The move 5.h4 (or 4.h4 without the moves 4.Nf3 Bg7) is the very aggressive idea of Alexander Zaitsev, and it appeals to the likes of me (coffeehouse hacker) because of the simplistic concept behind the move. Essentially, white is getting ready to directly attack black's king side. Typical themes involve sacrificing the c-pawn, shuffling the king to f1 or g1 for safety, trying to dominate the dark squares on the king side but playing across the entire board. It is a nightmarishly difficult system to play, but fun nevertheless. To add to the appeal, the present favourite of top GM's amongst coffeehouse hackers such as myself, Alexander Morozevich, played this system twice in Beijing towards the end of last year against Anish Giri (the blitz game is especially fun!).




On the domestic front, Doeberl started with a bang. Yesterday, the first round went pretty much according to plan, but the second round was a carnage as the seeds fell one after another: 2680ish Loek van Wely came a cropper to 2400ish Stephen Solomon; Luke Li Zuhao defeated GM Adam Horvath, Justin Tan defeated GM Attila Czebe, and IM Moulton Ly was beaten by FM Domagoj Dragicevic. Not only that, but GM Varga, GM Laxman, IM Palit Somak and IM Brown were held to draws by Tingtie Lei, FM Dusan Stojic, Anton Smirnov and John Nemeth respectively.

There were further upsets on the lower boards as well. Today the Premier sees another 2 rounds after which we should have some idea of the lie of the land. And also the 'Major' (under 2000) and 'Minor" (under 1600) tournaments start giving an even more local flavour to the Easter chess festival.

Australia's Premier Event

Annually, the top event in Australia is the Easter long weekend Doeberl Cup in Canberra. This year, the organisers have assembled perhaps the strongest field to date for their premier tournament with 75 players listed of which 11 are Grand Masters, 10 are International Masters, 3 are above 2600 and 18 are over 2400. Besides the Premier there are 3 other sections, for players rated below 2000 ACF, below 1600 ACF, and below 1200 ACF. The numbers of participants in each of the fields is good, with 72 in the U-2000, 50 in the U-1600, and 43 for the U-1200.

I really like tournaments with rated sections, rather than one big open tournament. I feel they are more inclusive, and allow players to step up into a harder section, or to try to win a prize within their rating group. As a promising player in the UK a long, long time ago, I spent a year playing in weekend tournaments sometimes playing in open's for the experience and sometimes trying to win limited rated sections. Eventually I had to play only in open sections, but the value of working my way through 'novice', then 'minor', then 'major' sections built my strength gradually and assuredly. My improvement was constantly being challenged by others rated above me, and by those who were improving with me as we tried to progress faster than one another.

Unfortunately, there are few tournaments in Australia that offer ratings limited sections, especially in Victoria and I wonder if this is a deterrent to some players. As a 1400 strength player I'm not sure I would be happy about continually being pushed into events where I was a bottom seed by a long margin. I would be happy to step up once in a while, but I would also like to try to win a section designed for players around my ability, say for instance, an under 1600 tournament.

I have fond recollection of playing as a junior and a lower rated player in tournaments where Grand Masters also competed, but in different sections, the annual Hastings Congress being a prime example. My first Hastings saw me playing in a minor, but I eventually progressed to the top amateur section. Meanwhile, next to me Masters and Grandmasters competed in the "Challengers" and "Premier" sections. This meant that I was able to compete at a comfortable level, while also rubbing shoulders with some of my heroes, and learning about other players who would become players I would be continually trying to match myself against.

I will be keenly following the events in Canberra, and not just the strong Premier event. I have friends and students playing throughout the sections so each tournament holds a special interest for me. There are live games which actually start about now. There will be the top 4 boards of the Premier which starts today, and from tomorrow there will also be the top board from the U-2000 and U-1600 sections.

Good luck to all the competitors. I will be following this closely as I'm sure many other Australians will be, and I will be especially cheering along my fellow Victorians and MCC players who have made the trip to Canberra.

Lots of chess action, but none live!

Unfortunately with the time zone differences between the UK and Australia I am not able to follow the Candidates tournament live. I'm still ardently following the event, just after the fact. And that loses some of it's immediacy and tension. I love watching live games, seeing the action unfold, and trying to guess the moves and ideas that the players are coming up with. Then perhaps comparing how my ideas and moves match up to their own. It's actually a good way of improving your thinking, as when you propose a move that isn't played, you try to justify it and then if you finally admit your move was worse than the played move, it teaches you how you should be thinking and playing.

It is doubly unfortunate for me and Aussies who can't follow the action live, because there has been plenty of action and drama. I'm sure there is still some action and drama to come, especially as the field is relatively close still. The top 5 players are separated by 1.5 points and with 5 rounds still to go, any of them could still finish first. Of course, Magnus Carlsen must now be the favourite to take outright first, though he is only half a point ahead of Aronian and a point clear of Kramnik. Boris Gelfand has surprised everyone by coming out of the first half of the tournament in poor form, to score 2 wins in excellent fashion at the start of the second half. It is probably too much to ask for Gelfand to maintain that momentum, but he will be fully pumped for his next game against Carlsen who has been hanging on rather than moving forward for the past couple of rounds. While he's out of contention, I was happy to see Ivanchuk win a game. I don't like to see any player without a win in a tournament, and I've been in that position myself a few times pretty deep into events so I know how it feels.

What was triply unfortunate for me was that the live action that I was looking forward to at the Melbourne Chess Club was switched off last night. So I'll have to wait to see those games as well! And to make matters worse, it looked a fascinating round (a lot of byes, but I guess the Jewish Pesach required that quite a few players couldn't attend). I would have eagerly followed FM Wallis-IM West on board 1. Neither of these players give any quarter and both would have been out for a win. The game ended in a draw which leaves Guy still first. Ari Dale could have caught him with a win, but he could also only draw with FM Dragicevic. Justin Tan won his game to move within a point of West. The top places are:

6. West
5.5 Dale
5. Wallis, Dragicevic, Tan
4.5. Pyke, Beaumont, Hacche

The winner will come from this group of players, though Guy West controls his own destiny. The postponed games Drew (3.5)-Stojic (4) and Dizdarevic (3.5)-Michaille (4) will also place players into these groups.

So no live action from London or the MCC. So I'll have to regurgitate what I've been telling my advanced kids today. While it's a good idea to play to your own strengths, I think you should vary your style depending on the strength of your opponent. It makes sense, if your playing someone who you believe to be weaker than yourself, to play a safe game and to take no risks. The chances are that the longer the game goes, the more likely it is that the weaker player will blunder, so a stronger player wants those games to go a long time. Conversely, if you're playing someone you believe to be much stronger than you, it makes more sense to try something risky, and bring the game into a tactical mess where your stronger opponent is as likely to blunder as you. Remember, the longer the game the more chance you will blunder, so keep the game short and try to blast your opponent away. If it fails, then at least you will have some tactical ideas to look at, and you will have saved yourself the horror of being slowly ground down over a long time.

To make this point I found a game played in the recent Rejkyavik Open where a 1900 player smashes a 2473 rated IM with the Muzio Gambit. I found this game with some pretty extensive motes from Michael Yip's excellent Budapest Chess News. Just the game is good, but if you want the notes, you can go to the site and download the files for free. Check it out, and watch the fun :)

Autumn

It's a funny old word. I was thinking this just the other day when admiring a beautiful Melbourne Autumn day. It was about 25C, bright blue skies and hardly any wind. We have had an unseasonably hot start to Autumn this year with a host of days in the 30's at the start of March. But then it suddenly broke and we've been treated to absolutely glorious weather, with the odd bit of madness such as the squall that blew through Melbourne this afternoon bringing high winds and rain.

New England in the Fall (prairiecoach)

To be honest, Autumn is my favourite season in Melbourne (it was spring when I lived in the UK). There is a freshness to the climate which no doubt has something to do with the drop in temperatures after our fierce summers. It is a relief to be over with the 35C+ temps and even 30C+ temps continually can become tiring after a sustained period. But Autumn is also a colourful month for flora, and there can be some breathtaking sunsets in Autumn.

I have vivid memories of a road trip that I undertook with Caroline to see New England in the fall. We drove from New York to Boston along the coast and then headed through the White Mountains and up to Montreal. We came back down through Adirondack country to New York.We did this about 10 years ago and I still have amazing memories, even though the locals kept telling us the colours weren't fully out yet! You can also get some pretty spectacular scenery in Australia in autumn. I've been to the Grampians and the Southern Alps in Autumn and was pretty impressed.

Bright in Victoria living up to it name (Australiaimg)

But as I said, autumn is a funny old word. It is old, stemming from Old French. Funnily enough, Americans use the term Fall instead of Autumn and this is also derived from the "olde worlde", though this time Germanic languages, possibly Norse. It was commonly used in England, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries, and that is when emigration to the USA was at it's peak. So those early English settlers took the word Fall with them to the USA where it has remained in use, while England changed to the more European Autumn.

While Autumn is the oddest looking of the words for the seasons, it is by no means the oldest. Surprisingly, that goes to Summer, which can trace it's origins back about 6000 years! There's loads of interesting facts about the names of the seasons and other things on this site. I'm going to stop wondering how words came to be used for things and start getting out and enjoying the beauty of Autumn/Fall in Melbourne! Here's a bit of Vivaldi to celebrate Autumn.

MCC Championship Resumes

After the week off for the Ballarat Weekender, the Melbourne Chess Club Championship resumed last night. I thought it was very considerate of the London Candidates to schedule a rest day so as not to clash with the MCC Ch. However, it was unfortunate that the live coverage of the top board game seemed to stick after about 20 moves when things were getting interesting. IM Guy West was leading the tournament with 5/5 before the week off. Last night he played young gun Justin Tan. To be honest I was not sure about the play up to the loss of transmission. First I thought Justin was doing ok when he advanced e5, then I thought Guy was doing ok when Justin sacrificed a pawn in the centre (I thought Guy should have taken with the pawn, but I could understand the queen capture as well). In the position at the end of transmission I couldn't work out who I'd rather be.

It's white to move, and although he is a pawn ahead, he has to lose his e4 pawn, and the e3 pawn will be a permanent weakness. However, the 2 bishops and the open centre give compensation, and the split of pawns with no majorities would lean toward drawish tendencies. In fact the game ended in a draw, which keeps Guy outright leader on 5.5. Ari Dale closed the gap with West to half a point with a big win against FM Dusan Stojic, while a further half point back are FM's Chris Wallis and Domogoj Dragicevic.

There were also some upsets in this round. Paul Kovacevic continued his excellent tournament drawing with David Beaumont. Jason Chew caused a bigger upset winning against experienced campaigner Richard Voon. But the result of the night was Finley Dale's draw with IM Mirko Rujevic. Mirko is not having his best tournament, but nevertheless this is a huge result for young Finley.

There are still 3 rounds to go and a lot of chess to be played here. I would say that anyone within 1.5 of Guy still has a chance (slim, but still a chance) while almost half the field could finish in the places with a 3/3 finish.

A Coffee House Player

According to a definition I found in Wikipedia Coffeehouse chess is:

"..a move, player, or style of play characterized by risky, positionally dubious play that sets traps for the opponent. The name comes from the notion that one would expect to see such play in skittles games played in a coffeehouse or similar setting, particularly in games played for stakes and/or blitz chess.."

Now having played a number of players who could be described in these terms, I know that typical Coffeehouse Chess players can be pretty strong, especially tactically. But there have been some pretty strong players over the years who have been called Coffeehouse players in a derogatory sense, with Judit Polgar springing immediately to mind. Judit is an excellent tactical player, who has played for many traps during her games. But that doesn't mean she doesn't understand how to play positionally. I don't think anyone who makes it to the top 10 in the World should be described as weak positionally.

The latest victims of the label Coffeehouse player is the current leader of the London Candidates tournament, World Number 3, Levon Aronian and the man he just beat, Vassily Ivanchuk. When commenting on Ivanchuk's play, Aronian said:

"I tend to do things like this and friends tell me I'm a coffee house player"

Well, that is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, and anyone who can trap a top 20 player tactically should be pretty happy with themselves. That is what Aronian did to last year's defeated World Champion Boris Gelfand in round 2.

Gelfand as black had just played 24..Bd8 and Aronian's thinking is interesting. "After Bd8 I was thinking which move should I play to provoke Rc8" said Aronian after the game. Aronian played 25.b4 in the hope of his opponent playing 25..Rc8 which he duly did. Aronian had set a trap which Gelfand walked into. 26.Bh6+! which wins a pawn. Gelfand played 26..Kg8 (26..Kxh6 27.Rxc8 Bxc8 28.Nxf7+ followed by 29.Nxd8 is the point) 27.Rxc8 Bxc8 28.Nc6 winning material as the knight threatens d8, a7 and another fork on e7.

Going into the first rest day, Aronian is clear leader on 2.5/3. He is followed closely by Carlsen and Svidler on 2/3, Kramnik, Radjabov, Grischuk 1.5/3 and Ivanchuk, Gelfand .5/3. There is a long way to go, but I'm hoping the Coffeehouse player can stay ahead of course. Here are his 2 wins in the tournament so far, where he shows how to be a coffeehouse player, and how to beat a coffeehouse player.