Australasian Masters - The Unsung Heroes

IM Leonid Sandler, making "The Right Move" as organiser of the 2015 Australasian Masters, attracting strong GM's like Arturs Neiksans

The 2015 Australasian Masters finished earlier today. The tournament was a resounding success for Australian chess with Max Illingworth scoring his final GM norm and qualifying for the title. More was to follow as a second GM norm was achieved the day after when Kanan Izzat scored his first GM norm. As GM norms are a rarity in Australia, having 2 in the same tournament is a big success for the organisers.

In fact, the organisation deserves a big thanks. The Australian Masters, now called the Australasian Masters, has been a privately run event for over 25 years. What this means is that whoever can be bothered to put the effort in to get it together makes a ring around, organises things and then has to go through the process of pulling one's hair out when players pull out at the last minute and replacements need to be found. I am saying this from my own experience of running the Australian Masters in 2006. It came together in the end, but not without a number of headaches.

When Chess Victoria President Leonid Sandler took over the running of the event, he had big plans for it, moving it from a low category (often category 1 or 2) IM norm possibility, to a GM norm event. This eventuated 2 years ago with the first GM norm Australasian Masters. The tournament has steadily developed under Leonid's organisation, and now the third GM norm event has finally brought Australia the much desired norms. Hopefully Leonid will continue to run this tournament, using his influence with Australian and international chess to attract strong Grand Masters to Melbourne.

IA Kerry Stead, arbiter and chess scoresheet decipherer

Leonid's organisation was backed up by IA Kerry Stead, the arbiter for the event, who doubled as bulletin writer and pgn game editor. To make Kerry's life a little easier, Phillip Drew was on hand to manage the DGT boards which were in use for the GM section games, bringing the event live to the public. But even with just 5 games to manually input, Kerry had his work cut out at times deciphering scoresheets. It would seem that many chess players would not win neat handwriting competitions!

Phillip Drew ensured the DGT technology broadcast the games from the GM section

There were some other unsung heroes that are worth a mention. ACF President Gary Wastell was often on hand helping out, as were MCC committee members including Elizabeth Warren, Simon Dale and Thai Ly.

ACF Prez Gary Wastell with his back to us, was one of the background figures who helped ensure the tournament ran smoothly.

The heroes of the tournaments:

GM Section
1st IM K Izzat
2nd IM M Illingworth
3rd GM A Neiksans

IM Section
1st IM I Bjeobrk
2nd FM C Wallis and FM E Schon

I think all the players in both sections enjoyed the experience of playing in what was probably the most professionally run Australian Masters in its history, and whether we played well. or not so good, we have a big debt of thanks to those who made the event possible.

A New Grandmaster

Australia's newest GM, Max Illingworth

The Australasian Masters is the only round robin event in Australia to offer norm possibilities. Over the 28 year history of the event, it hasn't always qualified for norms, and even when it has players haven't always achieved the required score. But this year we have had something special.

In the Grand Master section, IM Max Illingworth has scored the GM performance with 2 rounds to spare, with an incredible 6.5/7. I don't know of anyone who thinks Max is not worthy of the title and his occasional hiccup just shows that he is human. In fact, although undoubtedly talented, it could be argued that Max hasn't been the biggest prospect to arise in Australian Junior chess. But what is evident is that Max's workmanlike attitude, and dedication to the game, have meant that he has been able to continue his rise after his junior years, which so many players fail to do. Although I'm probably not qualified to say, it appears that Max is still improving, so where he will end up is anyone's guess. But if determination and effort are the criteria to judge someone by, then Max is right up there. This is the third GM norm for Max, and seeing he has been over 2500 (and may have risen over 2500 again due to his performance here) he should become a GM as soon as it is ratified by FIDE.

IM Izzet (left) needs half a point for a GM norm vs GM Johansen, 3 times winner of the Masters.

Max has had only one draw in the first 7 rounds, and that was to IM Kanan Izzat, the Azerbaijani teenager who is studying in Melbourne. Kanan has also had an amazing start to the event with 6/7, and he stands in second place with only half a point required to achieve his GM norm. Like Max Kanan has shown excellent opening preparation, strong tactical awareness, and great determination. This latter quality was shown to vivid effect in his endgame win against top seed GM Neiksans from Latvia.

The Grand Masters have not had the best of tournaments, but Neiksans has now moved into third place on 5/7. To be fair, this would be a good score if the two young IM's weren't blazing through the field. However, both Papin and Johansen have been out of sorts, which is a shame to see.  The other young players will probably have mixed feelings about the event. I'm guessing James Morris and Anton Smirnov might be a bit disappointed, though their scores and play show they are competitive at this level, and under other circumstances might even have done better. Bobby Cheng lacks tournament practice, so his 50% must be seen as a good comeback to chess. Bobby will continue into the Australian Championship and hopefully this will be a full comeback for a player who has been Australia's only World Champion at the youth level. Melbourne High School players Ari Dale and Luke Li have found the going tough, but again, have proved competitive, and especially Ari could have been better if he'd been able to convert some promising looking positions.

IM Igor Bjelobrk can afford to relax with his 7/7 start in the IM event

In the IM event that I'm playing in, it is all about IM Igor Bjelobrk who has scored 7/7, and stands 2 points clear with 2 to play. Igor, to put it simply, has not had any trouble at all in any of his games, and his solid style and ability to punish errors has proved too good. In the 7th round he converted a difficult opposite coloured bishop ending against FM Chris Wallis, which put a dent in Wallis's IM norm chances. Chris is currently in second place on 5/7, but he will be focusing on winning his last 2 games, as that will get him his second IM norm. With a good performance in the Australian Championship, Chris could conceivably score another norm, and could be close to reaching 2400. I wish him the best in his last 2 games.

Chris has to face IM Richard Jones, the top seed, who is having a pretty tough tournament. Richard is only on 3/7 but Chris will still have to be aware that Richard could kick into his top form at any moment. The other IM, Mirko Rujevic is in equal third with FM Eugene Schon. This is a funny pair as we have probably the most optimistic player sitting on the same score as probably the most pessimistic, regarding their own positions. Mirko is certainly not short of self belief, while Eugene probably suffers from the complete opposite.And while Mirko sits at the top of the veterans list in Australia, Eugene is only in his early 20's and has a lot of development still hopefully to come.

Last minute replacement in the IM section, Alpaeus Ang is the lowest rated competitor but has scored 2.5 so far.

The rest of the IM field are probably just a little below par, or roughly where they should be. There have been no big breakthrough performances in this event. My own play has become weaker as the week has gone on. I could blame tiredness, but really it has been a lack of my own stamina and determination to perform, so I'd do well to look at those qualities of the leading players from the GM event is I want to improve my results in the future.

Finally, a game from the GM event. Kanan Izzat is a bit better from the opening against Neiksans, but after about 40 moves we are in a rook ending that looks pretty difficult for either side to win. Neiksans was quite short on time at this point, and allowed Kanan to show his endgame technique. Here's a position from the endgame. How confident would you be of beating a 2600+ GM from here?

Izzat as white did exactly that, winning a seemingly drawn position. This was the longest of the GM event so far, and epitomises the fighting determination of the young breed of players. This game and all the others from both sections can be downloaded form the official website, along with arbiter IA Kerry Stead's excellent daily bulletins.

Results Are What Are Remembered

The 4th round of the Australian Masters saw the GM norm hopefuls moving closer to their targets. Max Illingworth has started with a perfect 4/4. He needs only 2.5 from his remaining 5 games, but what a 5 games he has! He has to play the other 2 GM norm aspirants, Kanan Izzat and James Morris, the top 2 seeds, Neiksans and Papin, and IM norm hopeful Luke Li. It is certainly not out of the question, but Max will need to continue in his strong start.

Kanan Izzat currently has 1 GM norm to his name and has started with 3.5/4 bringing his live rating up to about 2470. His play has been impressive up to now, and his endgame win against top seed Neiksans, yesterday was excellent. Today is the big game, Illingworth-Izzat. Both players have shown excellent preparation, tenacity and technique so it promises to be a cracker.

The third GM norm hopeful is James Morris. James has started with 3/4 which means he has to score a further 3.5/5. But in James favour is that he has played all the GM's already. Saying that, yesterday James had a bit of a scare against Ari Dale. A wild game was played that seemed to fluctuate in evaluations with Ari coming out of the opening much better and for much of the game he seemed to have a big edge. James became active, and Ari slipped turning the position from big advantage, to level, to much worse. But even at the end, when James seemed to be winning, Ari missed some saving possibilities. The result was a victory for James who has moved a little closer to a GM norm.

This game, and some others in the round, got me thinking about the way we perceive chess after the fact. There aren't many people who will see how well Ari played in this game, how strong his opening play, and even how determined he defended in a tight spot once he was worse. Basically, after the tournament is over, the result will be win for James, loss for Ari and nothing more or less. In the IM tournament, another tragedy happened in the game Rujevic-Nguyen. Nam was a pawn up in a queen ending, but Mirko had cornered Nam's king and offered a draw as a perpetual seemed the most likely result. With a fantastic spirit of fighting chess Nam refused and played on trying to get as much out of the position as possible. Unfortunately, he overplayed his hand and ended up losing the position. What won't be remembered, is that for about 40 moves of this game, Nam held his IM opponent, and then gradually started to outplay him eventuating in a endgame which was equal or slightly better for him. No, all that will be remembered is that Mirko won, and Nam lost.

The win puts Mirko into joint third place, and leaves Nam equal last, but it could have been so different! Igor Bjelobrk continues his dominance of the event with another win and a 4/4 start. Chris Wallis is a point behind and still has a chance of a norm, though he will have to score 4/5 to do it. If Chris can find his best chess, then this could be possible because he can certainly play to master strength. In equal thrid is Richard Jones, who has stumbled a bit. In the third Jones, the top seed, lost to bottom seed Alphaeus Ang. Perhaps trying too hard to win, Jones blundered in a minor piece endgame, and the young New Zealander didn't miss his chance. And then in the fourth round, Jones was winning comfortably against me, and probably had a number of ways to win, but in the end he couldn't find them and the game petered out to a draw.

As for my play? Well, the results are what counts, right? If that is the case, then I'm doing a little better than expected on 1.5/2. However, when looking at my play, I was let off the hook in the draw against Jones, which I'd played badly and should have lost. In the first round, Alphaeus Ang got a big position out of the opening, and again I was let off the hook. The result will show a win for me, but I felt fortunate to get to move 20 unscathed! I played really well against Eugene until I lost the plot as my clock started to tick down. And against Igor Bjelobrk, I blundered a pawn in the early middlegame, and then put up an heroic defence which nearly saw me save a draw, until again I missed a tactic in time trouble. Overall, if I was just assessing my play and not the results, I'd say that my game against Bjelobrk was my best, even though I lost it!

The last 2 games I have had to start late (thanks very much to the organisers, and my opponents, Igor and Richard for agreeing to this) because of work commitments (I think I'm the only player in both fields who is working while the tournament is in progress, though I could be wrong), and this has prevented me from looking at much chess over the past few days. This should change from today, and hopefully this blog will have some more chess content from the event soon.

Australian Masters Round 2 and 3

A brief post today as it's a full day's work followed by a rush hour drive to play my game. To be honest, that is what tomorrow will be too.

The GM section has a clear leader. IM Max Illingworth has won his first 3 games and sits in an excellent position to gain a GM norm. IM Kanan Izzat is in second place, and also has a great chance to score the norm as he is already on 2.5/3. The third player with a big chance of the GM norm is IM James Morris who is on 2/3 but has played all 3 of the Grand Masters in his first 3 games. GM Neiksans also sits on 2/3 after a quick draw with fellow GM Papin today. In the all Melbourne High School battle, IM Ari Dale got off the mark winning against FM Luke Li. Ari joins Luke on 1/3 after Luke picked up his second GM result yesterday drawing with Johansen.

In the IM section, second seed IM Igor Bjelobrk is leading with a perfect 3/3. Igor finds himself a point clear of the field after the shock loss of top seed IM Richard Jones to bottom seed Alphaeus Ang from New Zealand. We are now in a pleasant position where no one is on zero points in either tournament. FM Chris Wallis joins Jones on 2/3 while IM Rujevic sits just behind on 1.5.

The play has been combative in both events, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it, even though I'm only on 1/3. I had a very interesting ending against Igor Bjelobrk tonight which I'll try to show over the next couple of days.

FM Eddy Levi brought his own board to play on.

FM Luke Li starts with 2 draws against GM opposition.

Australasian Masters Round 1

The Australasian Masters started yesterday evening with 2 10 player round robin fields. The top section is a GM norm event, with the second section, an IM norm event. The play started about 6.30 pm at the Melbourne Chess Club, after their regular Saturday Allegro had finished. In fact, the allegro benefited from the Masters, as many of the players joined in, which then attracted others to come and play. The field of 42 players had GM Arturs Neiksans playing, along with IM's James Morris, Kanan Izzat and Justin Tan. The Grand Master won the event with a perfect 7/7

GM Neiksans (right) in post allegro chat with IM Justin Tan

.The 2 round robin events had very different sets of results. In the IM event, which I'm playing in, things went basically according to plan, with top 2 seeds, IM's Jones and Bjelobrk winning. FM Chris Wallis started well with a win against his long time friend FM Eugene Schon, and I was the other winner of the day. The vetereans duel between IM Rujevic and FM Levi ended in a draw, but not after Mirko Rujevic alerted the room to a blunder he made with a very audible sigh. Players rushed to see the board, but Mirko had blown a win into a draw rather than losing the game.

The GM section saw completely the opposite with favourites not getting their own way. Top seed GM Neiksans could only draw with FM Luke Li, while second seed GM Papin lost to IM James Morris. James was looking very relaxed before the event, and pretty happy afterwards. If body language is anything to go by, then IM Max Illingworth is in businesslike mode. He ground out a win against GM Johansen. IM Bobby Cheng made a successful comeback to beat IM Ari Dale, while IM Kanan Izzat, who won the IM section last year, was the other winner against IM Anton Smirnov.

Obviously there is a long way to go in both events, but there is every hope that a GM norm (6.5/9) is possible while an IM norm (7/9) is not out of the question either.

Not that I've really seen it, but the game of the day was the Morris-Papin affair. Papin's king never left the centre and white crashed through with a sacrificial attack.

Australian Masters

The Australian Masters has been established in the Australian chess calendar since 1987. It has been a breeding ground for Australian talent offering great chances for strong opposition, and norm opportunities. It has given many Australian players the chance to play against strong international players on home soil. Here's a list of some of the foreign players who have participated:

1991 IM Silvio Danailov (better known as Euro Chess President and Topalov's manager)
1992 GM Tony Miles
2000 IM Adam Hunt and IM Gerard Welling
2006 GM Dejan Antic
2013 GM Miezes
2014 GM Kazhgaleyev

And of course the Australian list is a who's who of Australia's best players. Australian winners in no particular order:

GM Johansen
GM Smerdon
IM Solomon
IM West
IM Sandler
IM Lane
IM Morris
IM Smirnov (father and son have both won!)
IM Cheng
IM Xie
IM Gluzman
FM Depasquale

I have been involved in the Masters since 2005 when I first played and this was still my best performance. This year there are 2 sections, a GM norm event, and an IM norm tournament, and I'll be playing in the latter. Chess Victoria President, Leonid Sandler has been organising this tournament for a number of years now, and under his guidance the tournament has grown significantly. This year the GM tournament sees 2600+ Latvian GM Neiksans making his first appearance, along with Russian GM Vasily Papin and Melbourne based GM, and 3 time previous winner, Darryl Johansen.

The question is which of the young guns, if any, will step up to score a GM norm. Australian young players Illingworth, Smirnov, Morris, Cheng and Dale are all playing along with Kanan Izzat from Azerbaijan and Luke Li from New Zealand. It will be a tough ask for anyone to score the 6.5/9, but I guess that is what we expect of GM standard players!

The IM event has an even tougher 7/9 norm requirement which doesn't leave much room for manouvre. IM's Jones and Bjelobrk have a considerable rating lead over the next group of players, who are young local talents, FM's Chris Wallis, Eugene Schon and Karl Zelesco, one of whom we can hope will step up to take the norm. The field is made up of me (Carl Gorka), IM Mirko Rujevic, FM Eddy Levi (long term sponsor of the Australian Masters. I'm not sure but Eddy may have played in all the events since 1987, I'll have to ask him), and foreign representatives Hoai Nam Nguyen and Alpheus Ang. Like in the GM event, anyone who scores 7/9 will truly have deserved the norm!

My own ambitions for this tournament? I'm just looking to find some form for the Australian Championship which comes up soon after. I'll be happy not to finish last, which only happened to me once before in 2006 when I had the misfortune of playing in a tournament that I was organising.

More reports about this next week, once we get going, and I'll try to find some reminiscences of some players who have competed over the years. Or even better, come down to view the games live at the Melbourne Chess Club over the next week. Games start on Saturday at 6.15 pm.

Melbourne's Big Summer of Chess

There's going to be a mass of good quality chess in Melbourne, both to play in, or to spectate or follow this summer.

The fun starts this weekend, when Chess Kids, the company I work for hosts their National Interschool Finals. Actually, it's a huge junior chess festival starting on Sunday 29th November with a set of individual 7-round 15-0 allegro events. Then on the Monday and Tuesday the Chess Kids National Interschool Championship will take place. It is a 7-round 25-10 format with close to 300 players expected over both primary and secondary divisions.

All these junior events are being held at Queen's College, Melbourne University near the centre of Melbourne.

The weekend after this (5th-6th December) sees Melbourne Chess Club's amazing summer schedule start with the traditional Christmas Swiss. Perhaps the publicity for this has been overshadowed by other events coming to the club, but make no mistake that this tournament looks likely to be a good one. Visiting GM Arturs Neiksans from Latvia will be playing in the weekender. He is currently rated 2602, but might be even higher after his performance at the European Team Championship where he scored 4.5/7 including a draw with Arkadij Naiditsch. There are currently over 20 players entered, and this is a good opportunity to get some practice for the Australian Championships.

The MCC then hosts the Australasian Masters which will consist of two 10-player round robins. Chess Victoria President, Leonid Sandler has worked hard to get a GM norm event, and an IM norm event happening, and according to Leonid, this GM tournament might be the strongest ever in Australia. It certainly looks to be one of the strongest, with foreign GM's Neiksans, and Papin competing, and a strong local field including Melbourne based GM Darryl Johansen. I'll be playing in the IM event, so I should be able to bring some first hand reports of the goings on. The tournament runs from 12th-20th December

The Masters then goes out with a bang as it is immediately followed by the Victorian Blitz Championship which will also be hosted by the MCC. In recent years this tournament has proved very strong as players from the Masters join in with the best local players. I don't have details of this event, but it will probably be held Monday 21st December, a good lead in to Christmas.

The Christmas break will bring only a short relief to the summer of chess, as Box Hill Chess Club hold their traditional Australian Championship warm up event, the Canterbury Summer Swiss. After their move to Waverley/Essex Hills last year, Box Hill Chess Club have had to reinvent themselves a bit. One issue is that the club cannot hold weekend events at their current venue, but thanks to their strong organisational background, they have managed to find a venue for their summer event, the German Club in Windsor. For anyone who is short on practice before the Australian Championships, this is a must! It runs from the 27th December through to 30th December, and you can follow details here.

Then comes the big one, the Australian Championships and Reserves. Hosted by the Melbourne Chess Club in their 150th anniversary year, this is already shaping up to be an amazing tournament. Defending Champion, IM Max Illingworth entered early making it clear he intends to defend his title. But with 2 GM's and another 5 IM's already entered, Max will have to work hard to take the title again. I also intend to play in this event, running from January 2nd-January 12th 2016 at Fitzroy Town Hall. There is a rest day on 8th January when the Australian Blitz Championship will be held.

Phew...that's an unbelievable amount of chess this summer. But that's not all!!! (I've always wanted to say that, like in the adverts on the shopping channels). The MCC continues as Australia's premier chess venue to host the Australian Women's Masters event. Starting on 14th January, this will be 10-player round robin event and is shaping up to be the strongest ever women's event in Australia.

The Women's Masters finishes on the 22nd January, which leads nicely into the last event of the summer, Melbourne Chess Club's Australia Day Weekender. The Australia Day Weekender is, and has traditionally been, the first weekender of the year, even though it will seem like the last in a long line of chess events. Another great field is promised by the very first entry, hanging around after the Women's Masters, WGM Julis Ryjanova of Russia rated currently 2387!

That is an amazing amount of quality chess in Melbourne for players of all standards of players, and at various time limits. Long play chess fanatics have a dream summer coming up. And with the Victorian and Australian Blitz Championships being held here, the fast players should also be satisfied. And even if you are not a fan of long chess, nor the very fast chess, the MCC holds it weekly allegro 15-0 chess tournaments, and these will continue over the summer of chess! I'll be trying to follow as many of these as possible, so stay tuned :)

Australasian Masters

The Australasian Masters tournaments took place between December 13th-21st. There were 2 events, both 10 player round robin tournaments, one qualifying for GM norms and the other for IM norms. The question was would any of the Aussie hopefuls score the required points for a norm.

Anton Smirnov deep in thought against Vasily Papin

In the GM tournament, things didn't start too well and only 13 year old Anton Smirnov held a realistic chance of scoring a norm. This would have been a remarkable achievement, but saying that, Anton went into the final round joint first with top seed  GM Murtas Kazhgaleyev needing to win his last game against GM Vasily Papin for a GM norm. Unfortunately for Anton and his Australian fans, Papin won the game, thus meaning Anton missed out on a norm and a famous tournament victory. The tournament was won jointly by the 3 visiting Grand Masters, Kazhgaleyev, Papin and Rustam Khusnutdinov. Anton Smirnov finished half a point behind and though he may be disappointed, he has an incredibly bright future ahead of him. The other Australian players were also young with all the home grown players under 25. They all had good moments, but none were firing all the way through.

GM Kazhgaleyev checks out the position of GM Khusnutdinov

The IM event was dominated by Kanan Izzat, who has left his home country of Azerbaijan to study in Australia. For the years he will be here, it will be Australia's gain as besides being a strong player, he is also a very pleasant young man. Kanan finished a point clear of IM Igor Bjelobrk and Yi Liu who had a very good tournament and who will be considered one of the favourites for the Australian Under 18 title in January. Eugene Schon was half a point back on 6/9 and topped the 2300 mark somewhere through the tournament so is now an FM. The rest of the field played averagely, sometimes good and sometimes bad.

Eugene Schon sneaking some refreshment on his way to the FM title

I would just like to point to an experience of mine in the tournament. During the second half of the tournament I had to play the 3 IM's in the event in consecutive rounds. My mind set was not positive going into these games. It was almost as if I gave these players too much respect and made poor choices because of this. I guess we all have a limit as to how well we can perform, and at the present moment I felt that Izzat was out of my league. That is a very defeatist attitude and it caused me to play very badly, make bad choices and play my worst game of the tournament. However, I'd lost this game before I even sat at the board. A similar sort of thing happened against Igor Bjelobrk, though I put up a better fight here. I felt that Igor was right at the limit of my capabilities and gave myself little chance to get a result. Actually, I managed to get an ok position, but then took an eternity trying to come up with plans, and eventually, just played a series of bad moves. I was also apprehensive against Mirko Rujevic and asked for a draw when I was probably a little better.

To be honest, it was a little humbling finding myself so short of confidence, although not to be unexpected after the lack of work or practice I've put into chess. Are there any ways for me to remedy this? Well, actually there are, and quite simple things such as playing a little more, analysing regularly and working on a narrow but solid repertoire. At least then I should be able to maintain my level. So those will be my new year's resolutions, but of course, resolutions are there to be broken, so we'll see how I go with them.

Australasian Masters, the Half Way Mark

I have to admit, I started this tournament reluctantly but have begun to warm to it. Playing one game a day, and putting maximum work into that game is excellent and there's a ton of material to be working through, in both preparation and analysis. The tournament's have both just crossed the half way mark with 5 of the 9 rounds having been played. By this stage it is already possible to see who's in form and who is fighting for places and norms.

The GM event has seen Anton Smirnov in great form so far leading the tournament with 4/5. Anton needs 2.5 for a GM norm and is half a point ahead of the field. Russian GM Vasily Papin who is making a return to Australia. The other GM's Kazhagaleyev, and Khunsnutdinov are on 3/5 which is ok, but nothing special. There are still some norm possibilities for some other players, the most likely being an M norm for Luke Li if he scores another 2.5. With 4 more rounds to go, the tournament is still wide open.

The IM event that I'm playing in is tight. There are 3 players on 3.5, IM's Kanan Izzet and Igor Bjelobrk and Yi Liu. This is a great performance from the young Queensland player who by his won admission has not played much chess this year. There are then another 2 players on 3/5, New Zealander Bob Smith and Bill Jordan. With 5 players separated by just half a point, we're in for an exciting finish. The best norm chance lies with Yi Liu, though he still needs 3.5 out of the final 4 games.

Unfortunately, I stopped Eugene Schon's norm ambitions form this tournament today. He is still on 2.5, just a point behind the leaders and could finish on a high score, but the IM norm now eludes him. I am on 1.5 after beating Greg Canfell yesterday and drawing with Eugene today. My play has been generally improving as the tournament moves on. I feel more confident about my play and calculation which bodes well for the future. I am not playing perfectly, or perhaps even as a strong as I have in the past, but I can at least see the possibility of getting back to a former playing strength.

In today's draw with Eugene, the following position was reached.

I was white and fighting for a draw so I thought in these terms.

1. trade queen side pawns
2. sacrifice my knight for black's h-pawn
3. draw the pawnless ending of rook and knight versus rook.

Seeing I had about 2 minutes plus increments, that was fairly good. The move Nc5 came to my mind, but I didn't choose it because I saw a drawing method which involved little risk to my mind.

Another boost to the confidence comes when good players praise your game. Today IM Mirko Rujevic told me he'd been impressed with my win against Greg Canfell the day before. I thought the position played itself, and it became obvious early that I knew more about the opening than Greg. Anyway, here is the game.

9.e5 was a new move on me, and after the game Greg said that he'd completely overlooked 11..Qa5. He spent about 40 minutes on his 12th move. In the final position it will be mate after 23.Bc4 Na4 24.Rb1 Qc3+ 25.Rb2 Qxb2.

Tournament Preparation

Too nice a day in Melbourne to prepare for a chess tournament!

I am currently involved in the 2014 Australian Masters event in Melbourne. There are 2 tournaments running, both 10 player round robins. One is a GM norm tournament, and the other which I'm playing in is an IM norm event. This is the 26th time the Australian Masters has been played since the first tournament in 1987. I've played in a few of these tournaments over the years with mixed results.

In 2005 I had an excellent tournament. I knew about the event a few weeks in advance, was able to put some work into my game, wasn't working at the time, and so could concentrate fully on the tournament. I scored 5.5/9 for a 2370 performance, the best of my career.

The following year, in 2006 I was given the task of running the tournament. With no chess preparation and organisational headaches leading up to the event, I played badly, not winning a game and luckily scraping together a few draws.

In 2008 I finished about par for the course finishing on 4/9. At the time I was quite active in the chess scene and regularly playing. I didn't prepare specifically for this tournament, but my playing strength was enough to maintain an ok score.

The last time I played was 2010 when I scored 3.5/9 but against a stronger field than in 2008. I was pretty happy with my play, had prepared somewhat for the tournament which reflected in my play.

This year has been probably the worst build up to a tournament for me in all that I've played, including 2006. I was working heavily in the past couple of months, and have had little time or energy to prepare for this tournament (I only knew I was going to play about 2 weeks ago anyway!). In fact, I was working on the day it started until about an hour before the games were due to commence. I arrived at the venue with not much time to spare before my first game, which proved to be a pretty painful loss to New Zealander, Robert Smith.

IM tournament favourite Kanan Izzet with Bob Smith sitting in the background

My plan for this tournament is a simple one, and that is to try to play myself back into some form. I have started working on the game, after the first round and already put up a better fight in game 2, though finally succumbing to Bill Jordan in a complicated game. This leaves me on 0/2, not a particularly auspicious start, but I have a feeling that chess is beginning to come back to me. I'll be using this event to kick start my game for 2015 and hopefully to get back to somewhere near 2200 strength. I plan to play a few tournaments next year and put some serious work into some weak parts of my game. Then maybe I'll be a competitive 50 year old from 2016 onwards!

Trevor Stanning (left) with tournament organiser Leonid Sandler

Olympiad team mates, Moulthun Ly (left) and Anton Smirnov

More About Endgames

Yesterday's endgame was interesting and showed how a winning position can be ruined by allowing your opponent to get counterplay. So I'm now beginning to trawl through the endgames and whittle them down to a manageable level, so that at our endgame camp the kids will have some decent quality examples to look at, demonstrating clear ideas. It means, however, that I have to leave some examples out.

Here was a painful lesson for me in my first major tournament in Australia, the 2005 Australian Masters. I played pretty well in the tournament scoring 5.5/9 for a 2370 performance, but started badly with a tough loss to German IM Peter Frohlich. Peter had ground me down from a Catalan, and I had defended dourly for most of the game. In the following diagram I had the brainwave of trading pawns being the best defence:

As black I played 1..a6? What did Peter play that made me resign? I'll tell you tomorrow :)

Edit: Peter came up with the well known theme 2.a5! ensuring that he would get an advanced passed pawn whatever I did. I did the best move and resigned! I will admit that while this is a well known endgame theme, to me it was totally new, showing that my endgame knowledge was seriously lacking.