Teaching Tactics

It's always fun and rewarding teaching kids tactics, or as I prefer to call them, tricks. Teaching kids the patterns and then seeing their sense of achievement when they employ a tactical operation in one of their games is great. This term I'm showing a load of games and positions from tactical masterpieces, with a particular emphasis on teaching kids to recognise the basic tactical themes of pins, forks, discovered attacks and skewers. Of course, there will be many other things happening in the games, but it is important that young children recognise the basic patterns best of all, with an idea to employ them properly, and defend against them as well.

This week Paul Morphy takes the limelight, so I thought I'd throw some positions on here. I'm not going to be showing every position to the kids that I put up here, there were just too many to choose from.

So, Monday's move...well, actually Morphy played this game blindfold, so maybe I should just put the moves up, and give you all the chance to try to work out Morphy's move, blindfold!

Nah, here's the position with black to play.

Black to play

Answer tomorrow with more Morphy tactics!

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 :)

Back to Chess

My plan was very simple. I took a break from playing, studying and writing about chess and intended to enter the 2016 Australian Chess Championship and start to work towards that. In reality, the break lingered for a couple of weeks more than I'd intended and I've found myself struggling to get back to work again.

Today that changes! Yesterday (a few days ago now, as Google created a protocol which prevented me editing and posting this blog last week) I paid up and entered the 2016 Australian Championship and currently the field is strong. My FIDE rating of 2166 is a long way behind the next lowest rating of FM Gene Nakauchi at 2244. I understand that many more players will probably enter, but I'll still see myself in the bottom half (probably the bottom quarter) of the field. So unless humiliation is my one goal in playing this tournament, I'd better get down to some training.

Training vs Coaching

As a chess coach a subject that has always interested me has been the compatibility between coaching others and self improvement. I recently got a copy of Alexander Panchenko's excellent new book Mastering Chess Middlegames. Panchenko was offered a position as a chess coach in the early 1980's not long after becoming a Grand Master, and he set aside playing goals to achieve coaching goals. This suggests that the 2 are not compatible. If one is always looking at the needs of others, preparing training materials for players often at a lower level than the actual coach, and devoting analysis time to improving weaknesses in other players games, then there is little time or energy left to work on your own game.

This is what I found when I started working for Chess Kids as a coach 10 years ago. Working on teaching methods, learning philosophies, presentation skills has enabled me to be a respected school coach, and junior coach, but it initially affected my own game detrimentally and I'm not sure my game fully recovered. I have managed to differentiate between coaching and playing. They are now 2 different activities. Coaching is work, playing is fun, coaching is a job, playing is my hobby, etc. But, of course, as an amateur player, how far can I expect to improve, especially at the age of 49? In fact, should I even be thinking in terms of improvement, or just looking to enjoy the playing side of things?

While I do enjoy the playing side of things, I am still motivated to strive as much as possible to achieve the best results I can, so I'll be putting in as much work as I can spare to my own game, and maybe my students might be rewarded with some new materials that I find! Can I improve? Well, I guess that it is possible, but it gets increasingly harder as the years go by. By assessing my weaknesses I suppose I can strengthen my game, much like the way I try to get my students to improve. However, I am critical of my play in all areas of the game. If I really narrowed things down a bit, I suppose at the level I'm at, I have a weak knowledge of openings, and my calculation is sometimes blurred by assumptions about positions. I'm overly fond of space as a concept (and subsequently a poor defender), and struggle to find reasonable plans in messy positions.

I'm sure other players might have different ideas about my weaknesses, and I know there are many other weaknesses in my game, but these are some big ones to be getting on with.

Here's an example of Panchenko's training technique. In the chapter on 'Defence' he says "one should never forget about the possibility of sacrificing material to create a fortress", and then shows the following classic example:

 White to play can draw by sacrificing the bishop and then covering all entry squares.

1.Kd1 Rh2 2.Ke1! Rxg2 3.Kf1 Rh2 4.Kg1 Rh8 5.f3 leaving the following position where neither black's king, nor rook will be able to penetrate.

Panchenko says in the introduction to the chapter on defence:

The defender should strive for a type of position where the drawing chances are greater(opposite coloured bishops, rook endgames, fortress set-ups, etc).

Of course, it takes study and experience to know which sort of positions are more drawish than others. Here's the first exercise from Panchenko's chapter on defence, which I'll give the answer to tomorrow (assuming Google doesn't decide to create protocols which prevent me posting - apologies to you all for taking so long to work out how to overcome said protocols)

Black to play and draw

Diplomacy

I was at a chess camp with my company Chess Kids and one evening we were playing a load of strategy games with the kids. I was talking to the other coaches about various games when the classic strategy game, Diplomacy came up. One of the coaches had never heard of it before, so we decided we would arrange a game of Diplomacy and after some negotiations, today is the day when it is happening. We have a group of players ranging in experience from raw beginner, to played once or twice, with one very experienced player, Frank Meerbach, who is hopefully going to be a referee (we're hoping all players show up, or Frank will play).

Diplomacy is an amazing game with no dice but lots of strategic play. The idea is to take control of the board and to this you have to move your armies around the board taking over control centres. To win you have to get control of over half the centres on the board, and to do this, most usually you have to create alliances with other players. The big problem is that when you try to move your armies, if another army moves to the same place, there is a stand-off. You need a superior force to move somewhere if you are opposed. This is why you need alliances.

So the first part of the game involves deciding who will be who.....

Frank Meerbach, ex Victorian Diplomacy champion with grey hair, teaching a bunch of noobs the rules

All the above was written before the game. Now for what happened! Well first off, I loved it. I really enjoyed the game which lasted from about midday to about 11 pm at night. The first half hour was spent teaching all us noobs the game. I found that even with a couple of games the best part of 30 years ago under my belt, I was by no means the least knowledgeable about the game. We had a random draw out of a hat and I picked Turkey which I'd never played before. And we also had to pick a name for the game. We chose "Dips Unlimited", as the game was played in the Kids Unlimited building (an excellent venue for a Diplomacy game with many nooks to go discuss things).

Frank was a referee and a stickler for the rules. he had us writing our orders out correctly, and playing to a set time. The first hour saw a big dust up in the Northern part of the board, and I think a couple of players who were trying out for the first time, realised that this wasn't really the game for them. So after about 2 hours, 2-3 countries were all but eliminated, and at least one of the players seemed pretty happy with that. I used a very defensive strategy which saw me survive but left me with a difficult job of growing my empire. As such, by the time I eventually made my move, a huge backstab against my boss David, it was already too late for me to win the game. Frank said that I'd played well, but was a bit timid. I think I can cope with that.

After 11 hours of play, we finally had to call it a draw, but the pyrrhic victor was definitely Smari. This is totally fitting for this game, as it was Smari who had been the coach on the chess camp who I'd been talking about Diplomacy to. Smari used the right combination of expansion, and consolidation and at the end he sat on 16 centres, just 2 from victory. Unfortunately for him, the rest of us stonewalled across the board denying him an outright victory.

The final scorecard showing Smari leading on 16

So would I play again? Absolutely. I loved it, and would like to play it more. I'm not sure I'm ready to play regular players at a diplomacy club, but a few more friendly games would be good. I'm also looking into playing the game online. The problem with getting 7 players together for a full 11 hours to play a game of Diplomacy means that friendly games are going to be few and far between. But I'm hooked, and though I might not be the greatest player ever, it doesn't prevent me from enjoying the game!

Henry Bird

I recently went on a chess camp for my company Chess Kids. We went out for a few days to Wodonga in country Victoria taking a group of about 35 kids with us and worked on chess (attack was the theme of the camp) and had some fun. A lecture that I was working on was about a nineteenth century attacker, and I had free rein to choose a player, so I opted for Henry Bird. He might not be everyone's first choice, but he played some pretty magnificent combinations, and had some great ideas about the game.

Bird was a kind of maths genius who became attracted to chess. He was a qualified accountant by trade, but by all accounts spent much of his life devoted to his passion of chess. Brought up in the time of Staunton, Morphy and Andersson, it is fairly natural that Bird had what we would consider now a reckless style. But he was good enough to beat Morphy, Andersson, Steinitz, Lasker and most of the other top players of the second half of the 1800's.

The kids loved a game I showed where he beat Lasker in 12 moves in a Danish Gambit, while I personally have a soft spot for another offhand game he played where he twice promoted to a knight.

If a 12 move win against the future world champ isn't enough (even in an offhand game), have a look at this position from my favourite.

MacDonnell-Bird consultation 1875

The game started as a King's Gambit and had been fairly mad to this point where white has just played Bg5 attacking black's queen. But, of course, it's time to sac! 17..Bxd5! 18.Bxd8 e3+ 19.Kg1 Bxc4 20.Bg5

Black's sac was sound, and he has come out of it with 3 minor pieces and a pawn for the queen, with the addition of the whopping passed pawns on e3 and f3. Now to finish in style! 20..f2+ 21.Kh2 e2 bringing both pawns to the 7th where they will cost white more material 22.Qd2

22..f1=N+! [It's always good to underpromote, and a knight fork of king and queen is even better!] 23.Rhxf1 exf1=N+ It must have felt unbelievably satisfying to underpromote for a second time! Afetr winning both of white's rooks, Bird went on to win, though he missed a quicker win later on!

Actually, the game that had me really intrigued was a win against the great Adolph Andersson where Bird sacrificed a rook on f7. Recently this sacrifice has hit the headlines when Chinese teenage superstar, Wei Yi came out with a brilliant f7 rook sacrifice at the Danzhou GM event.

Wei Yi-Bruzon Danzhou 2015. This position has already been talked about loads in the chess press. Wei Yi came out with the shot 22.Rxf7! opening up black's king, which has to go on a bit of a march after the obligatory capture 22..Kxf7 23.Qh7+Ke6 24.exd5+ Kxd5

And now another brilliant sacrifice to prevent black's king from escaping the queen side. 25.Be4!! Kxe4 26.Qf7 [Black's king is trapped behind enemy lines with no way back] 26..Bf6

After repeating the position, Wei Yi now came up with the part of the chase which is most difficult for amateurs, the quiet move! 29.Qb3! [The threat is Qd3#] 29..Kf5 30.Rf1+ Kg4 and deep in the heart of enemy territory, the black king didn't last much longer. Here's the whole amazing game.

So imagine my delight when I found a similar sacrifice by Henry Bird, against none other than Immortal game maestro Adolph Andersson.

Bird-Andersson match Paris 1878
White's pieces are ready to launch, but I wonder if the Immortal double rook sacrificer was expecting some of his own medicine? 1.Rxf7! Bxf7 2.Rxf7! Qg5 [declining the second rook. If he took then mate would eventually follow.] 3.Qxb7 Qh4 [Defending h7, while cheekily threatening h2!]

4.h3 Nf6 5.Rg7+ Kh8 6.Rxg6 [Threatening mate on g7, so black must give back some material] 6..Rg8 7.Rxf6

Another stylish move, putting the rook on a square black's queen attacks, but the queen cannot take as it still defends mate on h7! The great Andersson resigned after his last trick failed 7.e4 Qxe4 1-0 black is about to suffer heavy losses to avoid mate.

Wodonga Chess Camp

The winter months in Victoria means the time of year when my company, Chess Kids takes a group of talented young players to a residential camp. A few parents join us, but for most of the kids it is a social experience as well as a chess learning experience. In the past we have gone south to have our camps in Hobart and Phillip Island . This year we headed north, and held the camp on the shores of the Murray River at Wodonga.

Wodonga is about 3 and a half hours drive from from Melbourne on the Hume Highway which goes to Sydney. It is a border town, with the Murray separating it from Albury on the New South Wales side of the river. It is great for outdoor pursuit on the river and Lake Hume, walking and cycling and general fresh air activities. It is an ideal place to get away from city life for a few days.

We organised our camp in Boathaven near Lake Hume, about 10 km east of Wodonga itself. The camp was based on attacking principles in chess and we gave a number of lectures and activities based on attacking chess. The kids also played a number of games at a slower time limit than they are used to to try to slow their chess and put into practise some of the thinking processes they have been learning.

There were loads of activities organised, both chess and non chess. Keeping kids entertained for 4 days is hard work and a challenge. It is important to get the kids out and about, and we were blessed with good weather. We took a few trips including going to the Hume Dam.

The initial feedback was that everyone had a great time, appreciated the chess material they were presented, and enjoyed the other activities, and the social aspect of meeting kids who share their passion for chess. Although I find it a wrench to leave Caroline, there is no doubt that our chess camps are an amazing experience for kids, parents and coaches alike.

The view of Lake Hume from our camp

Amazing engineering, the Hume Dam

The beautiful Murray River, border of Victoria and NSW

Holiday Fun

The past few days I've been helping to run holiday programs for Kids Unlimited, the new parent company for Chess Kids. Chess has now become part of something bigger, as we have become part of a group of activities which aim to stimulate kids through various activities. It was great to be part of a holiday program where I was working on chess, but there were other activities such as drama, electronics, computer programming and hip hop dance.

The kids come along to a program, but can try other programs out for a while if they want. In fact, even the teachers can try their hand out at other things. I fell back into my entertainment days by presenting some performance workshops for the kids! All in all, it has been great fun.

Even the chess has been fun for me. While I've presented a few ideas this week, I've also played a game of Kriegspiel chess with a group of kids, where I was the referee, and they were split into 2 groups. They seemed to really like the challenge of not being able to see the other teams moves, and having to guess where things were. I also improvised some boards into a 4 player game which was another hit with the kids. First they tried to play solo, and then the game split into teams which was great fun. For these and more variants of chess check out this site!

So do these games have any educational value from a chess point of view? It could be argued not at all, but I would say that skills such as visualisation, imagination, and overall board vision are improved by playing these games. One also has to consider what an opponent is doing, or what lots of opponent's are doing, or what an unseen opponent is doing! Making kids aware of these skills in a fun and challenging environment must be good for their chess!

An improvised 4 player chess game, made even harder having 2 sets of white and 2 sets of black pieces! Kids loved it.

Ballarat

I visited the annual Ballarat weekend tournament today, and although I'm tired after the 3 hour round trip with plenty of junior coaching through the day, Downton Abbey is coming on TV so I've got to find something to do.

Top seeds, IM's Kanan Izzat and James Morris

This is the 49th edition of the Ballarat weekender, organised and run by Ballarat Chess Club,, and next year we are due for a big one with lots of plans already in the pipeline apparently. Saying that, the numbers this year are a bit disappointing based on recent figures. There are short of 100 players with 14 players above 2000 rating and 5 IM's. Last year there were 117 players, while there were over 120 players fort he previous 4 years. The strongest I remember was 2012 where with a rating of about 2150 I was seeded 17th out of a field of 131.

The 2015 event has already seen a few upsets, but the tournament hangs in the balance. Top seed is IM James Morris, but he has already conceded 2 draws to Aleks Safarian and 5th seed IM Ari Dale. Second seed IM Kanan Izzat has had no such trouble winning all his first 4 games in fairly short order. The big round 5 game sees Izzat playing against the other IM on maximum points, Chris Wallis. Chris has also looked at ease in his games so this one should be a cracker!

IM Chris Wallis (left) starts with a perfect 4/4, including a win against an old rival, FM Dusan Stojic

The games can be followed on Noble Park's server and there are lots of games stored on Tornelo. The game that everyone was talking about this morning when I walked in was Kevin Sheldrick's escape against Angelo Tsagarakis.

Angelo is black and giving over 300 rating points to his opponent here. Black is 2 exchanges up and while there are probably many ways to win, the move that Angelo tragically played was one of the few to lose. 38..Rb2?? allowing Philidor's legacy after 39.Nf7 when Angelo resigned rather than being subjected to 39..Kg8 40.Nh6 Kh8 41.Qg8 Rxg8 42.Nf7#. I am guessing that being so dominant for so long, Angelo relaxed in the belief that he couldn't lose.

I was coaching local kids for most of the day, as Chess Kids were running a camp. Some of the kids got the chance to play a game in the tournament, but most were not ready for that sort of commitment. There will be a junior tournament run at a rate of 25 minutes + 10 second increment tomorrow alongside the Weekender and we're hoping that a lot of local kids show up to take part in it. The kids I was working with today had great thinking skills, and a huge desire to learn. Given the chance, some of these will become Ballarat Chess Club's future.

Age is no barrier in chess!

18

I know I'm getting boring, but that's how many days before I go on holiday to America! I can almost hear the call for me to go to the boarding gate. Only 18 days left. It's a great age to be, 18. I remember vividly going out on my 18th birthday with a couple of friends. We went to a pub so that I could legally have a drink and we were kicked out because the barmaid had gone to our school and thought we were underage. Ironic as we'd been drinking underage in that pub for over a year. Luckily, there's always another pub around the corner and I had my birthday pint or 2.

Is this what being 18 is all about?

At the age of 18 there are a whole set of rights that young people suddenly enjoy. Drinking alcohol, driving and voting are the ones that we normally associate with the age of 18. There probably isn't too much difference between what 18 year old's can do in UK and Australia. In both countries they can use weapons (gun licences in Australia, buy a crossbow in the UK), go to prison, enter legal contracts (eg buy a house, apply for a mortgage), make a will, serve on a jury or get a tattoo. Check this site out for the rights of 18 year old's (and younger ages too). In fact it looks like about the only things that 18 year old's can't legally do is adopt a child, supervise a learner driver, and drive a bus (for which you need to be older in order to have developed a miserable streak of cynicism so as to make passengers feel uncomfortable).

Tattoo's and Crossbows are allowed at 18 (source: rank my tattoos)

At 18 I wasn't even thinking of driving. In fact I never learned to drive until my 30's when I moved out of the city and found myself somewhat isolated without a car. At 18 I was pretty naive, and without any direction in my life. In fact, the only thing I really wanted to do was play chess. Unfortunately I wasn't good enough to do that full time. But all's well that end's well, and I eventually found myself in Australia where my love for the game has been rewarded with a full time chess coaching position with Chess Kids. Funnily enough, since I've started coaching I've become less interested in playing. I've given up international (FIDE rated) chess competitions because of the ever increasing bureaucracy that the governing body is imposing on national federations and organisers, which is basically making it harder to play in and run events, as well as making them  more costly. I had thought of throwing in the towel, coughing up the transfer fee of 250 Euros, and just getting on with it, but once again FIDE are attempting to introduce a player registration scheme (actually, they seem to have introduced it). This is a watered down version of the ludicrous registration proposal of earlier this year which caused me to turn my back on internationally rated chess in the first place.

Again I find it ironic that when I was 18 the thought of getting my name in the back of an Informator with a rating of 2200+ meant a great deal to me, and when I finally reached that goal about 7 or 8 years ago, it was like I achieved my goal. Since then my view of ratings has diminished and the FIDE rating which has dropped to 1000 level is not the thing it once was. And I think this is the main issue I have with the things FIDE are trying to introduce. FIDE are used to working for the top end of players, but they are imposing the same rules to players who have significantly different needs and desires. Widening the net to include a greater number of players to get FIDE ratings is ok, but there needs to be a widening of rules to accommodate these different strengths of players. Imposing the same registration and licensing rules for a player who might compete in one FIDE rated tournament a year (if that) with that of a professional players who plays hundreds of game each year is somewhat ridiculous.

The majority of my playing from now on will be online, probably at a site like chess.com where there are different types of chess available, articles and media resources, and different membership levels depending on how active a player wants to be. I will certainly not be an unlimited full member as I will not utilise the site this fully, but as soon as I get back from my trip to America (in 18 days time woohoo) I think I will sign up for a year.

Allegro, Allegro, Allegro!!!

As the World becomes a smaller place, city dwellers outnumbering country people, and time becoming a precious commodity, so it seems that 21st Century chess needs us to play at 21st Century speeds. At least there is a growing trend in tournaments with a faster rate. Or so it appears to me. I remember growing up in the UK and there being popular 30 minute, and 40 minute tournaments held monthly in London, either in Islington, or at the Barbican. Even those time controls now seem pedestrian.

Frankston Chess Club joined the ranks of organisers for weekend events, this past Saturday with what appeared a very successful 7 round allegro (G15) tournament. There was a good local turn out, and the event attracted players from other parts of the state, though I'm not sure any traveled from far outside the metropolitan area of Melbourne. But even that is good, as Frankston is situated about 40 km south of Melbourne's CBD with fairly easy access via car on the Eastlink, or on public transport via train. This distance will act as a deterrent to a lot of players unless they see something special to travel for. Luckily, it seems that was what was put on, and Frankston Chess Club will hopefully use their organisational skills to put on more weekend events to attract players down the peninsula.

The tournament was won by Chess Victoria President, IM Leonid Sandler who scored 6.5/7. Leonid is a fearsome fast player who has won the Victorian blitz championship in the past. Dimitri Partsi was the only player to hold Sandler, and Dimitri duly finished second on 6/7. It was very close after that, but Milenko Lojanica managed third with 5.5, though there were over 20 players within 1.5 of him. In all, over 50 players competed and it was great to see lots of prizes distributed throughout the field.

Melbourne currently has a gamut of 15 minute allegro chess tournaments. Firstly, most of the junior events run through the city are 15 minute tournaments. That is the interschool tournaments run by Chess Kids and Chess Victoria, and the monthly RJ Shield, and Rookies Cups. At the adult level, the Melbourne Chess Club has a weekly Saturday allegro event and most of the clubs run an allegro tournament at their club at some stage of the year for members to get away from the long play events for a short while. This is all good, and is encouraging juniors to play more and allows them to feel comfortable at adult clubs who provide this time limit, and may act as an introduction to the adult game. Meanwhile, the long play game isn't for everyone so it's good that there are alternatives for players around the city on a regular basis.

Coming up in August is an exciting event run by the Melbourne Chess Club, the Fitzroy Skittles. This is run as a knock out event, and depending on your rating you are assigned a number of points that you can lose throughout the event, the higher your rating the less points you are given. When you have lost the number of points that you were assigned to start with, you are knocked out the event. It is a fun system, and has become a fixture on the Victorian chess calendar. The MCC have already announced the inclusion of 2 IM's, Ari Dale, and ex Victorian Champion Igor Goldenberg, and the tournament usually attracts decent sized fields. In fact, I might see if I can get down to it this year.

So imagine my surprise when I get a facebook message from Frankston winner and CV President Leonid Sandler advertising an event on the same weekend in August. The Victorian Open Rapidplay tournament is to be held over the weekend of August 24-25 in Lorne, with sponsorship from a hotel group in the region. My initial reaction was what a great idea to have a chess tournament in the seaside resort of Lorne. Then when I realised it clashed with the MCC's allegro event on the 25th August I thought "who arranged that?" I could kind of understand if it was a different sort of tournament, perhaps an ACF rated longplay event, or even FIDE rated, but to hold 2 prestigious allegro tournaments at the same time seems a bit ludicrous to me.

So anyway, I had a bit of a dig at MCC President, Grant Szuveges about this, but he claimed ignorance of the organisation of the Lorne event, saying that it was all down to Leonid Sandler. Grant is not only MCC President, but also a committee member of Chess Victoria, so he should have known about the Lorne event. It is after all offering Victorian Open titles, whatever they are? Grant assured me he would not have agreed to hold such an event simultaneously with the Fitzroy Skittles, though to be fair he has been positive about the Lorne tournament, welcoming extra events on the calendar. I am less enthusiastic about the clash. I personally think the Victorian chess calendar is full to brimming with events, and as a result some events suffer from lack of numbers. A tournament in Lorne could be a great fixture but not at the same time as another tournament featuring virtually the same product nearby which has been established for a number of years. To my mind it is simply bad scheduling, and as much as I'd like to see an event on the Great Ocean Road succeed, I'll be pointing my students towards the already established Fitzroy Skittles at the MCC.

Last Day of Chess Camp

The 2013 Chess Kids camp finished with a day of serious play.After clearing out of our cabins, the kids had one more coaching session this morning before getting on with tournament games. The kids had been placed into 7 teams, and they were to play a round robin event. Before today, they had played 4 rounds so there were 3 games left to play. There was a great deal of tension around the games as each player was trying to win their board prize. In the end the event was very close which meant that our seeding of players into teams worked well. Before we headed off there was a prize giving, with loads of books, t-shirts, caps and other things given out tot he kids.

I think everyone had a good time and I'm sure all the kids will go away with some great memories of this camp, and with a better appreciation of chess endgames, and a better understanding of chess generally. Some parents came along, and they did a great job helping out around the scenes, making the jobs of the coaches somewhat easier. It meant I had more energy to spend on actual coaching, as I needed to do less child minding over the 4 days. I've already been talking to David Cordover about next year's camp. Last year we had a good time in Hobart, Tasmania, but we wanted to make it even better this year, and I think we succeeded. We won't sit still though, and hope to make it even better next time round!

I'm pretty tired after the camp so I'm leaving this post fairly short. Here's a final few photo's of the last day of the camp.

Good play is encouraged, good sportsmanship demanded

The Winning Team, l-r Ryan, Ethan, Oliver, Daniel and Yoni

Top board 1 player, Rebecca

Chess Camp 2013

Today is the first day of the 2013 Chesskids chess camp. The camp is being held in the seaside town of Cowes, on Phillip Island, and the theme of the camp is endgames. I was on a bus that took us down to Phillip Island and we spent the first part of the day playing open aired simuls with locals looking on, and even joining in. It is a good team building exercise, with the kids playing in simuls against the coaches, and then being encouraged to play simuls against the other kids.

Guest coach Luke Li giving a simul (left), while kids like Max Phillips (right) also gave simuls

After the simuls we headed back to the venue for the first of the games and training sessions. The kids are split into groups for training purposes, and they are also placed into teams for playing purposes. To start with they played the first round in their team matches, and then they broke into the training groups for endgame lectures and activities. I'm not totally sure what the other coaches were teaching, but I was looking at rook endings with my main aim being to get my students think about when to "place rooks behind passed pawns", "place rooks on open files", or to "cut the enemy king off along the rank/file". Talking about king and piece activity will be a big part of this week, as well as creating and promoting passed pawns.

Lessons are good, but tournament games are better!

The chess camp is going on for 4 days, which is a long time to focus continually on chess, so there are some other activities planned. Tonight the kids are chilling out watching a movie (Searching for Bobby Fischer, I think) and we have some excursions and non chess activities planned for the next few days. We also have some endgame quizzes for the kids, homework that they will have to try and complete throughout the week. FM Luke Li, IM Robert Jamieson and I have all come up with some testers for the kids to solve. Here's a puzzle that I gave to them, see if you can solve this as good as our kids can. I will warn you, that some of the kids are pretty good, but try to solve this puzzle faster than our youngest kids who are 5 years old!

White played 1.Rf8. Does this win, lose, or draw?

Edit: although this an amazing looking move, it actually loses! 1.Rf8? Rxf8 2.g7, but black has the amazing counter sacrifice, 2..Rf3+!! and after 3.Bxf3 Bxh7 white will not promote, while black's queen side duo, guarantee him the win. The moral of the story: "always examine all checks and captures"

A New Chess Club

Will the internet, lower FIDE rating levels leading to more internationally rated events, added costs etc, lead to the death of the good old fashioned chess club? I remember when the 4NCL was being introduced into the UK, there were doom mongers moaning of the end of club, league and county chess. Well, there may have been a drop off in numbers playing these events, but that may have happened anyway, without the help of a new professional (semi at least) chess league and a big weekend circuit.

To be honest, I'm not sure. I think there will always be players who want to go out and play against other people, to meet other players, to exchange ideas face to face, and to participate in a social environment. Since my drop out from FIDE rated chess, I've had times when I've missed the buzz of playing in a tournament, of going to the club and hanging out with like minded people. And my location in Melbourne doesn't help as I live in an area a fair way from any chess club.

So I got my head together with Chess kids owner David Cordover who lives not too far from me, and we decided to start a new chess club in this area. Glen Eira Chess Club will open to the public this Friday with a junior club starting at 6 pm and an adult club at 7 pm. Actually, we've been talking about it for about a year, but we (David mainly) finally got our act together and have taken the plunge to start it.

So what do we want our chess club to be like? Well first and foremost we want it to be a social venue, a place where people are happy to come along and play some games of chess. We want to offer a combination of fun and friendly chess, rated chess and social evenings (an end of year prize giving sounds like a great excuse for a get together). We want to take the chess club back to its roots. I can imagine seeing a couple of stalwarts playing Kriegspiel on one side, some blitz games happening with a notice board of events in the background and, eventually, an honour's board. We'd like to see our club challenge other clubs to matches, and to take part in any leagues in the Melbourne area. We don't want to offer coaching (that's our job and we're going to the club for relaxation and to enjoy ourselves!) but we are encouraging players to "share their chess wisdom"!



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We have a temporary venue at a nearby school (Tucker Road Primary), but we're looking to move up in the world to a nicer home eventually and maybe even build the club to a membership size where we could contemplate applying for a permanent home. Yes, we have big ideas for this club in the long term, but we still want it to remain a local club with the social aspect at its core. As such we are minimising fees and costs to the membership but offering no cash prizes, or we may run one open a year with some cash prizes but that would be it. We are setting up with the old fashioned notions that the majority of players want to play in a friendly environment and are not motivated by cash prizes. If that deters some people from coming along, then fair enough, we can live with that :D

Feel free to check us out any Friday and we'll do our best to make you feel welcome. Once we have an established membership we will be looking at what our players want from the chess club, more tournaments, more social chess, faster time controls, matches, variants etc and trying to give as many people as possible what they want. But the social aspect will be at the forefront of club. Come along this Friday and check out the free homemade ANZAC cookies!

The sort of venue we'd like to play in, Carnegie Library

Lethargy

I have had a strange week. I have felt lethargic which has no doubt been somewhat to do with the horrific car accident that involved friends of mine. This is probably why I haven't posted for a week. I just haven't felt like saying anything. Thankfully for the survivors of the crash it appears that they are all on the mend. It will probably be a long, and at times painful, process to full recovery but that process seems to have begun with some success.

This week saw the penultimate round of the Melbourne Chess Club Championship. Guy West was leading the event and he won his game this week against Domagoj Dragicevic. This puts Guy a point clear of his nearest rival, Laurent Michaille who had a good win against Chris Wallis. The game between Justin Tan and Ari Dale has been postponed probably because both players were in the Sydney International Open. The result of this game will be crucial for the final results. If Justin wins, then he will join Laurent a point behind Guy, while if Ari wins, he will be just a half point behind Guy. This group of players will form the top places of the event.

However, in my opinion the "oomph" seems to have been knocked out of the event by the tragic events of last week. The MCC may be attempting to get back to normal, but it may take a while before things are truly functioning as they should. Besides the Tan-Dale game, there were 3 other postponements, there were 2 games won on forfeit, and 3 players who took 0 point byes. I can't say I blame any of these players for not wanting to play, whatever their reasons. I certainly haven't felt like doing very much the past week.

I would like to say well done to Anthony Hain for playing this week. Anthony was involved in the car accident last week and still managed to play his game in the club championship. This fighting spirit is typical of the young men who survived the accident which reinforces my belief that they will eventually come through this. The final round of the tournament will take place next Monday when we will see if anyone can stop Guy West winning another title (is this going to be his 12th?).

While I haven't felt like doing much, I've had to start work this week running a holiday program. We give lessons at these programs and the theme has been about sacrificial attacks. So I've shown a few queen sac's, a few crazy gambits, and the Evergreen Game between Anderssen and Dufresne, one of my favourites. If you have never seen it, then you really should, the final attack against the king in the centre is fantastic, especially seeing white is facing mate in one himself.


I notice that the MCC is offering a brilliancy prize for a game played in an MCC event in 2013. I wonder how brilliant it will be compared to this classic!

Premature Results

I know what this title has you thinking about and you will be disappointed! I was running some chess holiday programs this week and I noticed some kids giving in too easily. So it's back to the well known subjects of resignation and draws in chess.

Firstly I am now aware of a group of chess players who believe that resignation shouldn't be allowed. This play till the death lobby are taking things a bit far, but for beginners and juniors resigning denies many chances to earn draws, or even learn technique on how to win games that they, in turn, can use in their own games. At Chesskids we vehemently recommend our kids to play to the end. Here's an example of what can happen at junior level chess that occurred in one of my classes only today:

White would have been happy with a draw before the game began, but it was black that was playing for the draw now. The game continued 1.f5 Kh7 2.f6 Kg8 3.f7+ Kh7 [setting up a clever trap that his young opponent fell straight into]

The young player with the white pieces couldn't contain himself and without a second's thought promoted his pawn to a queen realising a moment later that he'd stalemated his opponent 4.f8=Q 1/2-1/2

I find it quite amazing that kids can find incredibly difficult tactical chances for themselves, but have great trouble in spotting what I consider simple stalemating tricks. I even wonder if most kids think about draws, or whether they are playing on in the hope of winning even with minuscule material? Anyway, after a tactics session where the kids were working on some easy and not so easy checkmate patterns, I showed a classic endgame with a stalemate theme.

This position is from the game Reshevsky-Geller Zurich Candidates 1953. I asked the kids what they thought black played here and I received Kg4, Ra5 (defending the pawn) Ra2+ but no one worked out what was actually played without some help. 1..Rf3+ is obvious once you realise that the rook cannot be taken because of stalemate, and that black is actually going to be happy with a draw here!

On the related (sort of) subject of premature draws we also encourage our kids not to agree to draws but to play on in level positions to try to win them. Hopefully this will give them invaluable endgame experience, and we try to explain to kids that losing these types of games is better for them than agreeing to draws. It certainly sweetens the bitter taste of defeat though how much I'm not sure! Anyway, one of the things I've been trying to undertake this week is analysing live games as they are happening. We've been lucky in Australia to currently have the Australian Open Championship with the live games starting at 1pm in the afternoon. It is great to introduce the kids to the country's top players and some local talents. They can relate to 15 year old Bobby Cheng and 12 year old Anton Smirnov while Grandmasters like Zong-Yuan Zhao and Darryl Johansen are promoted as favourites.

I was showing the live games on Monday to my group of young students but 2 of the 4 games finished as relatively quick draws and my students wondered why they'd agreed to draws. I have to admit, I had some trouble working it out myself so lets have a look at the positions.

This was the final position of the game Zhao-Cheng. It is a very interesting position and most of the kids were getting excited about Bobby's centre against Australia's number 1. When I pointed out his king might be a bit open they shrugged it off! (typical junior optimism!) However, they were generally disappointed that this game went no further.

Most of my juniors are a pretty patriotic lot and they were all cheering for Melbourne based GM Johansen. Here, as black against Yita Choong the kids were happy that they were supporting the guy who was a pawn up. As it is not possible to take on b7 with the bishop because of the forking Qb6+ it would appear that black will maintain his material advantage. I had real trouble explaining why this one might have ended in a draw here (as I don't fully understand myself!) and the kids seemed genuinely disappointed. I'd be interested to know what prompted the draw offers and their acceptance by the players themselves.

However, excitement was provided on the other 2 boards, and the kids seemed fascinated by Junta Ikeda's time trouble and they liked top rated German GM, IgorKhenkin's following move:

Black here played 19..Bxb2+ which was greeted with "He's lost his bishop! The top guy's gonna lose!" Then when they'd calmed down we worked out why he'd played his bishop to a square where it can just be taken. If 20.Kxb2 then 20..c3+ discovers an attack on the e2 bishop from black's Ba6. The kids had to admit that it was a pretty neat move. They still want an Aussie to win though!

Chess in the Future?

This weekend I was fortunate enough to be involved in a chess tournament with a massive amount of technology. Chesskids organised a Victorian Youth Championship which was held at Swinburne University's new KIOSC building, a state of the art technology centre. The tournament was for kids below 15, but it was envisaged as an elite junior event as chesskids already runs a number of tournaments for players who are new to tournament chess, or have little experience.

Interactive Touch Screens

While the kids were playing in near by classrooms (large laboratory style spaces, with lots of natural light) the main hub area of the event was a room with amazing facilities, including touch screen monitors, and computer  to wall display projectors. Thus we were able to link the touch screens to interactive chess sites, such as chesstempo, promoting self improvement plans to kids and parents.

Projected Wall Displays

Live Commentary with IM Robert Jamieson

Projecting computer screens on to the wall allowed us to commentate on games, give lessons to kids and parents, and follow the action live as it was happening. Yes, I do mean live, and this was because of another innovation. Chesskids have developed their own tournament management software, tornelo. Tornelo is more than just a pairings program. It processes tournament entries, acts as a pairing program and allows for games to be entered and stored. This last facility was the big one for me this weekend. With the support of Swinburne University, we had the use of a number of Ipads which the kids used as score sheets to record their games. This meant that we saw the moves as they were being made (and some parents with their own laptops/Ipads were following their own kid's game).

Scoresheet of the Future

"Where's my Ipad?"

Some still preferred pen and paper

The significance of this technology has never been apparent to me. I guess I'm just too old to see the way these things work. Well, my eyes were opened this weekend. As I was commentating on some games it suddenly struck me that we were able to see games by players, some of whom are pre-school and who probably wouldn't be able to write their moves down. Wouldn't it have been amazing if this would have been  around to record the games of an infant Fischer, or Kasparov, and on the other hand, I also wondered whether we were recording the games of future Grand Masters?

Technology aside, this was still a kids chess tournament and all I saw was kids having fun, playing chess, socialising with friends and generally enjoying their competitive weekend. The results can all be found on the tornelo page, along with a database of over 200 games (check out the link at the top of the page). The winners of each section won $150 but more importantly, they each won a trophy!

Joint Winners of under 7's admiring their prizes!