MCC Ch: Playing on the Extra Day

2016 is a special year, a leap year where we get an extra day added to our calendar because people can't tell the time right! Round 5 of the MCC Championship was played on the 29th February, the extra day in the year! I wonder how many other Championships in the past have had a round on the 29th? The MCC Championship was first played in 1925, so the first leap year champion would have been the 1928 Champion A. Francis. Unfortunately, I can find out very little about A. Francis, so this might take a bit of research. Other leap year winners have included Crowl, Geus, Lemets, Prods, Hjorth, Hamilton and Johansen, and we even have some leap year winners in the current event: Guy West and Malcolm Pyke,


The Melbourne Chess Club Championship in the club's 150th year passed the half way mark this week. Round 5 of the 9-round tournament saw 2 very different encounters on the top boards. Board 1 was a David vs Goliath affair with IM and top seed James Morris taking on giant killing Vishal Bhat. Meanwhile, board 2 saw MCC's 2 regular high level competitors face off again as IM Guy West played IM Mirko Rujevic. The results favoured the higher rated players. Vishal threw an attack at James which attracted a bit of a crowd round the top board, but James apparently had things under control. James leads the event on 4.5/5 along with Guy West who beat Mirko in a strange sort of game. Mirko played the King's Indian and Guy used the 4 pawns attack to build an imposing position. Mirko sacrificed his b-pawn in a fairly standard sort of way, but never got it back, and never seemed to get enough for it. The endgame of rook and opposite coloured bishops was very interesting, but Guy had the more active rook and, eventually, more active king to add to his extra pawn. A great finale, and worth a look at, as Guy shows that patience is of prime importance when grinding out a win in a tough endgame.

James and Guy have already played each other, so they will drop down to play the rest of the field. I find myself in the group half a point behind, after a wild game with Marcus Raine. Marcus came up with an interesting exchange sacrifice on c3 in a Dragon, but then sacrificed a piece on the other side of the board as well. As he was already an exchange down, this amounted to a rook sacrifice. I just remember sitting at the board completely stunned. I thought for a while and then it suddenly struck me I would be whole rook ahead, so I accepted the sacrifice and did my best to hold out. Marcus got some pressure, and could have caused some headaches, but eventually the rook was too much and I held on. I am joined by FM Jack Puccini who beat previous leap year champ, Malcolm Pyke, and Vishal Bhat who was already on 4 before the round started. It is still possible that Thai Ly will jump to 4/5 if he wins a postponed game with Justin Penrose. The list of players of 3.5/5 looks pretty impressive being led by IM's Ari Dale and Mirko Rujevic. John Beckman's win over Jim Papadinis was the biggest upset of the round.

This is beginning to feel like the last leap year championship in 2012, when Guy West and FM Dusan Stojic beat everybody else in the field to finish on 8/9 and have to settle the matter in a play off which Dusan won. It is a pity that Dusan is not here as the reigning MCC leap year Champion!

MCC Update

Since I moved to Australia about 8 and a half years ago, there have been 4 players who I've had a particularly bad record against. IM Guy West I have never managed to beat, I've scored a few draws, and lost quite a few. FM Dusan Stojic I have managed to win against, and have picked up the odd draw, but I must be at about -6 against him. My record against IM Mirko Rujevic perplexes me as I seem to get decent positions, but his sharp and imaginative sense at the chess board usually allows him to come out of things well. While I've beaten him, and drawn a few, I reckon I'm at -5 at least. And against Malcolm Pyke I have had a bad time. I don't remember the exact score, but he won a whole load back to back. I'm either up, level or no worse than -2 against everyone else I've played in Australia. (A bold announcement and if you are someone I've forgotten, then please don't hesitate to remind me)

Guy West and Dusan Stojic

What made me think about this was seeing the field for the Melbourne Chess Club's latest Monday night tournament, the Malitis Memorial. This mid year 7-round swiss has usually had small turn outs compared to other MCC events, but this year the tournament seems to holding it's own with the previous City of Melbourne Open and a field of 29 players are currently competing compared with 23 for the previous event. The top 2 seeds are from my nemesis group, Rujevic and Pyke and these 2 are currently on 2/2 and in the leading group of the event along with David Lacey, Tom Kalisch and Paul Kovacevic. It's still, of course, too early to tell what will happen but with only 7 rounds, the tournament will quickly sort itself out.

Malcolm Pyke

Mirko Rujevic

One player has asked for a bye for tomorrow's third round game in the Malitis Memorial. Jack Puccini is currently in China playing for Australia in the World Youth Olympiad, a team tournament for under 16's. Jack is currently playing board 3 for Australia 2 and has scored a magnificent 5/6, his only loss being to 2449 rated Russian FM Kiril Alekseenko. The MCC are also represented in the Australia 1 team with Ari Dale also having a stellar performance scoring 5.5/7 on board 4 although things were even better before the double round yesterday as it was the second game on the day he lost. All the young Australians are working hard to achieve the best results for their teams, and currently, the 1st team are 8th place (=7th) and the 2nd team are in 39th (=30th). There are still 2 rounds to go and both teams will be looking to improve upon their current standings.

In my last post, I complained about the lack of pgn games on the official website. Well, within about 1 hour of writing that post a pgn of rounds 1-6 was posted on the website. I was immediately ready to forgive the organisers, until I opened it and found it contained only the games from the live boards. To be honest, these games should have been posted to the site immediately, and it should have taken some time for other games to be manually loaded into a database. But I am now not going to hold my breath for the remaining games of the event to be published.

Congratulations Guy West on victory number 11

Before saying anything else, my thoughts today have been overwhelmed by the events that happened in Boston. I was at work early this morning, came home and Caroline asked if I'd heard about the Boston Marathon. I said no, thinking perhaps the 2 hour barrier had been broken or some other amazing feat. When she said about bombs and deaths, my heart sank and I turned to the online news sites to see the shocking truth. I can't begin to understand how those who were in proximity to the blasts must be feeling. Life is often a hard enough act to get through without people doing things like this. I don't even want to believe that 8 year old was killed in this disgusting manner. It's a tragedy that hasn't affected me personally, but which I can feel empathy for. My thoughts are with the runners and their families and I hope those injured recover quickly.

Events like the Boston Marathon bombings put our lives into perspective somewhat, but ordinary things do happen. Here in Melbourne the MCC Championship concluded with IM Guy West finishing in first place for a record 11th time. On winning the event Guy said that he would need to take some time out of chess, possibly a year, to work on strengthening his opening repertoire if he wants to compete with the rising crop of young players coming through. He may have a point, with Ari Dale coming an excellent second, and Justin Tan equal third. Perhaps we will see a 2014 Guy West playing solid mainlines looking for minor advantages to be converted later in the game. Or perhaps he just needs that long to devise a new bunch of sidelines that no one expects. Either way, it will be great to see Guy going for a dozen MCC Championships the next time he plays. I wonder if anyone will come near that number in the future?

Coming equal third with Justin Tan was Laurent Michaille who also had an excellent tournament. Jack Puccini won a last round upset to finish just half a point behind third, but in doing so he took the U-2000 prize. James Cameron took out the U-1800 prize in his first MCC Championship. While this does seem rather a high rating class for the lowest rating group prize, it does show that the standard of the players were high. The rating prizes were based on dividing the field into roughly equal groups below 2000 so it shows that the majority of players in the field were certainly above 1800. The fact that it was a small field is another issue and one that I'll leave for another time.

On a last note, I have to say that Paul Cavezza has done marvelous work with the MCC website. There are educational and promotional video's, pgn databases, history, information, a calendar of events. It has just about everything you would want of a chess website in an attractive format. Check out this page of the 2013 Club Championship.

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!

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 :)

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.

Ballarat Day 2

If you've never played a tournament where you have to play 3 games of 90 + 30 in one day, then you're one of the lucky ones! It is a question of stamina, and there are some very shaky looking players by the end of the evening, as the games start at 9.30am in the morning and can finish up to midnight (or even after as I believe one did last year). The conditions in the playing area are also not ideal with little or no aircon, so I'm guessing there will be quite a few headaches literally later on this evening.

So as the tournament reaches the half way point, most of the elite players are still around the top of the pairings, though they are now coming into contact. Of course, it is no surprise to see Solomon, Morris and McClymont among the players on 3/3, and it may be that these are the players to beat in the event. However, every tournament needs a hero, and we have a couple who have worked their way into the top pairings. The surprise pairings on the top boards is on board 6 where Luis Chan (1189) is playing Marko Grabovac (1390). Both these young players have created a number of upsets already and it great experience for them to be in and among the greats of the tournament.

The other hero of the tournament of the event so far is MCC stalwart Angelo Tsagarakis. So far Angelo rated 1749 (somewhat below what it has been in the past, and should be) has taken out Bill Kerr (2040), Doug Hamilton (2017), and in the last round Justin Tan (2298). Apparently, Angelo's last game was a real beauty, and it's great to see a regular club type player playing so great and being so happy.

There was a bit of dissension over the pairings for the fourth round, but they have been unchanged. David Hacche's second round complaint was apparently correct and a redraw was made. Unfortunately for him, he moved as black against Solomon to white against McClymont and got severely bashed. I couldn't help reminding David that Stephen Solomon lost in round 2 last year with the white pieces....hmm, I wonder who that was against :D

Funnily enough, the Hacche-McClymont game had a position unlike any I'd ever seen before. At one point all their pieces which have doubles (ie rooks, knights, and bishops) were situated next to each other. Quite a nice effect on the board!

Pieces sitting beside their doppelgangers

It was good to see spectators IM Guy West and Jean Watson. The heat of the playing hall must have deterred them as they went off to see the Begonia Festival. It's funny that Ballarat has this great festival over this weekend annually, but the chess players never get to see it. The playing schedule is just too demanding. Guy was happy not to be playing, though he intends to turn up for the big 50th bash in a couple of years time. It was clear that Guy was fairly happy to see Angelo doing so well. When asked about the acceleration, he said he wasn't a fan but could see the logic to it. Jean thinks that Brodie McClymont will be the man to beat (or Mr McBrodie as I've heard him called!).

There's no doubt that the arbiters have a difficult time with the pairings here. FA Jamie Kenmure has said that he isn't a fan of accelerated pairings, and that part of the trouble has been to do with the pairings instructions from FIDE which aren't necessarily clear. When asked about the fourth round pairings which saw a big clash between Morris-Dragicevic while high rated Stojic was floated down this was what Jamie said:

Jamie was able to answer questions quite easily. Angelo Tsagarakis couldn't float down as he already had in round 2 which meant Dusan was the lowest rated player in the white group. So why was Luke above Domagoj when his rating is much lower? Because the ratings displayed on tornelo are not the correct ratings and Luke Li actually has a rating above Dragicevic. Both arbiters, Gary Bekker and Jamie Kenmure were disappointed that they couldn't get the SP master file from the ACF as that would have made their lives easier.

IA Gary Bekker to the left of FA Jamie Kenmure

Why You Should Study Elementary Endgames

I have had a strange sort of day. Summed up, I worked as normal going from school to school teaching chess, until I ended up at an after school class where the classroom that is usually used for chess was unavailable due to parent teacher interviews. So I was directed to another room which was much smaller and with no air con. After an hour in the stifling room I thought I was going to pass out, and was very grateful to get out. I then went to some private group classes at our chess shop and found that I only had to give one class, as my second, more advanced class was being taken by our premier coach IM Robert Jamieson. If you haven't seen Robert in action then you should really check it out. He is consistent, rigorous and has great material both new and old. His lessons challenge students to think, to plan and to produce results in an accurate way. Before leaving I saw the first position he was challenging the kids with and said, "Hey, that's the position I was going to put on my blog tonight!", to which he replied "I thought so".

This position was the culmination of the board 1 game in last night's Melbourne Chess Club (MCC) Championship between Phillip Drew and Guy West. The game had been a hard fought Benko Gambit, where it seemed that the outsider was fully prepared in the opening. IM Guy West got the typical Benko position with queenside counterplay for the pawn, and after exchanges black's position seemed to get better. Eventually an endgame of rook and 4 pawns each was reached where neither side had a passed pawn and the game looked as if it was heading towards a draw.

However, the moral of this game must be that all players would benefit from a study of fundamental or basic endgames. Phillip as white blundered just 2 moves into this position. After 1.Ke4 Kxh4 White is a pawn down and should seek a draw with the opposition move 2.Kf4. However, Phillip played 2.Kf5 which looks plausible but Guy quickly outflanked his opponent with 2..Kg3.

Now white is lost, a tragedy for Phillip. But once again, you have to admire Guy West and his never say die attitude. Guy kept giving his opponent every chance to go wrong. It was a challenging opening, a hard fought middlegame with the main theme being positional compensation for a pawn, and then various transitional possibilities to different endgames. Phillip navigated well through all these difficult phases, but Guy kept on into the purely technical rook ending, and finally the theoretical pawn endgame, and it was in this last stage that his opponent finally blundered!

The result leaves Guy clear at the top with 5/5 before the week break for the Ballarat weekender. Guy is now a point clear of Ari Dale and Dusan Stojic and he has played both these talented young players. A further half point back on 3.5 is a group of 5 players, Chris Wallis, Domagoj Dragicevic, Justin Tan, David Hacche and Malcolm Pyke. Paul Kovacevic continued his good tournament with a draw against higher rated Dizdarevic. But there were a couple of upsets last night. First Finley Dale won against Richard McCart. But probably the biggest upset of the night was Tanya Kolak's victory against Jim Papadinis who is rated nearly 600 points higher!

Endgame knowledge is a big problem for most players, especially in today's ever speedier time controls. More emphasis is placed on tactics and openings than other parts of the game, but anyone who has lost a basic endgame, or been unable to win a clearly won position will know exactly how Phillip is feeling now. The answer is to devote a little of one's chess work on endgames. Karsten Mueller's articles at the chess cafe website are excellent, and some even relevant to a study of basic pawn endgames!

Strong Westerlies at MCC Championship

The top of the table clash in the MCC Championship between established IM Guy West and up and coming junior Ari Dale was a bit of an anti climax. Guy won comfortably in a game where Ari never seemed to get going. It is interesting to see the opening choices on the higher boards as the players are working behind the scenes preparing before the games and aiming for certain sorts of games. It is instructive to follow their examples. Guy was white and has recently favoured a repertoire with 1.d4 and 2.c4. He has built a number of interesting combative systems that suit his flexible and aggressive style. However Guy can play a number of first moves and last night he reverted to 1.e4. So what does Ari think at that point? His main defence is the Caro Kann, though he can play 1..e5 and occasionally has played the Alekhine. So which to choose and why? Well I'm not sure what Ari had prepared for Guy's 1.d4 rep, but he tends to favour the Grunfeld. Did Ari prepare for 1.e4? If he did, then I wonder why he chose the Alekhine against Guy? If he didn't prepare for 1.e4, then I also wonder why he chose the Alekhine?

There are a lot of different ideas about preparing for games, but in my opinion it is better to play to your own strengths than to play against your opponent's weaknesses. Not that the Alekhine is a weakness of Guy's. In Big Database 2013 he has 13 games listed playing both sides of the opening (and there's 12 games in Ozbase, though quite a few cross overs). Funnily enough, there are no games listed with MCC stalwart and Alekhine expert FM Bill Jordan. I would be very surprised if Guy hasn't played a number of games over the years with Bill contesting the Alekhine Defence. In short, I would not really feel comfortable on either side of this opening against Guy West, and I think it was a mistake of Ari's playing this opening. After the first few moves, 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Bc4 we reach a position that has occurred in Guy's games a few times and one in which he has had success. The next formative part of the game saw Guy build on the typical white space advantage and develop naturally, while Ari's pieces seemed to find bad spots, especially his light squared bishop. Guy was allowed a huge initiative on the king side which he easily converted.




Perhaps it was a brave decision by Ari to test Guy out on fairly unknown grounds. However, that is a place that Guy tends to feel extremely comfortable, and I was a little disappointed that Ari didn't trust his Caro against Guy.

While Guy stays clear at the top with 4/4, the surprise player in clear second is Phillip Drew who beat higher rated Sylvester Urban with the black pieces. A further half point back sits the bunch including FM Dragicevic, FM Wallis, and FM Stojic. So while the field is spreading out, the higher rated players are beginning to rise to the top.

Next week's games will push the tournament past the half way mark and then there is a break for the traditional Ballarat weekender so round 6 will be 2 weeks after the next round giving the players extra time to prepare. There is still a,long way to go in this event, but Guy looks in ominous form at the moment.

MCC Championship round 3

There are now only 2 players on 3/3 in the MCC Championship out of the 38 players. Ari Dale beat Chris Wallis, while Guy West won against Dusan Stojic. Last year Guy and Dusan dominated the club tournaments they competed in, and their individual encounters proved fascinating. Their game last night was another fascinating battle, and we outside the club were lucky that MCC provided live coverage. In fact, the MCC are putting in a big effort to improve the image of the website which has a combination of club information and multimedia presentations. It is both educational and entertaining. Paul Cavezza seems to be the driving force behind the MCC website, while Kerry Stead, the arbiter for the current tournament, also provides round by round reports. While Dale and West lead the event, it is still early days and any good run from virtually anyone in the tournament will move them up to the head of the field. Of course, if they get there Guy and Ari will be waiting.

While Guy's pedigree is well known, Ari is still a fairly new commodity. In fact Ari's progress has been so fast that it only feels like yesterday that he was a 1500 little kid! Now he is pushing FM level after a great tour of Europe including successful performances in the London Chess Classic, Prague Open (5.5/9 including a draw with IM Bejtovic) and Wijk aan Zee (8/9 in his section). With all that experience, and no doubt the coaching, I have a feeling this could be Ari's breakthrough year in Australia. The first litmus test will definitely be his match up with Guy next week.

I always like to point to the upsets of the week, but there were none really to mention. Alex Kaplan managed his second draw of the tournament with stronger opposition. In the first round, Alex drew with Laurent Michaille and this round he drew with Jim Papadinis. But I think the biggest upset of this round was the club itself. I wasn't there, but I know from experience how hot the club rooms can get during a hot spell. There is no air con in the building, and the club is really in no position financially to install it. So for a few weeks the players have to endure incredibly hot and stuffy conditions, and last night was one of those weeks. The usual arguments then arise. When will the club be able to install aircon? Wouldn't it be better to sell the ramshackle old building and relocate?  There is something to be said for both of these ideas, but neither will be happening so I won't waste my fingers in this post.

Watching the Stojic-West game live was intriguing. These 2 have played a number of critical games over the past 12 months so are well aware of each other's styles. To me it was fascinating watching the duel that swung one way, then another.

The first interesting moment. Guy as black has been angling towards a Hedgehog structure and I expected black to play 8..Be7 or 8..a6. Instead Guy closed the centre with 8..e5. At the time I thought this would suit Dusan's style, but both players have proved themselves quite universal in their ability to play various styles. (By the way, 8..e5 is the top move according to Stockfish!)

This was the next critical position. Guy blundered with 22..Ba6? (22..Nb6) and Dusan wasted little time with 23.Ng6!. The knight can't be taken (23..hxg6 24.fxg6 and white will play Qh4-h7 unless black sacs his queen) so essentially white has won an exchange. Now I'm not sure how long Dusan had taken to get to this position (or whether he relaxed somewhat, though I doubt that) but his game started to go downhill.

While watching I thought 27.Ba5 was an obvious try here (Stockfish also likes 27.Rc3, lifting the rook enabling Rac1 and Ra3 driving black's queenside back.). Dusan played 27.a4 which I didn't really get.

Here Dusan missed an outright win. As white he played 39.Ra8, while 39.Rd8 was very strong. There is no good way for black to defend his d-pawn, as 39..Rxd5 fails to 40.Rd7+ Kh8 41.Qb3 with mate threats linked with attacks on d5 and a7. After 39.Ra8 black defended with 39..Qf7and Dusan immediately blundered with 40.Rb1 allowing black to play 41.Bc4 and win the d-pawn. Black's central mass of pawns proved too much for Dusan to handle, and Guy won a great fighting game!

Melbourne Chess Club Championship

It was good to see a few more players enter the Melbourne Chess Club (MCC) championship bringing the number up to 39. This is still a bit disappointing compared to last year's total of 46, let alone the heady numbers of 2011 when we had around 60. Compared to other clubs it is also not a good sign. Currently Box Hill Chess Club and Noble Park Chess Club have FIDE rated tournaments running. Box Hill have a very respectable 64 players in their Autumn Cup, while Noble Park have 47 players for their Club Championship which is about a 10 player increase over last year. Should this be a worry for the MCC committee? I certainly think they should be asking why numbers are dropping for the club's flagship event. It may be unrealistic to maintain numbers in the 60's (though it may not), but I would have thought a field of at least 40 should be the yearly target.

The committee should not be too concerned over the quality of the field. 13 of the 39 players are rated above 2000 FIDE which means it is going to be a strong performance by anyone to win the championship. There is a live game being transmitted each week and yesterday was a great fight between IM Guy West and  David Beaumont. David played a Sicilian but Guy didn't go into the Open systems. Guy had to use all his strategic skill to aim at weaknesses in David's position. In the end David couldn't hold out, and Guy took the full point. Guy is joined on 2/2 by FM Chris Wallis, FM Dusan Stojic, Ari Dale, and Justin Penrose who took the scalp of IM Mirko Rujevic. Justin played the Centre Game and he and Mirko played an absolutely wild game which can be found on arbiter Kerry Stead's blog.

Paul Kovacevic followed up on his excellent win last week with a draw with ex club champion Malcolm Pyke. These 2 are half  point behind the leaders where they are joined by FM Dragicevic, Urban, Michaille, and Drew. Of course there is a long way to go, but it is always good to have points in the bag. Next week is teh last chance for late entries, so hopefully someone will enter and bring the total to 40 which would seem the minimum for respectability. I had intended to go to the club this week but events were against me. I will do my best to visit the champs next week.

MCC Championship

This is usually one of the strongest club events of the year in Australia, and this time round looks no exception to that rule. The field includes 2 IM's, MCC perennial's Guy West and Mirko Rujevic and another 10 players rated above 2000. There are a number of strong young players including Justin Tan and Ari Dale so it looks both strong and interesting. There were only 36 entries on the opening night, which might be considered a bit disappointing, but late entries are accepted up until round 3, so perhaps some more might throw their hat in the ring.

Most of the seeds seem to get through the first round, though there were quite a few draws for a first round of a swiss. The biggest winner of the night was MCC stalwart Paul Kovacevic, who upset young talent Justin Tan. Paul usually finds himself near the top boards facing a big seed in the first round of MCC events, and usually makes the seed sweat, even if he doesn't come away with a result. I remember Paul completely outplaying Guy West last year, or the year before, only to blunder at a critical moment allowing Guy a nice king hunt. This time Paul was clearly worse against the higher rated Justin, but he just kept making moves, and with queens on the board anything can happen, and it did:

Justin as white is a pawn up with the preferable combination of queen and knight versus queen and bishop. All he has to do is get out of check. 32.Kh1? Paradoxically, in this position the king is safer in the centre than the corner. Both 32.Kf1 and 32.Qd4 were better ways of escaping the check, and would have left white with a clear advantage. 32..Qf2! Immediately taking advantage of the situation, with mating threats on g2 and e1, white is forced to sacrifice a piece. 33.Nh5+ gxh5 34.Qg3+ Qxg3 35.hxg3 and black soon won.

The tournament is a nine round swiss so it is early days. Personally I'm interested to see how the Dale brothers go after their trip to Europe. Both Ari and Finley played lots of chess, experienced lots of chess culture, and (presumably) learned loads about chess. Ari's strength has not been fully tested yet as he won against Felix Wyss who he out rates by about 400 points, but Finley has already caused an upset holding FM Domagoj Dragicevic to a draw.

Next week I intend to drop in on the tournament and blog from a live perspective so hopefully the report will be a little more detailed. For a more detailed report, check out arbiter Kerry Stead's blog!

Finally I wish to thank the many people in the Australian chess community who showed friendship to me and disbelief in the system that made me write the last post on this blog. While I might not join in with the FIDE rated events anymore, I still intend to be an active member of the Australian and Victorian chess community!

A Chess Free Week

Earlier this year, my wife and I worked out a plan to go away for a week around the time of our anniversary. So for the past week I have been spending time on a houseboat in Mildura, travelling a few miles down the Murray river, eating, drinking and generally forgetting what living in a city is like. It was a great chance to relax and recharge. I came back to Melbourne on Saturday (via a side trip to the Grampians) and found it really hard to get going again. But of course all good things come to an end and work eventually returned. Luckily I love my work of teaching chess and was eased into it a little with a game at the Melbourne Chess Club last night.

Relaxation on the Murray River

It was the last round of the MCC Open and with 2 players on 7/8 and unable to be caught, a grandstand finish was in order. The tension in the back room of the MCC where the top 5 games of the tournament was being held was palpable. On board 1, IM Guy West was facing a well known foe in IM Mirko Rujevic, while on board 2, FM Dusan Stojic was playing David Beaumont. I didn't get to see too much of these games as I was being put under the pump by giant killer Jason Chew. Jason, however got a bit passive at some critical moments and I managed to pull through. The excitement was on the top boards, though. Guy looked to be building some pressure against a vulnerable c6 pawn in a Semi Slav/Meran type structure. And in the meantime a big crowd was building around board 2 as David Beaumont went a piece up. So it looked like Guy West was taking the tournament outright but in a huge turn around, Guy dropped a piece and Dusan  managed to work miracles in an endgame where David blundered and Dusan actually took the full point. A remarkable finish leaving Dusan first on 8/9, Guy second on 7/9 and a group of players equal third on 6.

Keeping your feet on the ground

Last night I lost my game of chess. This statement would undoubtedly bring a different intensity of emotions to different chess players. I don't expect anyone feels good after losing a game, but I've seen a range of emotions that stretch from magnanimous through to anger, tears, excuse making and ignorantly rude and I'd like to remind people that its just a game we play. Take a look at disasters such as which has just happened on the Eastern coast of North America if you want to get upset about something!

If you give everything of yourself in your game, try your hardest, and just get beaten by the better player on the day that is nothing to be upset about. Luckily I can say that this year all the games I've lost have fallen within this scenario. So, I repeat, last night I lost my game of chess. I was playing IM Guy West and took him out of any preparation on move 1 by playing 1.c4 for the first time in my life! My idea was that Guy is incredibly difficult to prepare for as he can play almost anything. So I decided to just develop, get a fairly level position and then play the game from the middlegame. I wanted to fight for space in the centre and not allow myself to get over run. I was also prepared to take risks to open lines and directly attack his king if the position arose. Well, the game went pretty much to plan, then I gave up a pawn for not quite enough. Guy defended excellently and took the full point in a nervous finale where we played the last 20 moves with less than 5 minutes each, and the final 15 moves using our 30 second increment.
After the game we had a laugh about our lack of preparation for each other, but didn't really analyse much as it was already late when we finished. Guy had been visibly nervous during the game and was visibly relieved after winning the game. It keeps his tournament alive, and he shares first place in the MCC Open with FM Dusan Stojic who beat Richard McCart. Ari Dale moved into third place outright with a win over Jim Papadinis. I didn't see much of this game, which was a bit surprising as they were playing right next to me. However, I thought Jim was an exchange up early on while Ari had a ton of play for it. Jim's body language seemed to indicate he was getting himself untangled, and then the room heard an "Oh God!" which signaled that Jim had miscalculated an exchange and had lost a piece. So Ari is a point behind the 2 leaders and I'm a further point behind in 4th place where I'm joined by Jason Chew, Peter Fry, Richard McCart, David Beaumont and IM Mirko Rujevic.

This was the end of the game between Dusan Stojic and Richard McCart (though I couldn't testify to the exact position). Dusan here played 1.f4 and Richard played 1..e5 looking to create a passed pawn in the centre. Dusan quickly shot out with 2.g5! creating an outside passed h-pawn and winning the game.

The next round is not for 2 weeks as the tournament takes a break for the Cup Weekender. In the meantime I hope Malcolm Pyke recovers as he has had to withdraw from the tournament due to illness (it seems to be that time of the year for illnesses) and that whether you win, lose or draw your next game, you give your all and enjoy your game. :)

Game Preparation

So what is game preparation all about then? I've had a whole free day to prepare for my game against IM Guy West tomorrow. What should I have done? Should I have played through loads of his games? Should I have some opening systems worked out for what he will most likely will play against me?

Actually, I don't know if I'm from the wrong era when it comes to preparation, but for me chess preparation tends to be a bit hit and miss. There are times when I get into some very specific opening preparation for particular opponent's. At other times, however, I hardly prepare at all and just play it by ear. To be honest, I haven't really got round to much specific preparation for this tournament. I have found it difficult to stay focused on the matter in hand. There are just so many interesting things to look at...

...and is it really that bad to work on things on a more general level? Wasn't it Botvinnik who said that chess is the art of analysis? I've seen some really nice chess things today, that I'll share them now.

It's always important to spot tactical threats. Here, it's white to move and his next move won material.

This is, of course, an easy one, but nice nevertheless. White played Ned5 and black resigned. The moral of the story is never forget about the centre of the board. Pieces can often make surprising moves into the centre, pawns can often be taken surprisingly...just look at this next one.

This was the game Naumann-Rapport Bundesleague 2011/2. Black here played 25..Bd4, tempting his opponent to trap his queen with 26.Rf3

So did black resign? Nope, he played 26..Nxc4!!

What a stunning position. White can't take the queen, the knight or the bishop. So what can white do? 27.Nxd6!! A stunning rejoinder looking to lure the Nc4 away from defending it's queen. Resignation time for black again?

27..Rxf4!! OMG, what the hell is going on in this game??

Pretty much everything of black is en prise, including the queen!! The game concluded, 28.Nxf4 Nxf4+ 29.Rxf4 Qxf4 30.Nxc4 Qg4+

and it ended in a perpetual draw 31.Kh2 Qh4 32.Kg2 Qg4+ 33.Kh2 Qh4+

An amazing sequence of moves, but the position which most impressed me today was a classic pawn ending (ok, I was looking at some pretty random stuff today :D).

This position occurred in the game Fischer-Bisguier US Championship 1959. It seems like a straightforward win for white who has an outside passed pawn that he just has to use to decoy the enemy king. 1.Kf3! [The immediate 1.g5 would only draw after 1..Kf5 2.Kd4 Kxg5 3.Kxc4 Kf6 and black's king gets back in time] 1..a5 2.Ke3 a4 and now that black has created a second weakness on the queen side, 3.g5! decoying black's king 3..Kf5 4.Kd4 Kxg5 5.Kxc4 Kf4 6.Kb4 Ke3 7.Kxa4 Kd2 8.Kb3 Kd3 9.c4 Kd2 10.Ka4 Kc2 11. Ka3 Kd3 12.Kb3 b6 13.Kb4 Kc2

And so it seems that white has it easy with an extra pawn and black's king on the wrong side of the pawns. However, that would be the worst thing you could think, and Fischer was up to the task with some accurate play. 14.Ka3! [The obvious 14.Kb5 fails to 14..Kb3, while 14.b3 also only draws after 14..Kb2 15.Ka4 Kc3 16.Ka3 Kd3!] 14..Kd3 15.Kb3 Kd2

16.Ka4! finally clearing the way for the b-pawn to run 16..Kc2 [16..Kd3 17.Kb5] 17.b4 and black finally resigned as there is no stopping white from promoting on the c-file.

So, I feel fully prepared for my game tomorrow night. I've seen some amazing games, some great tactics and fabulous endgames. As for specific preparation....who was it I'm playing? ;)

MCC

It's an exciting time of year at my chess club, the Melbourne Chess Club. The current Monday night tournament is reaching it's climax, a big weekender is coming up, the next tournament is on the horizon and the state body is holding its AGM at the MCC soon.

The MCC Cup Weekender is a 9-round swiss held over the long weekend at the start of November. With just under 2 weeks to the start there are already a fair number of entries including 3 IM's and it promises to be a high class event.

The current Monday night event, the MCC Open has now had 7 of the 9 rounds and still the same 2 players dominate the field, as they have done all year at the club. FM Dusan Stojic had a potentially dangerous match up with Ari Dale who has already beaten Guy West this tournament. But Dusan held it together to notch up another victory to take him to 6/7. The only game he has lost was to IM Guy West who also won his 7th round game against Dizdarevic. These 2 are a point clear of myself, Ari Dale, Richard McCart and Jason Chew. I guess we can assume that one of these players will take the title, but it seems hard to see who will stop Guy and Dusan from their winning streaks. I won a hard game against David Beaumont to keep me just a point behind the leaders. The position was highly unbalanced for a while in the middle game before David got short on time and lost the thread. It was interesting as the game seemed to revolve around my light squared bishop and I had to use some imaginative methods to prevent it being trapped.


When this tournament ends, the most unusual tournament of the Monday night calendar starts. The last tournament of the year on Mondays is a series of 6 player round robins. Players are assigned into groups based on their ratings, with the highest rated 6 players in the first group, then the next 6 in the second group and so on. As all other Monday night events are run on the swiss system, this can be a refreshing change. These tournaments start on Monday 19th November and run through till just before Christmas.

Chess Victoria, the state administrative body for chess will be holding their AGM at the MCC on Sunday 11th November, and this will be preceded by the Victorian Blitz Championship. The AGM is mainly for electing or re-electing members of CV's committee, and rumour has it that some of the current members are ready to stand aside, though I have heard of no one new on the horizon to fill any positions. The current President of CV, IM Leonid Sandler is also one of the strongest blitz players in the state, though I guess he will have his hands full if some of our young players decide to try their luck.

Playing Again

I've had a bit of a break from playing chess (a couple of months) and feel fully refreshed and ready to give it my all in the latest Monday night event at the Melbourne Chess Club. The MCC Open is a 9 round swiss event which started last night and runs until 12th November. So far 30 players have entered with the favourites being IM Guy West, FM Dusan Stojic and IM Mirko Rujevic. I'm sat at number 5 seed, which meant that I started in the top half which usually means an easy point. However, it seems to me that easy first round points are getting harder to come by, and in fact, a few games went against the odds. Thai Ly was the highest rated player to drop points, Alex Kaplan again scoring a good draw. But Finley Dale probably caused the biggest upset of the night beating Gary Lycett. Gary had been in excellent form in the recently finished Malitis Memorial, which made young Finley's win even more impressive. Tanya Kolak and Abraham Widjaja were the other upset winners beating Anthony Hain and Paul Kovacevic respectively.

While I'll be taking a personal view of this tournament, arbiter Kerry Stead is reporting on the event on his blog, while another MCC member, Paul Cavezza (who is largely responsible for the reconstruction of the MCC website) will also be blogging about the tournament.

From my point of view, I have had to build my playing schedule around my work as a chess coach. I now don't work on Mondays, so I have an easy run in to the tournament. But that is where the fun ends. Tuesday is my busiest day, starting at 8am and finishing at 7.30pm (I leave my house about 7am, and get home about 8pm!). So while I give my all in my games, I apologise now to players if I rush off without analysing our game. And though I will look at the games in some depth at some stage, it probably won't be until later in the week. What I will say about this game is that I played very safe at the start of the game and felt I had no tangible advantage for the first 15 moves. I didn't like Bill's 16th move pinning himself and was able to win a pawn, though I'm not sure I managed to do this in the best way. I was worried about possible opposite coloured bishop endings, and if Bill had played 28..Bd6 instead of 28..Ra8, we may have been in for a late night.