Thoughts on Professionalism

It's day 1 of the 2012 London Olympics. The sports have started after an amazing opening ceremony. As I was watching the opening ceremony (a repeat actually, as I didn't stay awake, or get up ridiculously early to watch it) I noticed tennis superstar Novak Djokovic carrying the national flag for his country. Of course, this immediately made me think about the Olympic spirit and the original amateur status of the games and how things have changed. In fact, the big question is probably whether things should have changed. I guess if the Olympics is to be the pinnacle of sporting achievement, then the best participants from each sport should be included, whether they be amateur or professional. This will, of course, put the amateurs at a huge disadvantage but it seems impossible to me to have it any other way, especially as there is a somewhat grey area as to what constitutes professional and what is considered amateur.

To some extent, similar issues exist in the world of chess. Currently, there is a British Championship taking place which has both professional and amateur players competing. But should this be the case? There is a case for making the tournament more elite, even a closed round robin tournament for perhaps 12 players. It would be possible to stage qualifiers for this, and there would be fierce competition for the event with Britain having over 30 GM's. Say the top 6 players all played, and then 6 of the following 20 qualified, there would be a tournament of probably category 14. A tournament of this quality may also be more attractive to sponsors, though this is only speculation. Historically, the British Championship also doubled as a sort of Commonwealth Championship and the tournament had a distinctly international flavour, with representatives of the home countries being joined by Australians, Canadians, Indians New Zealanders and other players from Commonwealth countries. This changed a few years ago after an influx of top Indian players started to dominate the tournament. Now the British has a definitely home feel to it, and also a semi professional feel.

Here in Australia it is virtually impossible to be a professional from just playing chess (I'm not sure how easy it is in any country). Even the very best players in Australia work as chess coaches or have jobs outside of chess. Funnily enough I'm a full time chess coach and can count myself as a chess professional, though I have no misgivings about my playing strength which puts me at the top end of club players or in the bottom level of internationally rated players. Nevertheless, I'm confident that my client group, which are mostly beginners and novices from Primary School age, learn to enjoy the game and improve. But one of the issues that we have here in Australia (and I guess in other countries) is an uneasy relationship between the professional chess coaching companies and the National and State Federations which is run on a strictly voluntary basis to avoid conflicts of interest. As much as I would like to give back to the game in an administrative form, I have stayed away from standing for posts at state and national level, and I have been asked to join. Instead I've helped out at a club level which is no less important to my mind.

The London Olympics will showcase a number of great sporting achievements and I believe that some Australians will prove to be golden superstars. In chess, the Olympiad will be held in Istanbul from August 27-September 10th, and I will be hoping for great performances from both Australia and England. The Australian team is under strength with both GM Zhao, GM Johansen and IM Xie all unable to play. But however our players do, I along with the rest of the Australian chess fraternity will follow with pride our team. I'll also be wondering whether Australia will be performing above their ranking of 57 in the World and how it would be possible to move up the list. Will the work I'm doing contribute to future generations of Australian Olympiad players? Can Australia improve their lot without the full cooperation of the voluntary and professional sectors? And if this is needed, how is it going to come about?

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with having an amateur status. There have been some great amateur players over the years, with World Champion Max Euwe being probably the cream of the crop. Before being World Champion in 1935, Euwe was World Amateur Champion, a title he won in 1928 in the Hague. It was held at the same time as the 1928 Olympic games in Amsterdam, and was part of the chess Olympiad. Here's a couple of games from that event showing Euwe's excellent attacking and tactical ability.

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5 in a row

A fantastic position from the under 16 Championship of the British Championship. It's not often you see 5 pawns on the e-file. I had a quick search in Big Database 2008 (yes I'm a cheapo who owns an old database and updates myself from TWIC) and turned over the following 8 games which all had an identical central pawn structure.

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You can scroll through the games via the drop down menu in the title bar.

Meanwhile, Don Mason continues to have a great first week to the British with a draw against GM Stuart Conquest. Don now has white against James Jackson who had his unbeaten start ended by GM Gormally. There are now 2 outright leaders in Gawain Jones and Stephen Gordon. These 2 GM's play off today, but it is too early to start thinking about a winner.

I have to play...

I thought I was going to have a bit of a break from chess, but I forgot that I'd committed to play for my club, the Melbourne Chess Club in the Victorian Teams Championship. So Sunday I am having to play a game of chess in the middle of my 'vacation'. To be honest, I'm ok with that and am looking forward to the game. It isn't until the late afternoon, so I'll be able to have a lie in and spend some time with my wife in the morning. I guess the thing that springs to mind for me is how little do you have to play to get rusty? I'm not in that shape yet, I would hope. My last serious game was only a few weeks ago, and I've been working at the game in the meantime. In fact, I'm hoping the couple of weeks without playing chess makes me fresher. We'll see come the weekend.

Looking at the field for the British Championship one name sticks out as a comeback player, GM Matthew Turner. Turner worked his way up to the GM level in the late 1990's gaining the title in 2002. However, he didn't play much tournament chess after that, though he has continued with chess as a teacher at Millfield School and as a player in the 4NCL in Britain. I wonder what it's like for a GM to play little chess and then come to a tournament like the Championship? Is Turner rusty? Not if his first game is anything to go by. I'm guessing that Charley Storey wasn't the player that Matthew Turner would have liked to have played in the first round. Storey is a dangerous attacker. But it was the GM in charge of the tactics and when the dust settled Storey had 2 rooks for a queen, but chronically weak light squares.

After 2 rounds there are now 6 players on a perfect score, GM's Jones, Gordon, Arkell, IM Hawkins and Hugh Murphy and James Jackson who both came through the acceleration to beat IM opposition in the second round. The rest of the GM's all sit half a point back along with Don Mason who won his second round game to line up a test against former champion GM Conquest.

The Championship is only the main event of the festival and in this first week there are currently age group championships for under 16, under 13 and under 11 taking place as well as non championship events of which the most notable has traditionally been the Major Open, though this year it seems smaller than in years gone by. The format of the British Championship allows for players to double up in events. For example, Radha Jain is playing the under 16 Championship in the morning and the Championship in the afternoon! Full on! To think, I'm worried about getting worn out by playing 40-50 games per year!

Stop Press: I've just heard Morozevich has had to withdraw from Biel through illness. :(

British Champs and more...

...much, much more in fact! The blogs which I subscribed to in my last post have been unbelievably active and have turned over some very interesting things (to me at least). There were mixed reactions to the return to adjourned games which were held at the Amsterdam tournament last week, but I can't say I've seen much coverage of the positions that actually were adjourned in any games. Growing up in the pre-digital clock age, I well remember adjournments. As much as a pain as it was, especially travelling long distances to finish team games, I am certain that adjournments were a great tool for analysis. Studying positions in late middlegames and endgames really helps your chess, and in depth analysis of any position can only help your chess. The change in time controls came at a time when a big shift in opening theory was underway, and now knowledge of openings and opening preparation, along with tactical vision are the priorities in a players study.



On Alexandra Kosteniuk's blog I saw another interesting development in tournament chess, this time to do with scoring. At a tournament in the Philippines the scoring is as follows

2 points for a win
1 point for a draw
0 points for a loss

A stalemate, however, is split 1.5-0.5 with the player stalemated scoring 0.5.

This is an interesting attempt to keep games interesting longer, though it seems a bit harsh to me as some of the most beautiful combinations I've ever seen have been stalemate saves. To punish these in terms of points on the board doesn't seem right to me.

The British Championships started yesterday, and the 'local' blogs noted some controversy. Steve Giddins is disappointed by the strength of the event and he has a point. Although there are a strong group at the top, the event does have a rather long tail, not that I would begrudge these players a chance. It would just be good to see more of the 2300+ level players involved. In fact, the exclusivity of the Australian Championships with a minimum rating leads to a more top heavy field. It is, of course, a pay off either way, as here in Australia we have some people claiming the field is too limited. On the Streatham and Brixton blog, it's the ECF that is criticised (actually, it is on Giddins blog too) and the following question is raised:

"is the ECF an organisation that runs the game on a collective and open basis for the benefit of all of us, or is it the plaything of individual officers who are welcome to do whatever they might happen to feel like doing at any given moment?"


When I left England the English Chess Federation was a fledgeling organisation, I left in early 2005 and the ECF formed in 2004 to take over from the British Chess Federation. It seems that much has happened in the 7 years I've been abroad. I think I'll have to look into this in a bit more detail, as I'm now in a position to change my federation.


On to the Championship itself! The first round of any swiss is usually filled with a number of mismatches. However, the 2012 British Championship has a field of 62 players in an 11 round swiss, and it was decided to accelerate the event. I'm not much of a fan of acceleration and I'm not sure why this happened. If it has something to do with keeping strong players away from much weaker players, then the Championship should probably look at entry requirements rather than acceleration. Anyway, I was happy to see my 2 old mates scoring half points in the first round. Mike Surtees (2114) drew with Henrik Fabri (2004), while Don Mason drew with IM Richard Palliser. At the top none of the GM's lost, but not all of them won either. Late entry Stuart Conquest was held by Marcus Osborne, while in form Olympiad team member David Howell, was held by James Adair who is rated 350+ points below him. However it is a long event and early days.


Unfortunately for me, the games start at 2.15pm which is 11.15pm where I live, so I'll be seeing most of the games after they've been played. In the morning, the under 16 tournament is being broadcast live and this is a relatively strong event with 3 players rated 2000+. It is a small field but interesting as there isn't much between any of the players. I found these games interesting (I was watching these rather than the games in Biel with Carlsen et al) with some positions that I could use to help my own students. I was also happy to see a trap that I once used to pick up one of my first decent scalps back in the early 1980's. I was playing in the Basingstoke Championships against a strongish local player called Jim Calleja. The pattern was repeated yesterday.

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British Chess Championship

Tomorrow, the 2012 British Chess Championships starts. As I know a lot of the players in both the Championship and the Major Open I'll be following it with interest. Actually, I have to admit that since the World Championship has ended, I've really enjoyed the high level chess that has been happening around the world. First the Tal Memorial, then the Russian Higher League and Dortmund have all been great with interesting stuff at the match between Russia and China and the mass of open tournaments around the world. Besides the British Champs, world number 1 Magnus Carlsen will be in action at Biel where he comes up against strong opposition in Nakamura and Morozevich. However, though I'll be keeping an eye on this, my mind will be firmly fixed on the North of England, and the British Championships.

It is a tournament I never played in, though I did qualify for it. Unfortunately, the year I qualified was the year I emigrated to Australia so I ended up not playing. This year there are 7 Grandmasters (Jones, Howell, Gordon, Turner, Gormally, Conquest, Arkell) and 6 International Masters (Hawkins, Palliser, Hanley, Houska, Kolbus and Rudd) out of a field of 62 players. A bit further down the list, I'll be watching to see how Don Mason and Mike Surtees get on. I always used to have some great games with Don in the Birmingham league back in the 1990's and I hope he has a good tournament. I've also had a few games against Mike Surtees, mostly at weekend congresses in the North West of England, and they usually turned out to be hard fought affairs. Mike also has his own thoughts on opening theory so his games are certainly not tied down with theoretical dogma!

To help me follow these, I've checked out some blogs and websites that I'm going to read for the next 2 weeks (at least). I guess I should really be following some British sites, so I'm going to use the following:

- Streatham and Brixton Chess Blog seems to updated regularly, with a group of different contributors
- Steve Giddins blog should have good content regarding on and off the board action
- The Week in Chess (TWIC) Although some games will be published live on the British Championship site, I will use the live games server at TWIC as well, and follow commentary by Malcolm Pein. The advantage of TWIC is that it can show other tournaments live at the same time!

I have also subscribed to the following blogs
- Alexandra Kosteniuk's blog is a news blog which on first look seems excellent
- http://chicagochess.blogspot.com.au/ is a totally random choice of blog to follow, but when I had a look at it I really enjoyed the writing style, and the local flavour of the content, which is what I usually strive for here. It also has an awesome set of links!

Finally, here's a game to hearten underdogs in the British Championship. The unpredictable Mike Surtees plays his own brand of chess, which will no doubt give him some unpredictable results. Here he plays a GM in the 2009 British Rapidplay Championships and by move must surely be close to lost. Maybe you should try to guess the move for black in this game!

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Reading Material

There's nothing better than getting comfy with a good book. I'm sure I've heard that somewhere before! Anyway, there is no shortage of chess books, some good and some not so good. My personal favourites are tournament books, and I remember going through books such as Zurich 1953 by Bronstein, Botvinnik-Tal 1960 World Championship match, Spassky-Fischer by Evans, 2nd Piatigorsky Cup by Kashdan and the Leningrad and Petropolis Interzonal tournaments when I was younger. I suppose that a book of a tournament is more of a story than a typical theory book. In a tournament there are major and minor characters, a plot with twists and turns and a deal of varied material.

Believe me, I have tried to look at opening manuals, but I generally find them rather boring, or overly detailed or with large parts that are irrelevant to what I want. Practical players need repertoires and opening manuals don't tend to deal with this. There are repertoire books, but they may suggest certain variations that a player has no intention of ever playing. I know this sounds as if I do no opening work at all (to be honest I don't do too much) but rather my opening work tends to be inspired by actual games that I see and then I go into a frenzied rush of work on that system. As an example, I saw a mad game last night in the Amsterdam tournament where the outsider Anna Muzychuk was white against Israeli GM Emil Sutovsky.

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I've already analysed some lines in this offbeat system and and seen a whole load of games. Maybe I'll get to play it at some stage.

If I'm going to work on the game, I'm more likely to use a book on the endgame or general/specific chess strategy. Like many, I once went through Nimzovitch's "My System", but I think my favourite book of this genre is Watson's  "Secrets of Chess Strategy", and his follow up, "Chess Strategy in Action". However, I still think that working through well annotated games collections will teach invaluable strategic lessons as well as putting those lessons into practical settings. For the diligent (because the books are fairly heavy tomes) Karolyi's books on Karpov's Strategic wins, and his book "Endgame Virtuoso Anatoly Karpov" are tremendous.

Perhaps a good place to start for anyone looking for good chess books is the FIDE Trainers Commission recommendations. Out of the 100 books, I've studied about 20 I think, and browsed into about another 10-20 and I don't think there were any bad ones.

Another resource is the internet, and there are a whole load of interactive sites, informative sites, and fun sites. There are loads of blogs and it's about time I started to look through some of these. I already regularly read some blogs. Kerry Stead's blog is a nice personal look at the Australian (and more specifically Victorian) chess scene. Kerry has a penchant for some unusual opening systems, so there are often games with an unusual start which lead to some interesting positions. Another cool Aussie blog is by IM Alex Wohl.  He writes in both humorous and informative style and is perhaps the strongest Australian player to regularly maintain a chess blog, though GM David Smerdon is catching up (in terms of regularly posting!).

I also try to follow the chess scene from my native UK. I really do need to look at more UK blogs, but I regularly read the British Chess Magazine which I grew up with, and FM Steve Giddins Blog, an ex-editor of the BCM who enjoys studies and problems as well as being a man who isn't shy of saying what he thinks!

Anyways, as I'm taking a bit of a break from playing, I'm going to be looking at some reading material, both online and in print and I'll post what I think of them as honestly as I dare!

City of Melbourne Open

This tournament was a resounding success for up and coming youngster Ari Dale. A draw in the last round secured him outright first place, and this comes on the back of his victories in the Asian Amateur and Victorian Championship Reserves tournaments. With these results, Ari moves from being a scalp taker to one of the hunted, and there seems no end to his steady improvement so by the time he takes his place in the Victorian Championship next year, he should be ready to step up against the best in the state. Ari was clear winner half a point ahead of Justin Penrose and Anthony Hain. Justin beat me in a complicated game, where I lost the drift as my time shortened but found myself consistently frustrated by Justin's dogged and imaginative defence. Anthony Hain has had a breakthrough tournament here, and one can only hope he continues the great form he has shown here. After a patchy start to the event, he has taken some big scalps at the end, concluding with Malcolm Pyke in the final round. Finishing joint second is just reward for the massive amount of work he puts into his game. If Anthony is reading this, then I will say, don't worry too much about a lack of consistency at the moment, the fact is you're generally getting much better and in time more consistent results must surely follow. David Lacey drew with Ari Dale in the last round, and has also had a big tournament finishing in sole fourth place. Like Anthony, David is also an inconsistent player sometimes upstaging much higher rated opponent's and at other times throwing things away against lower rated players. Here, he proved he can put it all together in one event and again, I hope that this consistency stays with him as we then have another 2000+ rated player in our midst soon.

The group of players on 5.5 includes most of the higher rated players in the event and most of us will be disappointed with our performance. I for one have already analysed my performance and have come to a definite conclusion as to where I am going wrong. Over the past 6 months, I have played too much chess. I know this might sound funny, but I think we all have to find the correct amount of chess to keep us in form, but also hungry to give it all each game. As a junior I could easily play 3 or 4 games a week and still want more. As a working adult I found that a game per week and maybe a couple of weekend tournaments was as much as I could fit in. Now, in my 40's I see roughly 50 games a year as the limit of what is good for me. So far in 2012, I have already played about 40 games and the second half of this tournament was not much fun. I lacked motivation to prepare and floundered when put under pressure. I conceded one short draw and came up with little if no depth of concept during this time. So I've decided, that I need a break from playing at least for the next tournament at the MCC. This should give me a bit of time to study, write and get a hunger back for playing to win.

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