Chess Events

Time to promote some events, and catch up some chess activities I've seen. I've always been of the opinion that I owe it to the chess community to give back some of my time and energy for all the enjoyment I've got out of it. A karma type of thing. It's great anyway meeting people with a similar interest.

I've been really lucky to be involved in chess coaching for the past 10 years and find out about lots of events for young players. Like in many countries the challenge for chess organisers in Australia is not developing new players at primary school level, but maintaining interest into high school and beyond. As a result, here in Melbourne, we have thousands of primary school players, but a small number of players making it to adult game.

At the end of August, the Victorian Inter- University Championship took place at RMIT. It was a pretty strong tournament held in a really friendly atmosphere, and in wonderful surroundings.

On the left, 2 of the favourites Zhigen Lin and Simon Schmidt

The amazing ceiling of the venue, Storey Hall

The winner of the tournament was Sunilson Suderson of Deakin, who wasn't the only strong unrated player in the field. Dara Akdag from Denmark studying at Melboure Uni has a FIDE rating of 2182 and finished second, ahead of local boy Thomas Feng.

At an even younger age group, I recently visited Hobart, Tasmania to help coach at a chess camp. There were about 25 kids, some of whom were getting pretty good, ranging from about 7 years old through to about 13 or 14. A Tasmanian Chess Camp means lots of coaching, and lots of outdoor activities, a blitz tournament, a simul, a barbecue and lots of fun. This is all thanks to the Hobart International Junior Chess Club, and especially the efforts of Mellissa Harvey.

Nearly empty scout hut, most of the kids were outside having a break from chess coaching.

I focussed on simple messages, though some of the material was quite tricky, including some very advanced ideas about pins. Although talking about such a basic concept as the pin might not seem that inspiring, when you show pins in game situations, and then set some tough puzzles about creating pins, exploiting pins, defending pins, and checking whether pins are good or not. Tactics are always good for juniors, and adding real game settings give the concepts some context, and kids love hearing stories about famous chess players (or not so famous chess players).

A blitz tournament was held on the Saturday evening, with some adults taking part to add some tough competition for the kids. It is great that adults should take the time to do this, as kids need role models, and targets in their development. Here's my game against the player who came second, Ross George. Please remember, this was a 5 minute game, and as far as I can remember, the move order is right!

There have been some films about chess over the years, and last week there was a showing of the film, "The Polgar Variant" at my local cinema. International arbiter (IA) Gary Bekker had the bright idea of running a chess demonstration in the foyer of the cinema before the film started, and I brought along some clocks and checked things out.

Zhi Lin Guo taking on members of the public

Gary Bekker playing Charlotte Dilnutt with publicity, all good for chess.

And finally, in the red corner...

The President of Frankston Chess Club, Rafael Ward, also happens to be the impetus behind Chess Boxing Australia. Here we get a combination of chess and boxing with the first to either checkmate or knock out being the winner. This weekend sees the inaugural Fight Knight. While boxers would have a good chance of knocking out chess players, apparently a competitor has to have a certain proficiency in both disciplines to compete.....shame :D

Panchenko's Endgame Defence

This was the position I left on my blog yesterday, an exercise from Panchenko's book, "Mastering Chess Middlegames". Black is in a tough spot and has to find the best defence. So let's look at some candidate moves.

1. If black tries to defend the pawn on b6, there are 2 ways to do it.

- 1..Rb8 pinning the pawn on b6 doesn't look good and white can simply advance his c-pawn to exploit the pin 2.c4 Kg8 3.c5 followed by cxb5 with a winning advantage
- 1..Rf6? is strongly met by 2.Rf1! forcing an exchange of rooks. This is what actually happened in the game. White's king is more central, and his pawn structure is better. The game finished. 2..Kg8 3.Rxf6 gxf6 4.Kf2 Kf7 5.Ke3 Ke6 6.Kd4 Kf5 7.Kd5 1-0

2. Counter attack

- 1..Rc8! this gives the best chance for a draw, activating the rook, getting the king into the game, while trading pawns. To go for this, these basic endgame principles needed to be followed, and an assessment of the position with 3 v 2 pawns as a draw needs to be understood. 2.Rxb6 Kg8 3.Rb5 Rxc4 4.Rxa5

This is actually a good position to study and practice, as well as positions with an extra pawn on the king side. Black should be able to hold a draw here, but getting to know some technique wouldn't hurt!

Have a look at this classic position from the game Ftacnik-Littlewood Hastings 1982. The attacking rook is placed passively, and Littlewood decides to protect his passed pawn with his king. Ftacnik uses this to get his own king moving on the other side of the board.

It's white to play. Perhaps you could try this position as both black or white against a computer, or friend of about a similar strength to you before you look at the game continuation which is here.

Steinitz

When I was in England, I met up with a chess friend of mine, James Pratt. James, for his sins, is currently editor of the British Chess Magazine and mine of chess information. He showed me around his extensive chess book collection, and we talked briefly about the typical chess subject of who your favourite is. I remember James mentioning Morphy, and possibly Alekhine of the past masters, while I said Steinitz and Rubinstein. As soon as said Steinitz, James got a book for me to take home, "Steinitz move by move" by IM Craig Pritchett.

IM Craig Pritchett's "Steinitz Move By Move, Everyman Chess

I didn't really take much of a look at the book until later when I noticed a couple if things that annoyed me. First there is an index of Steinitz' opponents in the complete games, but there is no mention of any of the part games mentioned in the text. Now this wouldn't normally be too much bother, except that arguably Steinitz most famous game, versus von Bardeleben from Hastings 1895, isn't one of the complete games. To be honest I couldn't believe this, but I found the game as a note to a later Steinitz-Schlechter encounter from 1898. Pritchett says about Steinitz-von Bardeleben:

"The moves...often complete with fulsome annotations, can be sourced in innumerable books and websites and...needn't be repeated here."

I'm sorry, but that is just absolute tosh! If you are going to write a book, essentially as a tool for club level players, about the "extraordinary life and games of one of the greatest players in history" then it seems a bit of a cop out to mention his most famous game, en passant.

I suppose I should really be happy that the game gets a mention at all. The game which probably brought Steinitz to the world's attention was his brilliancy prize winning effort against Mongredien from London 1862. This one I can;t even find in the notes of any other games. This is the first game mentioned by Kasparov in the section on Steinitz from "My Great Predecessors: Part 1". Apparently, none other than Adolf Anderssen called it "the most bold and brilliant game" while Chigorn, in 1890 stated that "Games that were deemed brilliant in recent international tournaments were no match for this one."

So why leave out a such a seminal example from a collection of a player's games? To be honest, a lot of what I've looked in the book I've liked, though "move by move" isn't quite accurate, and should probably be amended to "move by move, when something interesting comes up". It's a shame because what on the whole is a pretty good effort by Pritchett to show Steinitz' chess development through his career, and to educate his readers through challenging questions about the games at various times and good tips and ideas, is spoilt for Steinitz fans because of the omissions.

So here is the moment when a young Austrian player became a name on the world stage. Steinitz as white played 16.Rxh7!? winning brilliantly after Mongredien didn't find the best defence of 18..Qe8! (Kasparov still proves that even the best defence wouldn't have held out for Mongredian, though Steinitz would have had to find some difficult moves!).

Here's the game, and you can judge for yourself whether it deserves to be in a section of games from his early years, or a book about Steinitz' life and games.

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

Roadtrips

Before this blog gets back to chess, and I really want it to get back to chess, I still have a couple of thoughts to pass on about holidays. The whole experience of holidays is for me a set of events which starts in the planning of the holiday, the build up and excitement, the travel, and the way the holiday affects or changes you.

Marion, who we hadn't seen for over 10 years with her daughter, Natasha, who we'd never met before

My niece, Vanya, with another newcomer to Caroline and I, Amelia.

Caroline and I once went on a week long trip to the Canary Island of Fuerteventura, to a resort in the sun, by the sea. After about half a day, we realised we'd made a terrible mistake. The next day we hired a car, and drove to every nook and cranny on the island, and I guess we knew that we were not the sort of people who can happily go to one place for any length of time, without a lot of things to do. Since then, we have chosen short breaks or roadtrips. Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticising that type of holiday, I'm just saying what type of holiday suits me, and Caroline.

Just some steps down, but seen in the right light...

This time we planned to go to Europe, partly as a holiday for ourselves, and partly to see family. I've posted on this blog about the places we went, things we saw and people we met. The trip we took was a culmination of a lot of planning, discussion, ideas and, in the end, decisions about what was feasible. Things that were in the pipeline and never happened included trips to Venice, Berne, Bordeaux and Brittany. However we came up with the right trip for us which involved a lot of driving, a lot of walking, but a few occasions when we could just relax.

Which would you rather see? Sunrise in the alps?

Or sunset on the Mediterranean? Take your pick!

A great thing about a roadtrip is that you find places that you never even knew existed that you pass on your way, little hidden gems. On our first drive from Amsterdam to France we passed through the beautiful Meuse Valley in Belgium, an area that it was our intention just to drive through. Instead we had to get out regularly and just wonder at the beauty. When we drove around western USA a couple of years ago we had a similar experience. We were driving on a long stretch out of California and through Nevada towards Yellowstone. We had envisioned a long, boring drive, but instead were wowed by the stark landscape of the Sierra Nevada, and even loved the gambling towns such as Winnemucca.

A visit to Reims Cathedral was our "punishment" for a wrong turn

A holiday should charge the spirit, invigorate the soul, and leave someone with the drive and direction to take on life when they get home. While our holiday was physically exhausting, it was a psychological cleansing, a kaleidoscope of colours, shapes, languages and people which completely stripped down emotional barriers and refreshed them. We were sated from a travelling point of view and were ready to come home and carry on with life. But life would be different for both Caroline and I after this trip. We had both lost close members of family since our last trip to England which made visiting family a little different. As we'd been away for so long, it might have been more apparent to us, than those who were still living near home. Both Caroline and I decided on a course of action to take back here in Melbourne. Caroline has started creative writing, while I'm working on preparations to play at the Australian chess Championship in January. We're both a little obsessive about our pursuits, and after thinking about them on our trip, jumped straight into them on our return.

The side of the road is always good, like here in the Auvergne

 And next? Yes, of course, the end of one holiday spells the start of plans for the next one. But where to? Next year might see us do something more local. Japan, New Zealand, and parts of Australia are all possibilities. Another roadtrip? The next big one will probably be to Glacier National Park in the USA and Banff in Canada. This would probably be my number 1 choice of destination at this moment in time (coinciding with seeing the Northern Lights in Edmonton would be good). When will that be? I suppose I'd better get saving!

Some Autumn colour in Basingstoke Memorial Park, the town I was born

Long Haul

Minnewater, Bruges

The Itinerary:

- leave south of England on Thursday
- catch plane from Amsterdam Friday
- land in Melbourne Sunday
- back to work on Monday

Putting this into action:

Expecting some delays on the English roads we gave ourselves an extra hour to get from Basingstoke to Dover. Unfortunately, it wasn't long enough, as the 2 hour journey took us a little over 4 hours. The M20 which runs from London's M25 orbital to Dover had been a horror road in the week prior to our journey, with 2 fatal crashes within those 7 days. Apparently, another bad crash happened as the motorway was closed for a whole junction. As much as I might complain about Melbourne driving, the sheer weight of traffic on English roads is quite unnerving at times.

Anyway, we were put back on to a later ferry which arrived in Dunkirk after 6 pm as it was getting dark. The darkness wasn't helped by rain which made our journey through Belgium rather grim. Fortunately we didn't have far to go as we had the foresight to schedule a stop en route, in the picturesque city of Bruges.

Even the deteriorating weather couldn't stop us enjoying our final stop before heading home. We succumbed to the stereotypical Belgian treats of Chocolate, Beer and frites and mayonnaise! We also walked and wondered at the beautifully crafted old town, built around canals, with the tranquil Minnewater as the absolute jewel.

The magnificent 13th Century Belfry in the Market Square

Bruges, beautifully built around canals

 After a morning of walking around Bruges we started off for Amsterdam, arriving in good time to drop off our car and get to the terminal. Our car rental agency gave us no trouble about coming in with a new car from a different country.

The best way to deal with long haul flights is to stop over half way for a few days. However, we didn't have the luxury of doing this, so we had a 4 hour break in Dubai, before heading off to Melbourne. Our Emirates flights were definitely 2 halves of a coin. The first 6 hour flight saw poor service in our opinion, while the second flight of over 12 hours was excellently staffed, and was more spacious on the 380 airbus.

Do I suffer from jet lag? In a word, yes! I didn't sleep much on the Sunday we landed which was coincidentally, my 49th birthday. I went to sleep early that night and slept through till about 6.30 am Monday morning where I got up, got ready and went to work. After sitting around for a few hours, sorting some processes out, and getting up to speed with what I'd missed, I went home. I suffered a couple of dizzy spells during the day but I'd basically got myself back into Australian time. If past experience is anything to go by, it will take me a further week to recover fully.

I'm planning to get back into chess in a big way over the next couple of months, but there will be one last post about this roadtrip, more from a general perspective.

Belgian Chocolate

Minnewater

Minnewater

England

Caroline getting pretty close to deer at Windosr

After our roadtrip round France, Caroline and I visited family in England. For both of us, this was a time of happiness at seeing loved ones we hadn't met for 3 years. Mixed with this was the grief of having relatives die since our last visit to England.

Wildboarclough, in the foothills of the Pennines

Sunset at Cat and Fiddle Pass

Reflections of Castleton in the Peak District

We first headed north to Cheshire where Caroline was born and spent close to a week with her family. Cheshire is a beautiful county (except for the Merseyside parts of Leigh and St Helens) which borders Wales, touches the foothills of the Peak District, and has the walled city of Chester as its capital. Caroline's Mum lives near the railway dominated town of Crewe, which in itself is not the prettiest place in the world, but the countryside around is great, and we spent some time in the historic town of Sandbach, which has recognisable history tracing back to Saxon times.

Saxon grave markers at St Mary's, itself a 12th Centruy Church

The Old Black Bear, a 17th Century pub in Sandbach

We chose to go for a drive into the Derbyshire Peaks, a beautiful part of England. This was the sort of thing Caroline and I did when we lived in this part of the world. The beauty of the Peaks, and the belonging that resonates from the stone wall town and villages makes the Peak District a special place.

From Cheshire we drove to Hampshire where my family are based. My extended family is bigger than Caroline's and we struggled to see everybody, and even those we saw our time was spread pretty thin. For me though, the poignant issue was the absence of my Dad. It was indeed a strange experience to walk into my childhood home and him not to be there. He was never short of laughs, smiles and hugs, and wished to see those around him happy. I think his greatest wish to was to be outlived by his wife and children, and even though he reached the age of 90, I can happily say his wish came true.

Autumn colours shining through at Windsor Great Park

Windsor Castle at the end of the Long Walk

As well as visiting family, Caroline and I also managed a day out in Windsor. Besides visiting the town, we walked through the Great Park with deer roaming around. Lunch in a 17th Century pub topped off our fill of things historic which started about a month before in Amsterdam, and wended its way through France and England.

Outside Windsor Castle Queen Victoria stood as the longest serving English monarch until days before this photo was taken, when Elizabeth II broke that record