Sunday, July 31, 2005

A.N.U. and I

Hello Peoples!

I appologise i haven't been updating this regularly. Annnnyhow.....

Last Weekend i played chess down Canberra in the ANU Open....

What a shocker i had!!! I ended up with only 2/7!!!
I had an excellent game against a visiting Mongolian woman(whose name currently excapes me and i couldn't pronounce her name anyway....)
But i lost it when i probably had a good chance of winning......

I then proceeded to lose to 3 ACT juniors..... I defeated one ACT junior and one NSW junior..... The other game i lost to Narelle Szuveges.

Mr Jesse Sales took out the event with a score of 6.5/7

I shared accomodation with Mr Sales whilst down canberra. His enthusiasm for chess rubbed off on me...... not that i'm not already enthusiastic about chess.... but i think i might try some slightly more main line openings to what i play now...... My game is going to undergo a transformation......

Jesse was studying for his round 5 game against Igor Bjelobrk from about 10-10.30 on the saturday night till about 12 and then was up at about 4.30 studying, preparing again for Igors game! And the hard work paid off!

Friday, July 22, 2005

Self Analysing games

Apparently one of the best ways for a player to improve is to annotate his or her own games. This is something i do too little of. I shall start to self analyse my games onto my blog for other's criticisms and thoughts... So there are going to be a lot of games go up here in the next couple of weeks because i plan on playing: ANU Open this weekend, NSWCA JUly weekender next weekend and then Coal city the week after!

Any How lets start off with my Grade match game played on Tuesday night....

Trent Parker - Terry Wall (1448)

1.d4 Nf6
2.f3 ....
I like to play the Blackmar Diemer Gambit (BDG) this is a transpositional tool to offer the pawn if black plays 2...d4
2.... d4
3. e4 dxe4
4.Nc3 c6!?
Black decides not to take the pawn..... you bewdy.... i get an open f file without having to give up a pawn! I can use this extra pawn to shoo away the knight on f6 :D
5.fxe4 Bg4+
6.Nf3
.... Now i was a little worried about Bxf3 here. However i ended up deciding that if 6...Bxf3 then 7.gxf3 then develope the q side rapidly to castle q side...
6...d6
7.Be2 Nbd7
8.0-0 Qc7
I had a bit of an inclinatation that Black was going to castle Q side....
9.e5 .... The plan here was to get rid of the knight on f6 and play Ng5 attacking the h pawn
9....Bxf3
10.Rxf3....
Keeping the pressure on f7.
10....Nd5
11.Nxd5 cxd5
12.c3 f6
13.

Need a break from the puter... i'll finish it later....

Improving aussie chess.... #2

This is a continuation of my previous post...

Perhaps it could be a condition of the ACF's Grand Prix conditions that the tournaments must be submitted with carbon paper scoresheets to be sold as a periodical....

However this would then not include the games in places like state championhips etc. Perhaps the scoresheets could be collected by the ACF when it gets submitted for ratings? Then there would be the problem of manpower. Trying to get all the games keyed in. Perhaps people could be paid to do this job? However the periodical must be cost efficient enough that people would want to buy the periodical....

As for this year.... I might propose to the NSWCA Council that carbon copy paper will be used for the NSW Championships and supporting tournaments to make a bulletin. I would be prepared to do the work... What do y'all think? is it worth crating a bulletin?

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Improving Aussie chess.....

It has always struck me as more than a little odd, actually it is a tragedy, that in NSW, we do not have a habit of transcribing and recording games into a database. While scoresheets may be provided - no one actually collects these.

Imagine what gems are merely lying on some dustcovered shelf somewhere. It could be a Canfell massacre. Or a George Xie novelty. Or the genius of some future grandmaster. Who knows? - The Closet Grandmaster


Actually i've thought along these lines as well..... I have not spoken it..... but i have thought it :D.....

My Idea was more along the lines of perhaps publishing a periodical with the games of the tournaments that have been played during the past 3-4 months. I really think this would increase the quality of Australian Chess.

It has ewen said that Australian players know little or no opening theory. A Strong player could work out where the "inferior" move has been played and improve on it. Thus forcing the loser players to pick up their act because they get hammered every time they play a certain move.

Perhaps it could be a condition of the ACF's Grand Prix conditions that the tournaments must be submitted with carbon paper scoresheets to be sold as a periodical....

Dinner time.... more on this later.....

Visionary, Visionascary

How can we improve the Sydney grade matches for next year?

Time Controls: Some view shorter time controls as the way to go due to the long distance that people have to go to play their matches. However this may decrease the standard of chess. Perhaps the longer time control could stay as is for the Open and perhaps u2000 tournament whilst converting the remainder of the divisions to the shorter time period.

Finals Series: Wit the problems that have arisen from the grade matches this year perhaps several things should happen:
- No publishing of the finals series draw until all the regular matches hav been completed.
- Perhaps Neutral venues should be chosen for the finals.
- Perhaps the final should be a double round robin. Or a 2 leg K.O.

I think i have some more thoughts on this but being so late i'm gunna talk about them some other time.....

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Time's Tickin' Away!

I won my grade match game last night. Fairfield won 2.5-1.5 which means that St george will beat us in the end by half a point..... Now we just got to wait for other results.......

Well..... I'm reasonably happy with my results 6/8. One game i totally botched up something severe and the other i sacked unsoundly..... I wasn't to know at the time but that team is now leading the comp..... As it turns out we will beat Rooty Hill.... Now it isjust whether North Sydney can hammer Ryde eastwood and we might get second or equal second....

I was astonished last night when i found out that the st George club does not use digital clocks! For such a big club i would think that they would be with the times. Campbelltown uses analogue clocks but they do not have any digital clocks..... I am going to suggest we change this... :D

Advantages of digital clocks over analogue clocks:
- Can see the display better
- Can accurately know when you are under five minutes.
- Ease in setting digital clocks compared to analogue clocks especially when clocks have to be wound back after a time period has been completed.

There would be more but IMHO it would make sense to use digital clocks over analogue clocks.

tick tick tick tick tick.......

Hi peoples!

Welcom to my Blog.

My Blog will normally be fairly clean stuff not contraversial or not provokative. However I will spill me guts about issues that arise.

One such current issue is the NSWCA Grade Matches. The finals of the Open division have been contraversial with complaints coming from no less than two of the four finals teams.

Firstly Canterbury complained about having three away games in the final. This was somewhat rectified by the swapping of the colours when Canterbury played Sydney Academy of Chess. However I agree with Mr Sike that a player will probably play better in familiar surroundings.

Secondly the Sydney Academy of Chess complained that the draw that was on the grade match booklets should be the draw used for the final, not the one that has been published on the web. The Original had the draw as:
Round 8: 1v4 2v3
Round 9: 1v2 4v3
Round 10: 2v4 3v1

Whereas the Internet published draw is effectively
Round 8: as above.
Round 9: 1v3 2v4
Round 10: 2v1 4v3

Ooh I just read some more interesting facts... Zhao can play for STG (No.1) in round 10 but not in round 9 and I0. Bjelobrk can play for Asquith (No.4)round 9 but not 10. This gets more complex by the minute.....

If the draw is changed back there will be complaints from st. George.... And also it would be too much of a short notice...... If it isn't changed Sydney academy of chess withdraws...... What a predicament the NSWCA has put itself into!

Perhaps the answer might be to play the final series when everyone is available for all games? Would this be fairer for all clubs concerned? Would the clubs be willing to scrap the games already played for a fairer system to be put in place? Interesting stuff.....

Also I must appologise to International master Javier Gil. I may have gone a little hard on him when he first commented on chess chat about the draw... then again i might not have.... I dunno.... I was in an argumentative mood.....

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Go Fairfield

Got the final round of the U1400 Grade Matches tonight! Need a win to stay over 70% result rate. Pretty close in this division! 1st is Ryde Eastwood on 20.5 points second is St George Dragons on 20 points followed by Fairfield (my team) and Rooty hill on 19 points! We just need a clean sweep against........ D'oh St George Dragons!

Should be a good game though.......