Chess Game Preparation

What does a chessplayer concentrate on when coming up to a big tournament? I generally like to go over some Opening theory if I'm playing a new Opening or study tactics or study endgame.


Also physical training could be a good Idea for improving ones chess game. In an article by an Argentinian Nutritionist Roberto Baglione with the assistance of German GM Helmut Pfleger's survey it was found that "the elite chess players have comparable physiological parameters in competition as those who practice sports such as shooting, car racing and golf; consequently, chess could be classified as the same category of sport as those according to these criteria"



the article also gives recommendations for nutritional ways to be at your optimum performance and concentration at the board in important games:

• "Avoiding “heavy foods” or foods of difficult digestion before games must be
  adopted as a regular habit for chess players. The last “main” meal before a game
  has to be had at least three hours in advance. If a player wishes to have
  something to eat nearer the time of the beginning of a competition (one or two
  hours before, e.g.) he/she should choose among fruits (whole ones, fruit salad
  or juices, raisins), cereal bars, pretzels, cookies, low fat yogurt with fruit
  or cereals, sports drinks.

  
  

  During the games, it is recommended fluid ingestion, and, if the chess
  player wants it (or when the game becomes long), solid foods. Mineral water,
  fruit juices, tea, coffee, sports drinks, cereal bars, fruits, raisins, dry
  fruits (almonds, e.g.), chocolate, cereal cookies, can be chosen. In all cases,
  moderate quantities should be taken.
  The best strategy to hydration is to drink small quantities at regular intervals, instead of greater quantities at a few intervals, and avoid being thirsty. The same indication should be followed during board training and physical activity. It is also important to begin the activity properly hydrated.

  It would be good for chess players “to train” the quantity of fluid to be
  drunk while playing training games in situations similar to the tournament’s; in
  order to determine if the options and quantities are well tolerated (and to
  become familiarized with them) and then, avoid drinking quantities during an
  important game which may result in concentration loss. The same routine should be taken into account for solid foods.

  Some characteristics of the urine can show the state of hydration, which
  gives players a very good reference. If at any moment of the day the color of
  the urine is dark yellow, it is small in volume and has a strong smell, then all
  these signs could be showing that the chess player might not be properly
  hydrated and, consequently, should drink plenty of water or fluids containing
  water in considerable proportion.

  It would be advisable for the elite chess players to count on scientific
  nutritional consultancy in order to cope with all the requirements that
  top-level chess entails, because nutrition plays a significant role in the sport
  performance.

  The improper use of dietary supplements, mainly under self-supervision or
  non-professional supervision, can cause health problems and may result in a
  positive anti-doping control. It is advisable that chess players take dietary
  supplements only if these are prescribed by a medical doctor after a complete
  general check, and, in the case of top players, only those ones which are not on
  the list of the banned substances and methods for chess. The players must be
  informed about the current World Anti-Doping Code.

  Physical activities should be considered as an important component of the
  chess player training. It is necessary to attend clinical- cardiologic tests
  before starting doing this type of activity and this program must be designed by a doctor or a physical trainer."

I might have to start using some of these strategies in the lead up to the Australian Minor. :D I've been having a healthy eating period recently with lots of salad Items and leaving out a lot of crap that I used to eat. I'm using low fat milk and the low GI Bergen bread for my sandwiches which keep me full for ages. I've got to work on the hydration however. I have been only drinking when thirsty which is a sign of dehydration.

In recent times there has been a bit of discussion on chesschat on how unhealthy chessplayers are (except for the children). see this post here and subsequent discussion here. Maybe to get a healthier chess standard we need a healthier chess community?! Bring on the treadmills - pump out those GM's! lol

12 more sleeps

The Final field of the Australian Championships have been decided with a field of 36 players. Entry into the Major and Minor are still being taken so if you want to get into a great tournament its not too late.

I've prepared my new arsenal for the Australian minor. As for those Koreans in the Major and the Minor apparently the Koreans in the Major are adults and in the minor they are young 10 year olds.

Its time for me to start preparing my lines.... :D

Getting Excited? Less than a month to go!

Its almost that time of year again! yeah its christmas but thats not what i'm talking about.

Its almost time for the Australian Championships! My count makes 31 entering the Championship division , 49 in the Major division and 31 in the minor division. So it should be a good tournament. Top seeds in the Championship division are GM Dejan Antic and GM Darryl Johansen. with 4 other IM's (including one from Brazil!). Other visitors include: Felix Klein from Germany. and a host of South Korean players playing in the Major and the Minor. The Question is: how good are these Korean players?

A Club Liason officer - for city and country

At the NSWCA AGM I was voted in as the Club Liason Officer. It was not a role I was expecting to get. However, now that I now have that position I am going to try my best to be a clubs Liason person to the NSWCA for both city and country clubs.

I will listen to what people say about issues in their club, issues about the NSWCA Grade Matches and the like. But I want to know whats happening with Country Clubs as well. I want to find out how I can make the affiliation fee even more worthwhile for them to pay.

I will try to assist country clubs to hold their weekender tournaments, whether it be to be in a role of player or maybe Director Of Play or even in another form. I have already agreed with Gary Losh to arrange car pooling arrangements for Toukley Open (even knowing that, sadly, The White Knights Chess Club has folded) as the public transport to and from Toukley can be a pain (as I experienced last year).

Next year I would like to work with Keith Farrell in improving the Country Clubs Championships. These Championships are always fun to play at.

I hope that I can make a positive impact on the clubs in NSW in 2008.

Election Update:: Incumbents stay in!

On the 24th of November the nation went to the polls to vote for the person who they believe would serve them best as Prime Minister of Australia. Chess Players had to vote and then go to the NSW Lightning and or the NSWCA AGM.... If they cared. The Incumbents were largely voted in to their positions again with a few shuffling around in the back benches.

Brett Tindal moves from Tournaments Officer to Member without portfolio, Shane Burgess fills Brett's spot as Tournaments officer after a year's stint as Clubs Liason Officer. After a year and a half I decided to come back on to council. I was voted in as Clubs Liason Officer. Peter Parr took over the vacant Publicity Officer role and Martin Van Elmpt replaced Rick Keuning as Webmaster.

It was also decided to increase the membership fee to $30 and to charge a non voting rights fee of $10 if a player wishes to play rated games. A tournament will not be rated unless all players have paid this membership. The Country Membership remains at $10.

In relation to the compulsory membership to get a players games rated, I had an interesting conversation with Mr Gary Losh and he was concerned about the extra $10 that must be paid/player if games are to be rated. His arguement was that the Club affiliation fee was supposed to cover advertisment of their tournaments and the rating of these tournaments. I argued that Individuals are members of the NSWCA and thus the individual players should pay for having their games rated. At the end we agreed to disagree. He felt that the additional $10 per person may have detrimental effects on small tournaments like Laurieton. We will see if this is founded or not next year.

Changes: for the better!?

Hello peoples
Sorry about going missing for a long time. I’ve had a bit of an up/down time of it lately.

I’ve started to get some chess Coaching GM Dejan Antic in order to improve my chess. In my Chess Career I’ve gone from an aggressive, Sac happy type of person and I’m looking to turn myself into a more positional, maybe prophylactic style of play. Rather than play like a cobra trying to strike fast at a mongoose before it strikes back, I want to play more like a boa Constrictor – I want to squeeze my opponent’s position until it’s choked to death. The coaching is paying off dividends at the moment. Had some successful games in the Western Suburbs Rapid-play Challenge where I scored 1.5/2 and Parramatta and Rooty Hill Tied for the night but Parramatta won due to winning the Rooty Hill leg.

I have had some problems in my personal life. My work dried up so was looking for work a lot of the time. In an effort to start getting in shape I decided to go see a doctor to get a check up. I haven’t really done that before and have never really had my own GP. Anyhow he sent me to get a blood test done and it came back not good. My Cholesterol was a bit higher than what it’s supposed to be and I now have type two diabetes. Add to that High Blood pressure and the obvious fact that I’m obese means I got to get in shape to lose this heart attack material…

So I got a couple of action plans in happening at the moment: for my health, for my chess, and to earn a living (which I intend to start my own bookkeeping business in the new year). With a bit of effective time management I should be able to blog regularly as well. (Maybe a little bit of Déjà vu?)

So what has happened in chess since I last blogged?

Surfer’s Paradise
My apologies for not completing the Surfers Paradise tournament blog entry.

GM Dejan Antic won the tournament on a score of 6/7 and GM Roland Schmaltz and Mouthun Ly ended up equal second on 5.5/7. The under 1600 division ended up being won by Craig Stewart on 6/7. Shayne Hunter scored 5.5/7 to grab second prize and there were 4 players on 5 points for equal third, including Mike Duffin who took my second place in the GP standings after this tournament.

Coffs Harbour Open – Incorporating the NSW Country Championships.

On the tenth and 11th of November the 4th Coffs Harbour Open was held at the Coffs Harbour Catholic Club. The joint winners of this event were: GM Dejan Antic, visiting Malaysian Mas Hafizulhelmi and IM George Xie all on a score of 6/7. Coffs Harbour local Alan Tankel won the NSW Country Champion title with a score of 4.5/7. Congrats to the Coffs Harbour Crew on another great tournament! GM Ian Rogers gave lectures on the top two games. (Which embarrassingly I had to play top seed Antic in the first round and my game got cut to shreds!!).

Gosford Open

Chris Morrison, a Scottish player who is currently working in Singapore who decided to holiday in Australia and enter the tournament after several years out of chess, won the Gosford Open! Anyhow he won from Johny Bolens and Paul Broekhuyse who came second and third respectively.
For more information…. http://gosfordchess.com/Previous/2007/GosfordOpen2007/PhotoAndReport/GosfordOpen2007PhotoReport.html

And a few weeks later….

Country Teams Championship – Gosford

Once again the Central Coast Leagues club hosted the Country Teams Championship, which was won by Gosford 1 over 11 other teams from Ettalong, Newcastle, Hamilton, Dubbo, Coffs Harbour, Blayney and Bathurst, Tumbi Umbi (Mingara of course!) and Gosford.

Also there was a little meeting called the NSW AGM, which I’ll come to in another post.

Sun, Sand, Surf, chess what else do you want?

4:20 pm; The Sydney-Brisbane overnight XPt slinks out of Sydney Central station and powers North through the suburbs of Sydney, Central Coast and Newcastle. My Desination: Surfer's Paridise, Queensland. The train will take me as far as the town called Casino where i will change over to a coach at the ungodly hour of 3:30. And Its time for me to sleep.



Iremember when I was a kid of about 15-16 My family and I came to the Gold Coast for a family holiday. We did the usual touristy things like Sea World and Movie World. We stayed at Conrad hotel Jupiter's Casino. I remember going walkabouts; catching the Monorail accross to the Oasis shopping Centre. Heading towards the beach and walking north is the BroadBeach Surf Life Saving Club. The Venue for this Surfer's Paridise Chess tournament.



The Train arrived in Casino half an hour late but the Surfer's Paridise bus made up time as it's first stop was not until Palm beach. The bus arrived in Surfer's Paridise at just before seven. Muddle headed and not sure which way to go I picked up some brochures and maps of the local area. My intended accomodation, the YHA, i discovered was on the other side of Surfer's paridise. so i decided to seek alternate accomodation. Walking south towards Broadbeach I came accross the Surfer's Paradise backpackers which had a vacancy. Then to the venue: a 10-15 min walk away.



The Broadbeach SLSC overlooks the beach (how else whould they save lives in the surf?). It is a bright venue without air conditioning although surprisingly the fans do make conditions bearable on a day without a cloud in the sky and muggy as.



Now to the chess:

Round one went to plan for the vast majority of higher rated players in both the Open and the U1600:

Francisco Chung lost to GM Roland Schmaltz, Antic defeated Narelle Szuveges in a Catalan Opening, Oleg Korenevski lost to IM Steven Solomon, IM Gary Land defeated Jonas Muller, Sam Griggs lost to IM Peter Froelich; Pinoy IM Jesse Sales defeated Mark Stokes, and Michal Van Pelt lost to Mouthun Ly. Unrated Joe Delmastro defeated Tony Weller in the only upset for the round.

The Under 1600 top seed Daniel Ford defeated Henry McLennan, board two saw Mike duffin defeate Peter Horan, board three saw John Ringrose lose to Aurel-John buciu, Peter radonovan defeated John Surridge. David Soul lost to Me in a french gone wrong for white. Upsets started on board 9 where Kyle Ringrose (909) defeated John Radovan (1423)



Round two saw Roland Schmaltz defeate Dusan Stojic, Edsil Dilla started a devastating run of losses against GM Dejan Antic, Steven Solomon was an exchange down against Lee Jones but Solo was able to put the squeeze on Jones' cramped position to come away with a win. Domagoj Dragicevic (2139) defeated Gary Lane (2405) in a board 4 upset. Froelich defeated Bruce Thomas, Ben Lazarus lost to Jesse Sales, Mouthun Ly defeated David Lovejoy, Gene Nakkauchi lost to Felix Klein. Upsets in the Open division include Tony Weller (1788) losing to John Alkin (1616), Alex Stanke (1613) defeating Francisco Chung (1761), Yi Liu (1510) defeating Oleg Korenevski (1695), Jonas Muller (1677) drew with Jessica Kinder (1588) Mark Stokes (1668) lost to Kieran Lyons (1439).

In the U1600 division Daniel ford defeated Alex "Arrogant One" Toolsie, Regina Edwards lost to Mike Duffin. Aurel-John Buciu defeated Peter Booy, Keiton Beilby (1354) defeated Peter Radovan (1530), Shayne Hunter defeated Kyle Ringrose and Jim Laky drew with Craig Stewart. I accounted for Anicha Bay in an interesting game where Anicha's Hyper Modern style opening against my huge centre ensured an interesting battle. I went down a pawn and then gained a piece for a pawn. Then I was able to make a Bishop sacrifice to gain the advantage.
Upsets in the U1600 included Vasile Buciu (1408) lost to Hans Peter Muller (1267), John Radovan (1425) lost to Anthony Solomon (1046) and DUnrated David Andrew defeated Jonathan Ringrose (1172).

Round 3 saw FM Jesse Sales lose to GM Schmaltz, Antic defeated Mouthun Ly, Felix Klein (2212) drawing with Stephen Solomon (2442), Domagoj Dragicevic (2139) drew with Froelich (2365), Sam Grigg (1676) defeated Edsil Dilla (2176), Lee Jones (2086) lost to Nenad Chelebichanin (1642), David Lovejoy (1865) drew with Yi Liu (1510). Other upsets in the Open division included Jessica Kinder (1588) over Tony Weller (1788), Oleg Koronevski (1695) losing to David Cigelj (1210), and Roy Christutad(1337) drew with Mark Stokes (1660).
In the U1600 division Shayne Hunter (1517) defeated Daniel Ford (1592), Mike Duffin smashed me in the Catalan, with me having almost the worst bishop in the world. Aurel John Buciu defeated Kieton Beilby. Craig Stewart accounted for Sebastian Jule, Hans-Peter Muller defeated Jim Laky. Upsets included Kyle Ringrose (909) drawing with Petrer Haron (1194). Lachlan Van Der Bergh (1137) defeated Eegina Edwards (1409). and Anicha Bay defeated Vasile Buciu (1408).

Round four ended up being delayed by half an hour as late finishes in the previous three rounds built up. In the open division it was the clash of the Grandmasters on board one...... obviously they wanted an early night and a grandmaster draw was agreed to. The game IM Stephen Solomon against Dragicevic ended up in a win to the International Master, Peter Froehlich (2365) lost to Felix Klein (2212). Gary Lane defeaterd Ben Lazarus. Local Queensland Junior Gene Nakauchi (1870) rolled Pinoy FM Jesse Sales (2312) who apparently tried too hard in a drawn position. Mouthun Ly derfeated Brian Tomas, and Nenad Chelebichanin lost to Dusan Stojic. Upsets for the round included Jonas Muller (1677) drawing with David Lovejoy (1868), Edsil Dilla (2176) continued his slide down the tables by losing to Jessica Kinder (1588), Mark stokes (1668) and John Alkin (1616) drew, and Tony Weller (1788) lost to Oleg Korenevski(1695).

So at the major break we have 1st Schmaltz, Antic, Solomon, Klein 3.5, 5th Lane, Ly, Stojic, Nakauchi, Grigg 3, Froehlich, Dragicevic, Kinder 2.5 as our leading scores

In the U1600 division Mike Duffin became the sole leader by defeating Aurel John Buciu, Craig Stewart locked in outright second by defeating Shayne Hunter, Daniel Ford accounted for Hans Peter Muller, Keiton Beilby missed some opportunities against myself but eventually blundered into a KQ fork. Board 5 was the battle of the Alex's. O'Flynn (1351) defeated Toolsie (1488). Haron defeated Anicha Bay and Sebastiean Jule (1351) drew with Lachlan Vander Bergh (1137). Other Upsets included Jim Laky (1348) defeating Henry MacLennan (1278). Brent Winston (920) defeated Regina Edwards (1409)

Leading scores for the homeward stretch: 1st Duffin 4, 2nd Steward 3.5, 3rd Ford, Buciu, Hunter, Parker, O'Flynn 3, 8th Toolsie, Booy, McLennan, Muller, Heron, Van Der Bergh, Winstan 2.5.

All woork and not much play

Been a bit busy to blog recently. My mind has not been on blogging. its been elsewhere.

Congratulations to Paul Glissan on winning the Major and congratulations to Heinrich korbe on winning the minor division of the Integra state champs.

Congratulations once again to Gregory canfel who has once again won the Integra NSW State championship division, only dropping a game to Gareth Charles

As for more blogging. I will be blogging from the inaugral Surfers Paridise Open this weekend.

6th round of Integra NSW Championships

With the top division already decided, the Minor and Major have the potential to be decided as well today.

In the minor Heinrich Korbe will play Michael Courtney. Whilst on board two I will play Valsalan Karayi. Karayi needs to win to stay in contention for a podium finish whilst i need to win or draw to stay in contact with Korbe.

In the Major Paul Glissan can secure first place if he wins and Christensen draws. Sewell and Javor on equal third place cannot catch Glissan.

7 circles attempt.

I'm going to try to start the 7 circles tomorrow. Phil willis has had some success with it (although he lost a pawn early against me..). I worked most of the category one puzzles out pretty quickly tonight but will start tomorrow.

Ikeda wins Ryde Eastwood Open. Illingworth, Bjelobrk, Toth, Antic equal second

Round 6 saw Max Illingworth (2097) take the lead on 5.5/6 with a win over Igor Bjelobrk (2423). On board two Toth overcame Canfell and Junta Ikeda defeated Giang Nguyen on board three. The Grandmaster of the tournament crept up the standings after saturday night's/ Sunday morning's performances by beating Paul Broekhuyse. Armen Ayvazyan kept into contact with the leaders by beating Joseph Nguyen as did Bolens by defeating Rachmadi.
Upsets for the round included a draw to Thierry Olivain (1840) over Adrian Miranda (1838).
Andrew Furst (1770) defeated Brendan Norman (1907), David Lam (1659) defeated Sartaj Hans (1929), Michael Tracey won on forfeit against Yuen. Jonathan Ren (1552) defeated Ben Cheung (1524).

Time for the Final Round!
The young I's battled it out on top board which resulted in a win for Ikeda over Illingworth. Ikeda was a pawn up at the stage I had a look and Illingworth was about to get it back, however a strong attack by Ikeda saw him snatch the game from Illingworth. So Ikeda was sitting on six with board two's result to come The tense wait was short lived Bjelobrk could not convert his pawn majority and eventually ended up drawing with Toth. Thus handing Ikeda the outright lead. On board three Antic used his material advantage to defeat Ayvazyan. Antic was up the exchange plus pawns and Ayvazyan could not weather Antics attack. Antic joined Illingworth, Toth and Bjelobrk on 5.5/7 to be equal second. Bolens Blundered against Canfell who converted to a win.
Upsets for the final round included Sherab Guo Yuthok (2163) over Giang Nguyen (1642). Adrian Miranda (1838) ended a disappointing tournament by losing to Kong (1293)., Hans (1929) lost to Tamsin Oliver (1480), NSWCA Treasurer Norm Greenwood (1510)defeated Paul Reynolds (1893). Mary Wilkie (1251) lost to Phil Willis (1165). And finally I (1488) blundered away a clear advantage against Cedric Koh (1354)

At the end of the tournament Junta Ikeda took first prize with 6/7 followed by Bjelobrk, Antic, Toth, and Illingworth. Sharing 6th prize was Greg Canfell, Andrew Brown and Benjamin Harris.

Divisional Prizes were as follows: U1400 1st Adrian Kong, 2nd: Phil Willis, Andrew Jung, Cedric Koh, Johnathan Ren.
U1600 =1st Tamsin Oliver, Norm Greenwood and Michael Tracey.
1600-1800 =1st Joseph Nguyen, Herman Rachmadi. =3rdNick Kordahi, John Alkin, Andrew Furst, Allan Tankel and David Lam.

Next weekend the State Championships resume

Three I's become two!

IN round 4 my game went for long while so i didnt get to get some details of the top bards. The results for round 4 were: Bjelobrk defeating Junta Ikeda on board one, Andras Toth (2426) and Max Illingworth (2097) drew on board two,Tony Davis Lost to Armen Ayvazyan, Greg Canfell started his fightback by defeating Blair Mandla, Johny Bolens defeated Adrian Miranda in a wild French Tarrasch. Adrew broawn defeated Cedric Koh, Ben Harris defeated Valsalan Karayi and Brendan Norman defeated Alan Tankel.
The only draw for the rownd was Phil Willis (1163) scoring a draw against Joshua Ng (788).
upset wins for round 5 included Tamzin Oliver (1480) over Nick Kordahi (1792), Mark Baterowicz (1554) losing to Adrian Kong (1293)
The standout result was little Sean Gu (1172) defeating Paul Reynolds (1893).

Leading scores after 4 rounds: 1st Bjelobrk 4, 2nd-4th Illingworth, Ayvazyan, Giang Nguyen 3.5, 7th -10th Antic, Canfell, Bolens, Brown, Ben Harris, Norman.

In Round 5 we saw a blitz finish on two of the top three boards. Bjelobrk overcame Ayvazyan to secure outright lead in a blitz finish. Whilst on board three Antic was down on time against Bolens and ended up having to blitz it. The position was a drawn position but Antic still wanted to play on for the win after a draw offer from Bolens. The draw was agreed when both players ended up blitzing it out. Board two saw Max Illingworth defeat Giang Nguyen (2163). Max told me he blundered early but Giang did not notice and did not let Giang back in the game. Board 4 saw Andrew Brown losing to Andras Toth. Ben Harris lost to Greg Canfell, Brendan Normal lost to Junta Ikeda. Paul Broekhuyse and Tony Davis were the second last to finish with Broekhuyse emerging with the spoils.
Upsets started on Board ten with Herman Rachmadi (1642) defeating ACT's Sherab Guo Yuthok (1847). The only other upset win was Andrew Jung (1389) over Adrian Miranda (1838)
Astonishingly Sean Gu (1172) obtained a draw against Johnathan Yuen (1686).

So the Leading scores after 5 rounds are as follows:
1st Bjelobrk 5, 2nd Illingworth 4.5, 3rd-5th Toth, Canfell, Ikeda 4, 6th-11th Ayvazyan, Nguyen, Antic Bolens, Broekhuyse, Joseph Nguyen 3.5, 12th-21st Brown, Ben Harris, Norman, Mandla, Abbott, Jung, Furst, Tankel, Lam 3.

What a Monster! Three I's lead tournament after day 1

Approximately 50-60 players have entered the Ryde Eastwood open this year. There are ten players over the 2000 rating mark headed by GM Dejan Antic and Andreas Toth.

Round 1 saw all the top seeds go to rating. Antic defeated Coffs Harbour's Alen Tankel, Johnathen Yuen lost to Toth, Bjelobrk defeated David Lam, John Alkin lost to NSW State Champ Greg Canfell, Armen Ayvazyan defeated Mark Baterowicz, Ben Cheung was defeated by Junta Ikeda, Giang Nguyen defeated Norm Greenwood and a late pairing saw Bolens defeat Parker.
There were three draws for the round Sartaj Hans (1929) drew with Andrew Jung(1389), Brendan Norman (1902) was held to a draw by Cedric Koh (1354), and another makeshift pairing saw Oscar wang(1505) draw with Phil "downunder knight" Willis.
Johnathan Ren obtained an upset win over Paul Reynolds.

Round two saw the top 6 boards go according to rating:
Andrew Brown appeared to be down a pawn early then got it back.... and then lost it again in an attack which Antic weathered to win the game. Board two saw Toth defeat Mandla after toth obtained two pieces for his rook and pawn but Toth's two bishops were too overwhelming for Mandla's position. Board 3 Benjamin harris lost to Igor Bjelobrk, Greg Canfell defeated Adrian Miranda after Adrian survived Canfell's first wave of attack but succumed to Canfells second wave after trying to get some counterplay. Abbot lost to Armen Ayvazyan. There was an upset on board 7 as Tony Davis (1813) drew with Giang Nguyen (2163). followed by another draw on board 8 where Paul Broekhuyse (2122) drew with Joseph Nguyen (1756). Andrew Furst lost to Max Illingworth and Johny Bolens defeated Jonathan Ren.
Draws for the round included Andrew Jung (1389) against Brendan Norman (1902).
There were 3 upsets for the round: Cedric Koh (1354) defeating Herman Rachmadi (1642), Paul reynolds (1893) defeated by Valsalan Karayi (1408) and Adrian Kong (1293) defeated John Alkin (1616)

Round 3 was a monster of a round where the three I's came to the top.....
On board one Junta Ikeda took a long time to develop his Queen side pieces against Dejan Antic but Junta was able to cause enough problems to claim the win on time. On board two a blitz finish between Armen Ayvazyan and Andreas Toth agreed to a draw. After the agreement Bolens pointed out a possible win for Toth..... I dont know if it was or not... On Board four Igor Bjelobrk defeated Johny Bolens. Board 5 saw another upset on time. Max Illingworth went half a point better on his draw against Canfell in last year's state championships. Giang Nguyen defeated Paul Broekhuyse.
Upsets started on board 7 where Tony Davis (1813) defeated Hans (1929), and Joseph Nguyen (1756) defeated Sherab Guo-Yuthok (1843) on board 8. Nick Kordahi (1792) lost to Andrew Jung (1389) and Valsalan Karayi (1408) continued his excellent form against Adrew Furst (1770),Thierry Ollivain (1384) lost to Issac Ng (1206), And Mary Wilkie (1251) lost to the young and very talented Sean Gu (1172)
The only upset draw for the round was Will Chaffey (1173) drawing with Paul Reynolds (1893)

So after three rounds we have 3 players on 3 points. Now some sleep :D

Ryde Eastwood Open Is on today

It'll be Blogging time again!

Today rounds 1-3 of the NSWCA Ryde Eastwood Open will take place at the Ryde Eastwood Leagues club, just a short walk from West Ryde Station.

I will report on it daily....

A night with Ian Rogers

Mirakla Mithran will be representing Australia at the World Youth Chess tournament in Talya, Turkey, this coming november.

I played her last night and she seems to be a crafty little player. But i think the longer the time limit the better she will play. I played 2 10 minute games against Mirakla, the first, a scotch gambit, I ended up drawing.

The night with Ian Rogers will happen on
Saturday 13th October 2007
Time:6 pm
Venue: Toongabbie Christian School Hall, 30-40 Metella Road Toongabbie
Tickets are $20 per adult and $10 per student.

The meal will beBuffet style Sri Lankan Cuisine (Desert and drinks included). Contact Gaya for further information (mob ph:0416 285 837)

A simul will be given by the Grandmaster after dinner. To enter the simul contact Phin Tang on 0412879875 or email phintang@bigpond.net.au.

OK I've been quite slack.......

I've been quite slack with my blogging of late. I've been reading some old magazines. One "NSW Chess" from 1991 looks interesting. What was happening in NSW In 1991? there was an Extraordinary General Meeting called consider the motion that "the national magazine "chess in Australia remains as part of the NSWCA Membership schemeas it has been for many years"

So now a Question:

If the NSWCA decided to increase the membership rate to xay $150 and included the "Chess Australia: Magazine and a free entry into a NSWCA event+ discounts into other events would you pay it?

I probably would. I play in alot of tournaments so in the long run i'd probably profit from the idea.

Anoter thing that pops up is the fact that almost all the chess events in the booklet are sponsored: the Cepacol NSW State Championships; The Mercantile mutual Grand Prix, the Commonwealth Bank Grade Matches.

And what happened to these people? Johnathan Mendel was DOP of the City of Sydney Premier Weekender.

Chatswood chess club in Focus was another article which was revisited in a recent Australian Chess Mag.

Anyhow more tidbits to come.....

WoW What a loser!

To Mr Arthur Huynh:

Get off your rear and start playing the chess games that you have signed up to play in the state champs?

And what about the Parra Club Champs? Are you going to play in them?

Mr Huynh you need to stop playing World of Warcraft. It seems to be detrimental to your health.

Wake up!!!!!!!!!!

I hope this post will put a bomb under your ass and do something other than play WoW all night long.

Integra NSW Championships round 5 - Canfell Cruises to victory - Now unbeatable!

Gregory Canfell defeated Johny Bolens in the 5th round of the Integra NSW State Championships, thus engraving his name once more in NSW state championship history by building up an unassailable lead. Board two saw Brendan Norman and Andrew Furst draw. Adrian Rose and Gareth Charles battled out an unclear position until Gareth's two bishops over come Adrians position and eventually won the game. Huynh - Camer ended up in a double forfeit.

Standings after five rounds: 1st Canfell 5, 2nd Charles 3.5, 3rd Bolens 3, 4th Norman 2, 5th-6th Rose, Furst 1.5, 7th Huynh 0.5, 8th Camer 0.

In the Major division Paul Glissan ended up with two Queens to defeat Herman Rachmadi. Glissan is a clear point from his nearest rivals. On board two it was a battle of Parramatta with Joshua Christensen and Bob Sewell playing out a 4hr 30min marathon game where josh had winning pawn endgame (no other pieces) and ended up with Q+3P against Bobs Q. My brain got fried trying to work out the variations.... On board three Nick Kordahi and Lloyd Fell battled out a tough game with Nick being two passed pawns up but with an active King and Opposite colour bishops Lloyd may have been able to old for a draw. I didnt end up getting this result. I think it might have been a win for Kordahi. Tom Tomas went up a pawn early against Mark Baterowicz "It was risky taking the pawn" Tom said "a player of much higher standard may have been able to punish me for my greed!" Javor scored a point when Charamova did not turn up.

Standings after round 5:
1st Glissan 5, 2nd Christensen 4, 3rd-5th Sewell, Kordahi, Javor, 6th-7th Fell, Rachmadi, 8th -10th Sharamova, Baterowicz, Tomas 1.

In th minor division Korbe became sole leader after he defeated Bruce Harris in a tight knight and two pawns against Bishop and one pawn endgame. Valsalan Karayi fell off the pace as he fell to Michael Courtney. Trent Parker played on in what was probably a drawn endgame but then found a combination that allowed either a loss of a pawn or checkmate. Alexander Papp pushed the pawn and missed the checkmate. Anthony villanueva was up two pawns butMichael Tracey had central passed pawns. In the end Anthony's material advantage paid off for the win. Michael Ngo and Tony Spirov played out a draw, Behan defeated Greenwood, Greg Davis lost to Mick Waters, Edis defeated Tom Accola.

Standings after round five:
1st Korbe 4.5, 2nd-3rd Parker, Courtney 4, 4th Karayi 3.5 5th-6th Villanueva, Harris 3, 7th-11th Papp, Ngo, Spirov, Behan, Waters 2.5, 12th-13th Tracey, Edis 2, 14th Greenwood 1.5, 15th Davis 1, 16th Accola 0

Catching up on things

OMG ive missed so much. I've been busy and sick and then busy and then sick

I have not read closet grandmaster in a long time. I have missed so much on chesschat and i have not been on ozchess for a long time as well. I need to get back into the swing of things. Now to catch up on my blogging of the state championships.....

Canfell gets forfeit? Integra NSW Championships report for rounds 4 and 5

In round four I did not get much of a report as I was disappointed with my own game and became enthralled with Joshua Christensen's analysis of his own game.

The Integra NSW State Championship division results went as follows:

Andrew Furst - Arthur Huynh apparently was supposed to be played on the Thursday before the sunday's round but Arthur did not turn up. Andrew won on Forfeit.

Johny Bolens defeated Gareth Charles

Now with the other two fixtures for that round there is currently no results imputted into the swiss perfect program.

I thought Angelito Camer lost on forfeit to Greg Canfell but there is no result inserted yet.

No result was inserted for Brendan Norman v Adrian rose

So the standings after 4 incomplets!? rounds are as follows: 1st Canfell 4, 2nd Bolens 3, 3rd Charles 2.5, 4-5th Rose, Norman 1.5, 6th Furst 1, 7th Huynh 0.5, 8th Camer 0.

In the Major division for round 4:

Nick Kordahi lost to the pacesetter Paul Glissan, Joshua Christensen defeated Steve Javor by hacking the kings position. Bob Sewell continued his winning streak by defeating Charamova. Mark Baterowicz was defeated by Lloyd Fell, and Herman Rachmadi defeated Tom Tomas.

Standings after round 4:

1st Glissan 4, 2nd-3rd Christensen, Sewell 3, 4-7 Kordahi, Fell, Rachmadi, Javor 2, 8th-9th Baterowicz, Charamova 1, 10th Tomas 0

Minor results for round 4:

Parker coming out of the opening a pawn up ended up blundering in the battle of Wollondilly against Heinrich Korbe on top board, Valsalan Karayi continued his good form by beating Anthony Villanueva, Michael Tracey lost to Bruce Harris, Norman Greenwood lost to Michael Courtney, Alexander Papp defeated Patrick Beahan. Franca Edis handed Michael Ngo a point by not showing up as did Greg davis to opponent Tony Spirov. Mick Waters defeated Tom Accola.

Standings after 4 rounds:

1st-2nd Korbe, Karayi 3.5, 3rd-5th Parker, Harris, Courtney 3, 6th Papp 2.5, 7-10 Villanueva, Tracey, Ngo, Spirov 2, 11-13 Greenwood, Behan, Waters 1.5, 14-15 Davis, Edis 1, 16th Accola 0.

NSW Championships..... No longer the Stayers race

The NSW Championships used to be a 9 round tournament over nine weeks. To me This was the Melbourn (Or should that be Sydney) cup of chess. It was a stayers race. The winner had to maintain form over the several months of the Championshipd.

I saw the nine rounds like this: The first three rounds saw the pace set. It sort of determined the players to beat for the tournament and who was in form for the start of the tournament. The second three games is like the horses coming around the final turn. Players jostling for position and sometimes the original frontrunners may fall back into the pack. The final three games: the players have jostled into position for the sprint home. This is it! Down the main straight. the race is won in these final games. It may take until the final game before the race iswon.

This year in the Integra NSW State Championships the 7 round format has taken away from the traditional feel of the 9 round tournament.

Today we play the fourth round of the championships and Instead of coming into the turn it sora feels like we have a sharp bend rathaer a turn to negotiate before running the final 3 game sprint. I'm currently setting the pace in the minor. I hope I can maintain the lead I have and sprint away from my competitors.

Howard v Rudd: A chess Game

Here we go again! The media using chess incorrectly to emphasise things. The article is a bit of a light hearted article on the Election campaign between Howard and Rudd "winning strategy eludes past master". Howard v Rudd, Like Bobby Fischer v Vaselin Topalov ...... hang on a sec..... has Bobby fisher ever played Topalov??? I dont think so.

Later on in the article it says:

Howard must also be spooked that so many chess masters have names beginning with K: Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Khalifman, Kasimdzhanov. Now Kev. Oops!

Doesnt this guy realise that all these names are surnames. lol like really.

Anyhow it seems to be the joke of the day

Integra NSW Championships Round 3 : Canfell wins; Charles wins by forfeit

Round Three of the Integra NSW Championships was Canfell has shaken off Bolens to become sole leader in the open division, Paul Glissen pull ahead in the Major and I became sole leader of the minor division



In the Integra NSW Championship division Gareth Charles won by forfeit as Angelito Camer rang up on the day and said that he had to work.

Greg Canfell and Andrew Furst had completed their game even before I completed mine. Canfell was the victor of that battle.

On board three Arthur Huynh misplayed the opening to end up a pawn plus an exchange down. He battled on and at one stage missed a cunning looking draw which Fritz picked up straight away. Arthur ended up losing this very wild game.

As Eccentric as always, Johny Bolens Complained about the colours before Arbiter Nick Chernih told Bolens to play the game or dont play the game. Bolens ended up playing the game and eventually went down to Adrian Rose in a rook and multiple pawns endgame.



Current standings for the Integra NSW Championship division: 1st Canfell 3, 2nd Charles 2.5, 3rd Bolens 2, 4th-5th Norman, Rose 1.5, 6th Huynh .5, 7th-8th Camer, Furst 0.



In the Major division, top seed Paul Glissen played white against Joshua Christensen. A Scandinavian battle ensued with Paul coming out the victor.

On Board two Herman Rachmadi was apparently looking ok against Nick Kordahi until Rachmaid dropped his Queen for a Rook. Kordahi eventually won that game.

Bob Sewell and Lloyd Fell played each other on board three where it took Sewell 89 moves to convert the game in his favour after being the exchange up with advanced passed pawns in the middlegame.

The second last game of the night to finish was teven Javor against Mark Baterowicz. Javor had two pieces plus a pawn for a rook up and also had advanced passed pawns. Javor won this game.

The lady of the tournament finally won her first game! Charamova was an exchange for a pawn up in an endgame and eventually won with the exchange.



Standings after round 3:1st Glissan 3, 2nd-5th Christensen, Kordahi, Sewell, Javor 2, 6th-9th Fell, Rachmadi, Baterowicz, Charamova 1, 10 Tom Tomas 0



In the minor division the only two players on two battled it out on the top board. Anthony Villanuevea and I battled on until I came up with a nice knight sac that gave me the advantage. I eventually won the game. On the second board another upset was brewing; Alexander Papp lost to Heinrich Korbe. And yet another upset on board three! Norm Greenwood was two pawns down in a rook and pawn endgame. The additional pawn proved too much and Valsalan Karayi won. Michael and michael battled on fourth board, Courtney ended up upsetting Ngo. Michael Tracey got a free ride up the ladder as Edis did not turn up. Bruce harris defeated Greg Davis, Mick Waters drew with "the draw man" Tony Spirov and Behan defeated Tom Accola.


Standings after 3 rounds: 1st Parker 3, 2nd-3rd Korbe, Karayi 2.5, 4th-7th Villanueva, Courtney, Tracey, Harris 2, 8th=10th Papp, Greenwood, Behan 1.5, 11th-14th Ngo, Davis, Edis, Spirov 1, 15th Waters 0.5, 16th Accola 0.

Top board in the Minor next week will be the battle of te 'dilly. Both Heinrich Korbe and Myself live in the beautiful place called the Wollondilly Shire :D

Drats and Damnation

I haven't been working much. Not as much as i would like. And I'm down to work on the Saturday of the Blayney Tournament so I'll probably miss that tournament.

I recieved an email from Amir Karibasic. He wanted me to advertise the Surfer's Paridise Open which will boast the likes of GM Schmaltz, GM Antic, WGM Gajic, WIM Dekic, IM Froehlich,IM Solomon,WIM Jule, FM Sales, FM Sarfati, FM Humprey, FM Nakauchi.

Details from the website

SURFERS PARADISE OPEN Tournament 27/28 October 2007

First Prize
$2,000 Limited
seats for 80 Players only

Register
now and secure your
place

Stay tuned up for more information about our new tournament: "Surfers
Paradise Open" on 27/28 October 2007 with a huge list of different prizes,
organised by Kings of Chess. This tournament is included in the Myer Tan Grand
Prix List 2007 as Category 5.The First prize under 1600 ratings is $500
and Main prize for best Kid under 1000 rating
players will be the game console XBOX 360 .

TOP PLAYERS WHO ENTERED THE TOURNAMENT: (GMs, WGMs, IMs and
WIMs have free entry)GM Roland Schmaltz (GER) 2547, GM Dejan
Antic(Ser)2471, WGM Danijela Nutu-Gajic 2350 IM Stephen Solomon
2476,IM Gary Lane 2410, IM Peter Froehlich (GER)2378, WIM
Biljana Novakovic Dekic 2075 FM Jesse Sales (Ph)2340, FM Moulthun
Ly 2267, FM Gene Nakauchi 2019

For more information see our News page or to
register contact: Amir or Margot Karibasic, on Ph (0061) 7 5578 5872,
Mobile (0061) 0414 786 852 or send emil to: amir@kingsofchess.biz .
The
Tournament will be held at Broadbeach Surf Club (www.broadbeachslsc.com), at the Corner
of Chelsea Avenue and Broadbeach Boulevard, with a beautiful view of the beach,
nice park for relaxation, and nice soccerfield and playground for the
children. Plan your Holiday on this weekend, play chess, surf, or walk
along the beach to the heart of Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach.
* Please
Note: We expecting delays for the first round start up to 30 minutes.

Who Deserves to be World Champ?

This little article by Andy Soltis got my attention recently.

I personally think that the Classical World Championship should be the only world championship. It is preferably a fight between two people. Like a boxer in the ring. Parrying this threat, preparing for that bout.

It will be interesting to see who comes out of Mexico on top to battle Kramnik. In my eyes Kramnik will be the world Champ until he is defeated in a match

This Tournament in Mexico I feel is just a Qualification tournament.

Soltis Argues that whoever wins the Mexico Tournament deserves such status as tal and Smyslov as they only had the championship for one year. But i put to this arguement that they defeated the world champion for the crown. The winner in mexico wouldn't have defeated the World Champ and thus Not be in the same heir as the other world championships although they might be worthy of the title. Another Arguement might be that tournaments have decided the world championship in the past eg. when Alekhine died Botvinnik becasme world champion from a tournament. I would argue that at that point in time there was no champion so a champion could not defend his title. That tournament would have been seen as determining the top player most worthy of the world championship title. Botvinnik proved this as he kept the title and defended and lost and regained the title in matchplay.

Anyhow what does everyone else think?

NSW Championships: Canfell as expected sets pace

There is no longer a bye in the Championship division of the State Championships. Adrian Rose has filled in the Bye void. He could only muster a draw in an apparently winning position against Arthur Huynh It was a tricky position with Arthur sacrificing a rook for a Bishop and two pawns.
Bolens and Angelito Camer played on Thursday night to become leader before todays round. Canfell joined Bolens by beating Brendan Norman.

The other game of the day was Andrew Furst going down to Gareth Charles in a Queens gambit accepted. I was watching Arbiter Nick Chernih entering the game onto the computer. It was Quite a wild game resulting in an endgame with Rooks Bishops and pawns on each side. Gareth's king eventually infiltrated Andrew's position and was able to get a passed pawn through.

Standings in the championship division after 2 rounds: Canfell, Bolens 2, Charles 1.5, Norman, Huynh, Rose .5 Camer, Furst 0.

In the Major division, Lloyd S Fell (Gotta get the initial right :D ) lost to Paul Glisson, Joshua Christensen caused an upset by defeating Nick Kordahi. Nick apparently sacrificed the exchange expecting to trap the Queen but missed a flight square for the Queen. Nearing the end Josh ended up being the exchange plus pawns up which when Nick attempted to wipe out some pawns one of Josh's pawns became unstoppable, Nick resigned. Rachmadi defeated Javor and the New Zealand Beauty Evguenia Charamova lost her second game in a row, Mark Baterowicz defeated her this time. And wrapping up the round of upsets, it was a battle of the grey hair on bottom board when Tom Thomas lost to Bob Sewell in a long game. According to Bob the game lasted 80 moves, at move 40 Bob won a pawn, and on move 69 Bob Queened his extra pawn. This was a battle indeed!

Standings after two rounds:
Glissen and 8th seed Joshua Christensen lead on 2/2, Kordahi, Fell, Javor, Rachmadi, Baterowicz and Sewell 1, Tomas and Charamova 0.

In the Minor Division:
OMG!!! Oh My Freakin' GOD!!! How did Michael Ngo lose that position????? Michael Ngo played Anthony Villaneuva on top board with the traditional Qa5 Scandinavian being the order of the day. Michael allowed Anthony to pinch the b2 pawn but in exchange got basically every single piece out whilst Anthony's pieces were still at home base. And Michael Lost this game??? Why Michael Why?? Why?? Why???? Ok i'll ease of the poor kid now. :D

I was on board 2 playing Michael Tracey. Michael and I almost always have games that go into the endgame. And this game was no different. I won a pawn early but Michael played a clever little combo that i mishandled and eventually gave the pawn back. In a very tight endgame with both of us having 3-2 minorities on each side of the board. I was able to break through before Michaels were able to Queen his pawn.

On Board three Valsalan Karayi played out a draw, KNP v KNP to end up in a draw with Heinrich Korbe. Other results included Alexander Papp over Bruce Harris, Mick waters lost to Norm Greenwood, Tom Accola lost to Michael Courtney, Tony Spirov and Beahan played but I did not get a result. I think tony might have won.

Standings after two rounds:
Villanueva, Parker 2, Korbe, Karayi, Greenwood, Papp 1.5, Ngo, Tracey, Bruce Harris, Courtney, Spirov, Davis 1, waters, Accola, Behan 0

Blayney Open - In a couple of weeks

One tournament I'm going to play in next month is the Blayney Open.

Care of the Website:

When: September 8th - 9th 2007
Where: Blayney Bowling Club
Blayney is in the heart of the Central West. Sixty kms from Cowra and approx forty kms from both Bathurst and Orange. For those further afield, Blayney is approx 2.5-3hrs drive from Sydney, Canberra and Dubbo. There is a Railway Station, about a 5 min walk from the playing venue, with regular Countrylink services. Unfortunately, no airport, but plenty of room to parachute in.
Why? Because you enjoy chess!
and spending time among like minded people.
For further incentive, there is....
1st
2nd
3rd
Premier Division
$300
$200
$100
Major Division
$200
$100
$50
Best Local Player
$50
Best Junior Player
$50

There will also be 3 lucky draws.
Wall clock for an eligible local player.
Car care kit for an eligible player from outside the 100km radius for local players.
Book, "Re-Assess Your Chess" by Jeremy Silman for an eligible junior

Prizemoney is subject to change and is based on 20 players Phil Bourke has stated that about 36 players have shown interest in the tournemant.

Championship's a Farce

well. I didnt get to that little internet cafe at Parramatta Station but i'm here now to give you the lowdown on what happened today at the NSW Champs

At first it seemed that there might not be a Championship division with only 4 entries into the open. A few others were talked into playing the tournament and we now have a 7 player round robin. The Championship Division Players are: FM Greg Canfell, Gareth Charles, Johny Bolens, Angelito Camer, Brendan Norman, Arthur Huynh and Andrew Furst. Greg Canfell is by far the favorite to win the NSW Championships. He wielded his chess powers by slicing a pawn off of Arthur Huynh early which he then converted into a two pawn advantage going into the endgame and Canfell was not going to let this advantage slip Canfell 1 Huynh 0

The longest game of the afternoon went to the game Brendan Norman against Gareth Charles. Brendan won the exchange however Gareth Liquidated into what seemed to be a drawn endgame. It was a B+h5 pawn v Rvh6 pawn. Brendan could not conjure up a win. .5-.5

Johnny Bolens defeated Andrew Furst in todays other game.


The Major Tournament was going to be a 8 player round robin until Lloyd Fell rocked up late and Herman Rachmadi was not playing so the addition to these two players late will make for an interesting tournament. It will now be a 7 round swiss
Results in the Major :
Paul Glisson 1-0 Bob Sewell
Kordahi1-0 Baterowicz
Evguena Charamova 0-1 (This was the second last game to finish. Evguena should have won but Joshua took home the point)
Steve Javor - Tom Tomas
Fell 1 - 0 Rachmadi

Results in the Minor:
Villanueva 1-0 Waters
Courtney 0-1 Parker
Korbe 1-0 Spirov
Davis 0-1 Ngo
Tracey 1-0 Accola
Behan 0-1 Karayi
Bruce Harris 1-0 Franca Edis
Norm Greenwood took the .5 point bye.

NSW Champs start today

Hi peoples the Integra NSW CHampionships start today. There appears to be no list of entries anywhere but i'm currently at the internet cafe inside one of the convenience stores near Parramatta station.. I'll report from here after all the games have been completed! BTW I'll be playing too!

Downturn in numbers - Whats the cause?

Chess in this state has had a downturn in numbers this year.



What could be the problem?



Could it be due to the phenomenon that is poker?



Could it be that Chess Tournaments have not been advertised enough?



One other possibility in regards to the NSW Tournaments is the fact that in order to get the early entry fee you must pay the fee before the closing date or pay an exuberant fee? For this point I want to do a bit of a study. The first tournament to hold this policy was the Ralph Seberry Memorial tournament in November last year. Lets compare all the NSWCA weekenders and see what the difference in numbers has been:



2005 Ralph seberry memorial attracted 56 players

2006 Australia Day Weekender attracted 76 players

2006 May Weekender attracted 54 players

2006 July Weekender attracted 51 players

2006 Ryde Eastwood Open attracted 72 players

2006 Ralph Sebery memorial Open attracted 40 players

2007 Australia Day Weekender attracted 62 players

2007 John Kellner Memorial attracted 30 players

2007 July Weekender attracted 38 players

So what do we have here? We have a steady decrease in numbers Does it have to do with the fact that early entry has to be paid?

I'll just say now that I've been against early paid entries from the start.

Lets compare the tournaments

2005-2006 Ralph Seberry Memorial - A drop of 16 players from 56-40

2006-2007 Australia Day Weekender - A drop of 14 players from 76-62

2006 May weekender - 2007 John Kellner Memorial: a drop of 24 players from 54-30.

2006 July weekender - 2007 July Weekender: A drop of 13 players

An assumption could be made that the change of policy may have affected numbers. the minimal downturn in this comparison is 13 players!

The NSWCA made a large loss last year. How big will the loss be this year given the low numbers that might have been caused by this policy change?

Now I have not included the NSW Open or the City of Sydney or the NSW Open in this study because these tournaments are supposed to be NSW's premier tournaments. But I would still like these to go back to pre register to get early entry rather than pre pay.

Furthermore I dont think there would be many people willing to pay $75 for a weekender tournament where they didnt get their payment in on time. I surely wouldnt. Not for a normal weekender. Its just too expensive for a vast number of people. And people are busy. Things happen. Eg I had intended to go to Australia Post yesterday to buy a money order to send off but the train was late and it was raining so I had no time to go to the Post office before going to work. Now I'll have to ring Australian Chess Enterprises and make a credit card payment over the phone with my mothers credit card. I don't like doing this but i'll have to do it to get early entery for the NSW Championships.

Ok there's my view on this. People can make their own view up. I'm done.

US and British Championships

The United States Open Chess Championships have been played and won...... by seven people! GM Alex Shabalov was one of the players to come equal first. The others were:Boris Gulko, Sergey Kudrin, Benjamin Finegold, Michael Rohde, Michael Mulyar and Anton Del Mundo.

Meanwhile accross the Atlantic in Britain. Scotish IM Jacob Aargaard defeated a field of 68 players to win the British championship in front of Scotish GM Jonathan Rowson and English IM Stephen Gordon.

India the Victors, Australia 1 comes 5th

The second seeds of the World Youth (under 16) Olympiad have performed to exceed expectations by winning the event. The Indians won with a score of 28 out of a possible 40. Second was Hungary who were the favorites with a score of 27.5. Hungary hit a bit of a lean patch in the early middle stages but came home like a flying freight train, mauling Switzerland and Uzbekistan 4-0 in rounds 8 and 9. 3rd was the Philippines and 4th was Uzbekistan.

There were 4 Aussie teams in this event.
Australia 1 came 5th with 24 points
Australia 2 came 21st with 19 points
Australia 3 came 24th-26th with 18 points
Australia 4 came 23rd with 18.5 points

Australia 1 was Australia's strongest team and Australia 2 consisted of Australian Girls.

To Europ or Asia?

In Susan Polgars Recent Saturday Open Post she posts about how Americas Newest and Youngest ever GM won a tournament in Europe and asks a question "Can a player reach his / her true potential by playing mainly in the United States? What is your take?" This is a similar position for Australia although the answer for Australian players might be a bit different. Its almost a certainty that an Australian Player must go overseas to reach their potential.

Normally the traditional path is to go to Europe as IM David Smerdon has recently done. But is there merit in Australians going to Asia instead of Europe? In recent years there has been a number of strong tournaments around including the Bangkok Open. and The Malaysian Open.

Chess and Blindness

I have come accross this article from the Utica Observer Dispatch which is a little close to me. I like seeing people with vision impairment excel, being vision impaired myself. I am legally blind in my right eye and 6 on 12 to 6 on 18 in my left eye. However I'm thankful for the sight that I have.

Take this guy in this article for example. He is legally blind in both eyes due to a mine explosion when he was working as a Bosnian Soldier. And yet even considering his impairment he still defeated people with sight at the New York State Championships in 2002, a tournament which he won! He recently came second in the US Blind Chess Championships. His Previous best had been in 2005 where he placed third.

In terms of Australian Players. The person I like to see around is Alex Momot. I see him at a lot of Central Coast / Newcastle tournaments and he recently participated in the NSW Open U1600 division. He always has his own board with the peg holes and pegged pieces. I've played him on that board in a friendly game and he spotted some tactics.

I just hope that as I grow older my eyesight won't get any worse and hopefully someday they can fix my Optic Nerve hypoplacia.

"You can play chess for ten hours and still lose"

Of course you can. If you play chess for ten hours there is no guarantee that a game is a draw. So why did Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson make this comment about the Arsenal Premier League team?

I sourced this here.

Does this mean that Arsenal plays a slow build up of pressure in a Positional sense of chess or Do they play an attacking style of football where the right players go to the right positions before mating the opponents between the goalposts? Or that they Just play a slow game?

People will always use this vague determination for chess until they realise the nuances of chess and how dynamic chess can be.

Sponsorship and Promotion of Chess Tournaments

Imagine if someone decided to pump $200,000 into our young chess players or even into any part of chess in Australia. It would go towards boosting the profile of chess in Australia. Advertisements could be made in papers rather than just being mentioned in articles.


Susan Polgar comments on her blog that in the last 3-4 years $650000 US has been pumped into the young players of Chess in the United states by the Susan Polgar Foundation. She also comments that when she took up the challenge of finding sponsors people told her that it was "impossible to find chess sponsors". Sound familiar?


At least in Australia we are starting to get some sponsorship filtering through. Lidmus has been a strong supporter of chess since forever. Recently the Doeberl Cup finally got some sponsorship which added a couple of grand to the Open prize pool.


And Recently the NSWCA found a sponsor in Integra. How they found this sponsor i do not know but..... good on them. But what concerns me with the NSW Championship is that the prize money for the championship division does not seem to be substantial enough to warrant the top players coming out to play. Consider this: The first prize in the State Championships is $600 which is about the same that one might get for winning a NSWCA Weekender tournament. Only that rather than driving to the venue twice in one weekend you have to go for 9 sundays. Is It really worth their money to play. Consider the amount of petrol a player has to use for 9 consecutive Sundays. Is the first prize worth it?.... Of course they could just be enthusiastic and wanting to play the championships just for the fun of it. But I have another Criticism. The Championship division is now open to over 1900 rated players now rather than only over 2000 rated players in previous years. Doesn't this somewhat diminish the Quality of the championship division? As for the Major, It has only a 300 ratings gap to play with (unless there is several committed souls who are rated under 1600 and want to play he Major!?

I think if chess is to become more mainstream it needs to get away from the middle of the papers and start going closer towards the covers even if it is on the very middle of the sports pages. Chess in Australia needs promotion. I dont think that it is enough to have an entry form available on a website.If the NSWCA wants to increase the numbers at their tournaments they need to start a guerilla Marketing strategy or otherwise loss after loss will be incurred. Take the July Weekender for example. They got 38 people at this weekender (which is an increase on the last regular weekender). I believe that if the NSWCA had sent an email reminding people say once a week for a month before the tournament date there would be more people at the tournament. People have busy lives. They Forget about things but if you keep reminding them it sticks.
I draw readers attention to this exchange on chesschat.

Bill, In My Opinion the advert for the tourney being on the NSWCA website is too passive. The NSWCA Needs to get out there and aggressively look for people to attend their tournaments. Mail the clubs some adverts. Mail interstate some adverts. Regularly email people, get in their face.

The NSWCA Mailout Is not a bad idea but people think "That's a month or two away i'll put that to the side" and then they forget about them. If people see the flyers at their local club it reminds them that the tournament is coming up As does the emails i previously mentioned.

Further more the adverts are too far down the NSWCA Webpage. I reckon the NSWCA should rearrange the website so that the upcoming events are up the top followed by news from NSWCA and other events.

I'm Baaaaaack!

Thank you to my mother who decided to move some furniture around and move my computer (which is on dial up) into a different room (which does not have a telephone extention in it) and causing my break from blogging. But Hallelujah! We purchased a 15 Metre cord to link the internet up!

Now back to blogging!

More on the ACF Newsletter

Apart from the problem I have already alluded to in the post the other day Dennis Jessop has done an excellent job of the ACF Newsletter. Sure there have been a couple of hiccups but Dennis took the bull by the horns after the resignation of Paul Broekhuyse.

Dennis apparently no longer wishes to be the Editor of the Newsletter and the position will be vacant. Other vacant positions include:
Publicity Director
Olympiad Appeal Coordinator
Ergas Training Squad Coordinator
Selections Coordinator (Juniors)

Rogers to give simul and Blindfold simul

Following my spray of the ACF the other day i noticed that Shaun Press over at chessexpress has stated that GM Ian Rogers will give a Blindfold simul and then a regular simul afterwards on the Friday before the ANU Open! Rogers will not be playing in the ANU Open but will be there for the prize giving ceremony after the victor has been decided.

I'm going to try to get down there on the friday assuming i'm not working on the friday.....

Rogers Retired, Or is he?

The ACF needs to get their newsletter right. Do they read it before sending it?

In the most recent ACF Newsletter the first item is the news of Ian Rogers' retirement from competitive chess. Then further down it gives that Ian Rogers will be playing in the ANU. Surely they could have checked the details before the send button was pushed.

Time to Mince and grind

Imagine chess where the battles are fought by the chessmen, slicing the opponent to shreds when a piece is taken. Sounds like something out of a Harry Potter Movie .

But years before the Harry Potter phenomenon was a game called Battle Chess. This game had everything from armed combat to magical weapons to defeat the enemy. If i remember correctly depending on which piece is checkmating the king there was even a beheading in the old game.

Now IGFun - a mobile phone entertainment company - is releasing the game for the mobile phone. It currently appears that it is only available in the UK currently.

But Battlechess was a favorite of mine when i was a kid, but i thought any type of computerised chess was cool.....

Down Under Knight....... Another Interesting Blog

There are several chess blogs i very regularly visit: The Closet Grandmaster, Chess Express and another interesting australian blog i now like to read the blog of Phil Willis; Down Under Knight.

Particularly interesting reading is his blog entry for Monday July 9. It talks about a simultaneous exhibition by Jenifer Shahade, author of the book "Chess Bitch". Phil Won his game against jenifer. But the last comment of his blog entry made me laugh hard! Well worth the read.

A link to this blog will eventually be put into my sidebar

A Few Tournaments Coming Up

This weekend will be a weekend of poker and maybe some chess preparation in order to get ready for the tournaments for the coming weeks.

The NSWCA July Weekender will take place at the Parramatta RSL Club on the 21st and 22nd of July. I almost always play in the NSWCA tournaments, however I won't be playing in this one as I have to work on the saturday. I might pop in on the saturday afternoon or sunday though.

The week after that tournament, the 28-29th July will be the ANU Open, A category 4 GP Event in Canberra. I've only played in this tournament once before and it was at the School of Arts building at the ANU. Now, apparently the recent storms have given that building some decent damage so the tournament has been moved to Fenner Hall on Northbourne Avenue Canberra

The Week after that is a new tournament, The Hunter Valley Open. I'm not sure if i'll play this one. It just seems too far away. This tournament replaces the "Coal City Open" which i have played several times in the past. The Coal City Open was always played at either Newcastle Workers Club or Cardiff Workers club. I'd prefer the tournament at one of these venues because it is easy for me to get to from a family friend's place on the Central Coast railway line.

Then the Week after that there is the NSW Teams Challeng no.2

The Week after that the Integra NSW Championships start. Hoorah!! The NSWCA finally got a sponsor for one of their tournaments!!! Good Work!

GM ROGERS PULLS UP THE STUMPS ON AN OUTSTANDING INNINGS

Yesterday I learnt that Ian Rogers has decided to call it a day. Ian Rogers is going out whilst still at the top of Australian Chess; Where he has been for the past 25 years

Congratulations on a marvellous chess career Ian! May all your future endeavors be fruitful.

As a 12 year old Ian participated in the 1973 Australian Championships where he scored 3/9 to be equal 72-79 out of 82 players. In his 7th round game was against Ken Henrick and in the book of that tournament stated: "Trying to console Ken Henrick for his 6 losses, the DOP told him he had paired him with a 12 year old, and that if he couldn't win this time he should give up chess"! How harsh! Ken Henrick went on to lose a piece to the old poisoned d4 pawn trick.

(224924) Rogers,I (2200) - Henrick,K (2200) [B03]Australia op Australia (7), 1973
1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.exd6 exd6 5.c4 Nb6 6.Nf3 Be7 7.Bd3 0-0 8.0-0 Nc6 9.b3 h6 10.Bb2 Bg4 11.h3 Bh5 12.Nbd2 Bf6 13.g4 Bg6 14.Ne4 Bxe4 15.Bxe4 d5 16.Bd3 dxc4 17.bxc4 Nxd4 18.Nxd4 Bxd4 19.Bxd4 Nd7 .. 1-0

Ian wrote a book on the 1980 championships called "Australian Chess into the Eighties". Which that championships was a very strong championships that Ian won. In that book Guy West gives a profile of Ian Rogers (as well as three other players).

"Ians success formula for chess is ingrained in his very character, He is
energetic, Hard-working and self-disciplined. Yet despite the gravity of
these qualities Ian has a tremendously buoyant personality and an ever present
sense of humour"

"Ian is a master of the power of positive thinking and is living evidence of the self-fulfilling prophesy"

"Ian always rates himself a chance ("you know Karpov has to lose sometimes!")and as a result, in my opinion he always is"

This view seems acurate given his results in tournament play both in Australia and over seas. His chess Career has taken him from Australia to USA, Argentina, Many European visits including playing in the British 4NCL championships and the German Bundesliga. And of course Asia.

Ian's Chess Career has included games against Gary Kasparov, An upcoming Sergei Karjakin, Francisco Vallejo Pons, Mikhail Gurevich, Vassily Ivanchuk, Loek Van Wely, Artur Yusupov, Alexander Baburin, Evgeny Bareev, Alexander Beliavski, Alexander Morozevich, A win over Judit Polgar in a rapidplay game, Anatoly Karpov, Alexei Shirov, Vladimir Akopian, Victor Korchnoi, John Emms, Alexander Khalifmann, Viktor Bologan, Boris Gelfand, Nigel Short, Mikhail Tal, Vassily Smyslov, Eugenio Torre, Susan and Sofia Polgar, Vishy Anand, Boris Spassky, Jan Timman, John Nunn, Just to name a few of his famous opponents over the years.

I for one will miss observing his games at chess tournaments. I have played GM opponents in rated play twice, both being GM Dejan Antic, however I wish I could have had the opportunity to play Australia's no.1 GM. I suppose that is what a lot of Rogers fans are thinking at the moment.

Once again Congratulations on a marvellous career and I hope that we will be seeing you around the chessboards in some other capacity.

Diamonds are a chessplayers best friend

Hi peoples.

I thought now that a couple of my blog posts have been put into the Australian Chess Magazine maybe I should start blogging more often. I've been a little busy with my new job starting up but still. Not much excuse not to blog.

Anyhow I have come accross this little beauty.


"The Royal Diamond Chess" entirely hand-made in 14-carat white gold, set with approximately 9900 black and white diamonds is an extraordinary luxurious version of the classic chess-set. Designed by the renowned French artist, designer and maser of jewelry, Bernard Maquin, and as part of the Charles Hollander Collection, "the Royal Diamond Chess" is a rare and precious work of fine art jewelry. This entirely hand-made creation is an expression of meticulous artisanship, with a harmonic combination of aesthetics, functionalism and beauty. 30 artisans spent more than 4500 hours, using 1168.75 grams 14-carat white gold and approximately 9900 black and white diamonds, weighing a total of 186.09 carat, in order to bring this incredible masterpiece to completion."

Whoa Immagine how much this thing would cost!!!! It makes the Marble and metal, chess set that my parents bought back from Greece look cheap. Hmm maybe i'll win lotto some day! :D

"Squeeze his Balls! But Just Squeeze One, Not Both!

Yesterday I was in Parramatta and i decided to have a browse through the chess section of Border's Book Shop. To My astonishment they had Garry Kasparov's recent release "How Chess Imitates Life". I am already 40 pages through this 260-270 page book and it is good reading. It uses alot of stories of Kasparov's career to illustrate how one can improve their lives by using ideas that appear in chess: Being self aware, Goal setting, strategy and tactics, decision making etc.

The above heading comes from a section of the book on playing one's own game. Petrosian had a 2-0 score against Kasparov as Petrosians Prophylactic style of game stifled Kasparov's attacking style of game. Then in 1981 after Kasparov's second loss to Petrosian, Kasparov spoke to Spassky on how to beat Petrosian and the title of this blog entry was what he had to say! Two years later he had balanced the ledger against Petrosian.

Hu Drew with two GMs? Antic Wins NSW OPEN

"Hu drew with two Grandmasters!"


"I dunno. Who drew with two two Grandmasters""


"Hu did!"


"What?"


"No Watt didn't play"


"geez, you know more than what i do!
___________________________
Ok Jokes aside.


A great turnout for the NSW Open gave to a great competitive atmosphere at the Parramatta RSLL Club over the weekend of the 9-11 June. There were 50 players in the Open division and 57 in the Minor division. There were 17 players rated over 2000 (or thereabouts)


The top three seeds in the open division were GM Ian Rogers, GM Dejan Antic and Andreas Toth with Bjelobrk fourth seed. The first round went pretty much to script with Rogers mating Nick Kordahi with a rook sac, Antic defeating Sherab Guo-Yuthok, Toth accounting for Edwin Wu and Bjelobrk defeating sydney trickmaster Herman Rachmadi. Draws were had by Arthur Huynh (1833) against fellow SAC employee Neil Wright (2217), Allen Setiabudi (1618) drawing with fellow ACT player Ian Rout (1859). The only upset of the round was Brendan Norman (1801) defeating the eccentric Johny Bolens (2190)


Meanwhile in the lower division the top seeds didn't have it as easy. Top seed Emma Guo defeated Mick Waters and Trent Parker defeated Phil Willis but the other three seeds did not get the full point: Mark Ryan (1355) defeated Anthony Villanueva (1587), Kaz Kulpa (1575) drew with Gary Mann (1325) andTony Spirov (1299) drew with Ian Dickson (1551).

Other draws for the round included Teresa Grbin (1491) with Sathya Chitturi (987), Michael Ngo (1455) drawing with Caroline Shen (821) and Oscar Wang (1376)drawing with Kevin Zhou (unr)


In round two some interesting results started to come. In the Open division the biggest upset was Jason Hu drawing to GM Ian Rogers in a Rook and Pawn endgame. The other top boards went to plan: Antic defeated Alex Mendes Da Costa. Angela Song Paid Sydney a visit for this tournament but could not defeat Toth and Bjelobrk defeated the growing Max Illingworth. Draws were agreed to between Gareth Charles (2093) and Hamish Selnes (1800), WIM Laura Moylan (2053) and Jeffrey Tse (1735), and between Arthur Huynh and Brendan Norman.


In the Under 1600 division the upsets kept coming on the top boards: Matthew Koutnik (1495) defeated Emma Guo (1587), Trent Parker turned an exchange up into a drawing position and finally into a loss against Danny Wayne Bisson (14); Leo Kang kept his winning ways by beating Peter Zekic and St George junior John Papantonio (1460) defeated Parramatta local Shane Burgess(1521). draws occured between Caroline Shen )821_ and Teresa Grbin (1491), Kevin Zhou (unr) against Michael Ngo (1455), Mick Waters (1367) and Jim Shan (1020), and Will Chaffey against Razzardini (1218). Upsets were caused by Michael Tracey (1449) over Norm Greenwood (1520), Patrick Keuning (1390) over Chris Cooper (1512). Amir Karibasic (1390) over Phil Bourke (1505), Bruce Harris (1371) over Ernesto Alberici (1495), Mark Ryan (1355) defeated Horst Bleicher (1495), Joshua Lau (1279) defeated Kaz Kulpa (1575). Chitturi (987) defeated Oscar Wang (1376) and Phil Patterson (1408) was defeated by Megan Setiabudi (1107). and finally Phil Willis (1250) was defeated by promising young junior Sean Gu (864)


And this was the end of the first day. Time to get some real earnt rest to get refreshed for the long day two. Three rounds!


Round three started on time. We saw Atzmon-Simon lose to Antic, Toth defeated Junta Ikeda, Ayvazyan defeated Brian Jones and Ian Rogers defeated Brendan Norman. The top upset of the round was Jason Chan defeating Igor Bjelobrk in an interesting game where Igor allowed Jasons rook to get to the seventh. Draws were played out by Hamish Selnes (1890) against Laura Moylan (2053), Bolens (2107) with Guo-Yuthok (1857), Ben Encel (1228) with Tom Tomas (1648), Alex Stanke (1600) against Chris Nikolaou (1684), and David Evans (1628) against Johnathan Ren (1346). The only upset for the round was Tamzin Oliver (1458) over Ric Ambatali (1644).


In the under 1600 Division; Leo Kang was going strong by defeating John Papantonio, Michael Tracey (1449) caused an upset by defeating Peter Hannigan (1514), Benjamin Cheung defeated Rick Keuning, Amir Karibasic caused an upset to defeat Matthew Koutnik and Danny Bisson and Bruce Harris joined the chasing pack by beating Mark Ryan and Garry Mann respectively. Draws were had by Roger Jeffreys (1383) against Anthony Villanueva (1587). Teresa Grbin (1491) with Kinto Wan (1171), J. Cooper with Horst Bleicher (1495), Oscar Wang (1376) against Chaffey (unr), and Danny Yan (unr) against Clarise Koh (860). Upsets for the round were Ian Dickson (1557) losing to Joshua Lau (1279), Shane Burgess losing to Cedric Koh, C. Cooper (1512) losing to Thai Pham (1171) in an interesting line of the french where Cooper as white played 2.Bb5!? Valsalan Karayi lost to unrated Kevin Zhou, Sean Gu (864) defeated Kaz Kulpa (1575) who then withdrew from the tournament. Jin Shan defeated Armando Razzardini.


It was time for some of the big guns to start playing each other with Antic playing Ayvazyan, Chan playing Toth, Gareth Charles playing Ian Rogers and Bjelobrk playing Jason Hu. they all went to rating: Antic, Toth Rogers and Bjelobrk all won. There were only two draws this round: Mos Ali (1798) drawing with Barak Atzmon-Simon (2157) and Herman Rachmadi drawing with Anthony Keuning. Upsets for the round included Junta Ikeda (2215) losing to Max Illingworth (2103) , Arthur Huynh (1833) defeating Laura Moylan (2053), Mark Baterowicz (1568) defeating Edwin Wu (1812), and Allen Setiabudi (1618) defeating Frank Barisic (1702).


Leo Kang finally lost some points in round 4.... well half a point, drawing to Michael Tracey. Bruce Harris drew with Benjamin Cheung, Danny Bisson defeated Karibasic and the resurgent Trent Parker won a hard fought game against Joshua Lau to come back into contention. Draws for the round included Cedric Koh (1225) against Peter Zekic (1468), Aiswerya Shankar against Oscar Wang, Phil Willis (1256) against Megan Setiabudi (1107) and Charles Bishop (845) against unrated Danny Yan.
Upsets for the round included Norm Greenwood (1520) losing to Michael Ngo (1455), Michael Ryan (1355) defeating Bourke (1505), Kevin Zhou defeating Anthony Villanueva (1587) and Armando Razzardini (1218) losing to Josha Biship (1047)


Round 5 saw seeds 1 and 3 face off whilst Rogers kept climbing up the boards by beating Ayvazyan in an endgame very similar to the Rook and pawns engame against Jason Hu except Ian had the reverse side and had one pawn further down the board. Alex Mendes Da Costa lost to Igor Bjelobrk, Illingworth drew with Chan and Arthur Huynh continued his excellent run by drawing with FM Brian Jones. Other draws for the round included Jeffrey Tse (1735) against Mos Ali (1791), Richard Parfait (1975) drew with Laura Moylan (2053), Andrew Brown (1914) drew with Angela Song (2063),Jamie Boyce (1844) drew with Hamish Selnes (1844), Encel (1228) drew with Cohn (1701) and Barisic (1702) drew with David Evans (1628). Upsets were caused by J. Nguyen (1738) over Ian Rout (1859), Alexander Stanke (1600) over Herman Rachmadi (1862), and Jonathan Ren beat Joshua Christensen when he forgot to turn off his mobile phone and it rang!


Benjamin Cheung defeated Danny Bisson, Michael Tracey lost to Bruce Harris, and Kang ploughed on by defeating Karibasic. Draws for the round included: Emma Guo (1587) drawing with Kevin Zhao (unr), Trent Parker (1546) drew with Matthew Koutnik (1493) where if black or white pushes too hard for the win the other player breaks through.Ian Dickson (1557) drew with Cedric Koh (1225), John Cooper (unr) drew with Phil Willis (1256), Megan Setiabudi (1107) drew with Kinto Wan (1171) and Nick Mann (1217) drew with Chaffey (unrated)


What a day!! Went for a walk around parramatta in between rounds four and five to clear the head. Phil Bourke and I stayed up until about 3 talking about chess and analysing different variations of various situations...... fun stuff!!! Woke up to finish strongly!!!


The Final Day; Day 3 and the two grandmasters were due to play each other. Would it be the match of the tournament? MMMMmmmm no. It finished in a draw before I had forked my Opponent's King and Queen in the early middlegame.On board two Toth defeated Bjelobrk, Wright defeated Illingworth on three, Brian Jones lost to Bolens on Four, Atzmon-Simon lost to Jason Hu on five and Jason Chan drew with Arthur Huynh on 6. Other draws included Mos Ali (1798) against Junta Ikeda (2154) , Angela Song (2063) against Alex Stanke (1600) , Sherab Guo-Yuthok (1875) against Peter Abbott (1929) , Jamie Boyce (1844) against Mal MacMillan(1695). Upsets included: Brendan Norman (1801) over Andrew Brown (1914), Tamsin Oliver (1458) over Aurel-John Buciu (1537) and Joshua Christensen (1608) finally got a point over Frank Barisic (1702).

In the Under 1600 Leo Kang found himself leading outright after defeating Benjamin Cheung, Bruce Harris lost to John Papantonio who was now only half a point behind Leo on 5/6, On the third board Danny Bisson drew with Emma Guo and on the fourth board I defeated Michael Ngo when he did not notice that I was threatening the fork of the Lady and her King. Other draws include Clarise Koh (1225) against Valsalan Karayi (1420) , Aiswerya Shankar (unr) against drew with Anthony Villanueva (1587) , Phil Willis drew with Caroline Shen and Thai Pham (1171) drew with Dennis Yan (unr). Upsets included Kevin Zhao over Peter Zekic (1648), Phil Bourke (1505) losing to Matthew Ryan (1355), Horst Blecher (1495) losing to Queenslander Amir Karibasic (1390) , Joshua Lau (1279) defeated Oscar Wang (1376) , Megan Setiabudi (1107) defeated Norm Greenwood (1520). On one of the end boards it was a case of a very young Junior playing against an elderly Blind Gentleman. Alex Momot the senior defeated the promising young gun Anton Smirnov.

Round 7, the last round of the long tourney.
The Open division saw Jason Hu come up against his second grandmaster of the tournament where a draw was agreed! Effectively giving Jason 1/2 against grandmasters for the tournament! On Board two Rogers battled it out with Toth to eventually arrive at a draw. The third board clash, Bolens - Wright, ended up a draw after a swindle. On Board 4 Arthur Huynh's excellent tournament ended with a loss to Igor Bjelobrk.
Draws for the final round included: Max illingworth (2103) with Barak Atzmon-Simon (2093), Mos Ali (1798) drawing with Laura Moylan (2053), Jeffrey Tse (1735) against Brendan norman (1801), Andrew Furst (1752) drew with Angela Song (2063), Peter Abbott (1929) drew with Alex Stanke (1600), Jamie Boyce drew with Joseph Nguyen, Allen Setiabudi drew with Tom Tomas, Encel drew with Oliver, Barisic drew with Nikolau and David Evans drew with Joshua Christensen. The only upset for the round waw Aurel-John Buciu (1537) defeating Ambatali (1644).

The Prizes for the Open division were:
U1700 Alex Stanke 3.5/7
1850-1700 =1st: Mos Ali, Brendan Norman, Arthur Huynh on 4/7
u2000-1850 equal first: Jason Chan, Alex Mendes Da Costa 4/7
Open Positions 4-9 Johny Bolens, Neil Wright, Igor Bjelobrk,
Jason Hu, and Armen Ayvazyan.
Open Position 2-3: Andreas Toth, GM Ian Rogers5.5/7
Open Position 1: GM Dejan Antic 6/7

Board One saw Myself, Trent Parker, play white against Leo Kang, Board two saw John Papantonio play Michael Koutnik, Board three saw Ben Cheung play Kevin Zhou, Board four saw Teresa Grbin play Danny Bisson. It was time to Jostle for the prize positions. Leo Kang was out in outright first on 5.5/6, John Papantonio on 5/6 and a small pack chasing on 4.5/6. As many as 5 players could have come equal first. So Board four : Teresa Grbin won and Cheung won on board three so it was up to the top two boards to sort things out. John Papantonio's chances of winning the tournament outright started slipping away in a drawn rook and pawn and bishop each endgame until Matthew left his Rook en prise and went on to lose the game. So now if Leo Kang won his match he would win the tournament outright, draw he shares first prize and loss: he hands victory over to John Papantonio. An intersting game ensued on the top board. Victory to the white pieces! John Papantonio won the tournament on 6/7 and Leo Kang joined Myself, Teresa Grbin and Benjamin Cheung on equal second. When Joshua Lau (1279) drew with Valsalan Karayi (1420) and Megan Setiabudi (1107) defeated Patrick Keuning (1390) they shared equal second prize under 1300 division. Cedric Koh (1225) defeated Michael Tracey (1449) to take out the first prize u1300 with a score of 4.5. The under 1450-1300 equal first was won by Mark Ryan and Amir Karibasic on a score of 5/7. The unrated Prize was won by Kevin Zhou.

Vishy Anand on the Particitpation of chess in the Olympic Games

In the Chennai Online News today Viswanathan Anand is quoted as saying that he thought there was little or no chance of Chess being included in the Olympic Games:

"I can say I have just a little over zero per cent hope of playing in the
Olympics. It takes at least eight years from proposal to acceptance of a sport
in the Olympics and I don't see its inclusion in the Games in near future,"

I personally would like to see chess in the olympic games. Who knows? It's 7-8 years before a city knows that they are to hold the olympic games. They have to start the preparations earlier so why can't chess? The meeting between FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and IOC President Jaques Rogge hopefuly tightened ties between the IOC and chess?

The Hindu newspaper calls Anand "the finest ambassador for Indian sport". Anand comments about his preparation for the world championships coming up in september in Mexico and states that he will play at Dortmund, a rapid touranment in Leon and a tournament in Mainz.

How Life Imitates Chess

According to Garry Kasparov's Article in MSNBC Newsweek, the former world chess champion has written a book entitled "How Life imitates Chess". He goes on to discuss the decision making in his retirement from chess and his entry into Russian Politics.

"Forty-one years old when I retired, I could have continued fighting to keep my
No. 1 spot for another five years. But I increasingly felt my role in the chess
world was no longer an essential one. I was ready for new challenges."

He also had other Motifs for going into Politics:

"Apart from the natural desire to fight on the side of human rights and
democracy, there was a more personal impetus behind my decision. I grew up under
the methodical oppression of the U.S.S.R., coping and fighting inside and
outside the system for much of my life. The thought of my son, Vadim, born and
raised in Moscow and now 10 years old, having to suffer similar treatment still
sends chills down my spine."

I didn't realise Garry Kasparov had a son! Does he play chess?
Good Luck to Kasparov in his political endeavors. He's going to need it!

Magnus Carlsen's Father Blogs

I was reading a post on Susan Polgar's blog abut Magnus Carlsen and discovered that Magnus Carlsen's Father, Henrik, Blogs about the tournaments that Magnus is currently playing in.

An interesting read: http://blog.magnuschess.com

The Closet Grandmaster: I'm thinking maybe it's time to close down TCG!

Every now and again I go a couple of days without being on the internet. And every now and again I don’t read the Closet Grandmaster blog. However my normal thing when going online is read closet gradmaster, read chesschat, then check my emails.

I was astonished to find Wednesday’s entry by Amiel, stating that he is thinking about closing down TCG. TCG has been an excellent read away form some of the mudslinging battles that happen at Chesschat. His endless supply of interesting posts never fails to entertain and Inform.

The Closet grandmaster gave me the inspiration to start my blog. I try to blog on the tournaments that I attend as well as on other chess issues however I have not been very regular on my posts. TCG however almost has a post ever day!

So to the Grandmaster of Australian Chess Blogging I congratulate you on an excellent blog and I hope to read many TCG posts in the future.

Mate in Mingara

Bleary eyed and tired I once again got myself up out of bed at quarter past 3 in the morning in order to walk to the station to catch the 4.53 train out of Picton headed for the Central Coast and the Mingara Recreational Club. Hey its ok. I got to catch up with some sleep on the train. Making sure that I set my alarm for the views of the rising sunshine glistening over the Hawkesbury River between Cowan and Gosford. Visitors to the City should take this train ride and maybe alight at Hawkesbury River Railway Station and have a look around Brooklyn. I would say that that stretch of Railway would have to be one of the most beautiful stretches of train track in the world…. Well at least for the most beautiful for a suburban train service.

The Mingara Recreation Club is set in amongst the hills of Tumbi Umbi.
The Tournament room was excellent. Spacious, Well lit. And coffee and Tea was supplied for nothing.

In previous years this event had been an under 2000 or under 2100 event but this year it decided to become part of the Grand Prix, and thus changed to an Open event. There were 4 players with ratings in excess of 2000: IM Gary Lane, FM Igor Bjelobrk, Paul Broekhuyse and Johny Bolens.

Round 1 saw all the higher rated opponents win with the exception of Mike Canfell who could only draw against Alex Mehan in a very long game that slightly delayed the game for round two. And although he eventually went down Gary Losh fought very hard against Johny Bolens. At one point Johny didn’t realise that he was in check. Strange thing to happen coming from the king of blitz….

Round 2 saw local PHD student Andrew Philips come up against Gary Lane on board one, with the International Master winning that encounter. Board two saw Igor Bjelobrk defeat Johnathan Adams, Paul Broekhuyse accounted for Nick Kordahi, Johny Bolens defeated Emma Guo and Sartaj Hans defeated Heath Bonnefin to be the only 5 players on 2/2
Mike Canfell (1746) certainly started the tournament badly; In the second round he was defeated by John Pascoe (1487), which left him on .5/2. The other upsets for the round were Norm Greenwood (1515) going down to Alex Mehan (1390), and Graeme Deacon (1403) defeated the rusty Tony Eves (1566). Meanwhile Tony Baldwin and Myself finished almost simultaneously with 10-11 move miniatures against our rather embarrassed opponents. Its Just not chess.

In round 3 the big boppers started to play each other with Lane playing (and beating) Bolens on board 1, Bjelobrk defeating Broekhuyse on two and Sartaj Hans joined the leaders on 3/3 by defeating Alex Mehan who was the only person on 1.5 at that point in time. Draws occurred on a couple of the lower boards: Emma Guo drew with Graeme Deacon and Norm Greenwood drew with Anthony Eves. As for the break Tony and I had. I (Trent Parker) went on to cause an upset on board 6 to defeat Jonathan Adams. Whilst Tony hit a brick wall coming up against the resurgent Mike Canfell.

First night came to a close and time to go and get some good nights rest.

At the half way mark there were 3 leaders on 3/3: Lane, Bjelobrk and Hans closely followed by Broekhuyse, Bolens, Phillips, Bonnefin, Kordahi, an Parker all on 2/3

At this time I’d like to Say thank you very much to Hugh Windsor? Who offered to bring me from Tuggerah Station to Mingara on the Sunday, when I had thought that the first bus to Mingara arrived at 10.20 – 20 minutes past the starting time of the round. This would have been a long way around for him considering that he lives at Long Jetty! I later found out that there was an earlier bus that got me to the bus stop down across the intersection.

Bzzzzzzt there goes my alarm! Its 6.15 gotta get up and catch the 7.20 train from Wyee…..Oh I’ll just lay down for another moment.

45 minutes later I was up and racing around trying to get everything ready in five minutes so I could take the fifteen minute walk to the station. What fun! Not quite at the station I see the train coming. I have to start running……. I was lucky that the guard or driver saw that I was struggling to get to the train so they waited a minute longer for me! Thank the lord!

I arrived at the Mingara club at about 9.15 with plenty of time to spare. Round 4 was to start at 10.00 sharp. On board One Igor Bjelobrk was drawn to play Sartaj Hans, On board two Lane battled it out with Nick Kordahi, Bonnefin played Broekhuyse, and Bolens played Andrew Phillips. Meanwhile I floated down to play Emma Guo. Bjelobrk was handed the win by forfeit as Sartaj Hans did not show up and did not give any warning. All the other games mentioned above went according to rating (except for mine). In my game against Emma Guo I lost a piece early as I was concentrating too much on my attack. Later on I retrieved the piece and a few moves later I offered a draw…..I was a pawn up but I thought it was the fairest result at that moment. There were no upsets for the round.

It was time for the top two seeds to battle it out in the fifth round. Lane v Bjelobrk. A battle of the Kings Indian type ensued. Bjelobrk, after receiving the forfeit round 4, defeated Lane. Broekhuyse and Bolens played out a draw. There was no other upset other than the top board , however there was one draw for the round: Emma Guo and Andrew Phillips Drew.

Round 6 saw Bjelobrk and Bolens play on board 1 which ended in a short draw. Thus securing the Mingara Open title for Igor. Board two saw Gary Lane defeat Paul Broekuyse. Upsets for the round included Parker defeating Tony Eves (1566), there was no other real upsets Canfell and Kordahi played out a draw.

All in all an excellent tournament. Thanks to Keith Farrell for Arbiting/ DOPing another excellent tournament.

Congratulations Igor Bjelobrk on winning the tournament and Congratulations to Gary Lane on his second place
Congratulations to Johny Bolens, Jonathan Adams and Mike Canfell on their third place. See more people there next year

Antic Wins the John Kellner Memorial Tournament

GM Dejan Antic won the 2007 John Kellner Memorial Tournament at the St George Leagues club Last Weekend, dropping only a half point to Johny Bolens in the Fourth round. Meanwhile the third seed took a half point bye



Upsets for the round were Michael Ngo (1151) over Pierre Guenette (1690), Michael Weltner (1422) over Anthony Villanueva (1648), Alan Mascarenhas over Mark Baterowicz(1620), Gary Losh (1438) over Joshua Christensen (1605), and Youngster Sean Gu (608) defeating Michael Lo (1451).



So after four rounds Antic and Bolens are on 3.5/4 followed by David Evans, Arthur Huynh, Richard Eccles and Michael Ngo, playing chess way above his rating, all on 3 points.



Round 5 Saw Top seed Dejan Antic defeat David Evans, Michael Ngo going down to Johny Bolens and Huynh was too strong for Eccles.

Draws were had by Blair Mandla (1763) against Retallick (1969) and Michael Lo (1422) drawing with Shurapey (1200) John Fearson defeated Mark Baterowicz, Norm greenwood defeated Anthony Villanueva, and Pierre Guenette was defeated by Michael Weltner.



Round 6 saw Bolens (who was on 4.5 points) was the victor over Huynh (ho was on 4 points), Moylan who finally rose to the top of the standings again with 3.5/5 was defeated by Antic. Michael Dunn defeated Michael Weltner who were both on 3.5/5. Michael Ngo continued his excellent tournament by drawing with Eccles, Shurapey drew with Villanueva. The only upset in the round was Mascarenhas who defeated Fearson.



Round 7
Antic disposed of Retallick on board one whilst Johny Bolens, a bishop pawns down settled for a draw against Michael Dunn when Dunn had to Sacrifice the bishop for the two pawns. Blair Mandla defeated Arthur Huynh to join Dunn on 5 points and third place. Other Upsets included Mascarenhas (1423) over Josh Christensen (1605), Michael Weltner (1422) over Richard Eccles (1611), Oscar Wang defeating Fearson, and the very promising youngster Sean Gu (608) over Iyengar (1200).