Doeberl Cup & Sydney International Open 2014

Australia's two biggest open tournaments of 2014 are now over, and it was a good fortnight for FIGJAM, with Moulthun winning the Sydney International Open and achieving his first GM norm, and Junta achieving his IM title by scoring his third (and fourth) IM norm and surpassing 2400. Andrew had a great Doeberl but couldn't maintain the same level of play for the SIO, while Fedja wasn't in his best form with fatigue being a major factor, going into these events right after the KL Open.

Doeberl Cup final crosstable
Sydney International Open final crosstable

Although we've been writing as rarely as ever this year, Andrew plans to write a couple of posts every week, starting June. See you again soon!

Doeberl Cup winner GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu with guest Garry Kasparov

Our own shot with the 13th World Champion

Sydney International Open, =2nd-6th place: from left, Mu Ke (CHN), GM van Wely (NED),
Junta, GM Vajda (ROU) and GM Nisipeanu (GER) with GM Rogers and IA Zworestine

Moulthun giving his winner's speech

chess24.com - for Playing, Studying and Following Chess

by Junta

I've recently been having a look at a new chess website, launched this year - chess24
. I've focussed on the news articles, but to back up their mottoes of 'your playground' and 'the only chess site you'll ever need!', there's also an online play arena, interactive tutorials and training, video lessons from masters, and more.

I was very impressed by the articles on the Candidates until I spotted the contributor's name, when I understood. Colin McGourty was the editor of Chess in Translation, which I was a big fan of - he had written last year that CiT would become inactive as he had been recruited to join an exciting new project, and it looks like chess24 is what he was talking about.

chess24 also has a horde of strong grandmasters and chess professionals contributing, including Macauley Peterson, Francisco Vallejo Pons, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Jan Gustafsson and Lawrence Trent. There are video series on openings and on chess in general, spearheaded by none other than Vishy Anand and Peter Svidler, and many other grandmasters, but payment is required to watch in full (I haven't subscribed, myself).

All in all, chess24 still seems to be in its early days, yet it may indeed become an all-round, high quality chess website that many flock to. I for one, am just content to be able to read articles by McGourty again!

Candidates 2014 tipping!

Last year's Candidates tournament in London was an amazing event to follow, with Carlsen and Kramnik leading after Round 13/14. Both lost in a dramatic final round, resulting in Carlsen winning on tiebreaks, going on to take the title of World Champion from Anand by a score of 6.5-3.5 in November. 

Candidates 2013
Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, Svidler, Grischuk, Ivanchuk, Radjabov, Gelfand

Candidates 2014
Anand, Aronian, Kramnik, Svidler, Karjakin, Topalov, Mamedyarov, Andreikin

This year, the double round robin will be running in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia between March 11th-April 1st. Here are the predictions by the members of FIGJAM:

Andrew: 1st Aronian =2nd Karjakin, Kramnik, Topalov

Junta: 1st Kramnik 2nd Aronian 3rd Topalov

Moulthun: 1st Aronian 2nd Karjakin 3rd Kramnik

The best game of chess played by a Japanese player?

by Junta



Kinkakuji (The Golden Pavilion) on Sunday morning (January 19th) , after it snowed overnight

I was planning to show this game a few weeks back before ChessBase beat me to it, posting two articles by GM Peter Heine Nielsen (an avid fan and strong player of Shōgi who I was able to meet back in May). Shōgi master and FM Yoshiharu Habu, who played in his first overseas chess tournament in six years in Poland at the end of 2013, won a beautiful game against GM Peter Wells in the Netherlands in 2005.
 

 

Three weeks ago in Poland, he again beat a GM with Black, coincidentally in a game again involving White's queen taking the rook on a8.

 

 

 

It might be some time before he is able to play in an overseas chess tournament again, but I'm sure he has very good chances of scoring his last norm (he is already rated above 2400) and becoming the first Japanese IM. The top active Japanese player, FM Kojima Shinya, achieved his three IM norms from his long run of tournaments in Europe (mostly Hungary) last year, and now needs 39 points to break the 2400 barrier.

 

The ChessBase articles by Nielsen are here and here.

Happy New Year

by Junta

My time on exchange in Kyōto is approaching its end, and I'll be returning to Canberra in late February. My time here has been an amazing one, but the thing I've maybe missed the most in Japan is playing strong chess tournaments - there were only two FIDE-rated tournaments in Japan in 2013, in May and August. I look forward to playing a lot once I'm back in Australia.

I've been watching some of the games from the current Australian Championships (with three FIGJAM members, Fedja, Andrew and Moulthun playing), and it's been very interesting to follow. With three players in the lead after Round 7 of 11 as below, the finish should be very exciting!

5.5 - Papin, Ly, Cheng
5 - Bjelobrk, Tu
4.5 - Illingworth, Solomon, Johansen, Lane, A. Smirnov, Wohl, Li

Edit: Max Illingworth finished very strongly and became the new Australian Champion.