Gold Coast Open 2014

by Andrew

The Gold Coast Open took place last weekend for the 22nd time since its inception in 1993. Though numbers were down compared to previous years, the competition featured many strong players at the top, all vying for a shot at the $1500 first prize.

This year's winner was Brodie McClymont, with a score of 5/6. Brodie has become a real icon of Queensland chess in recent years, coming outright or equal first in just about all the QLD tournaments he plays in - even when the field is headed by IMs. This tournament was no exception. Although there were a couple of uncertain moments in his games (most notably against Alexandra Jule and James Morris, as he conceded in his winner's speech) he played at a high level throughout against very strong opposition and was a well-deserved winner. Half a point behind Brodie at the end were a pack of titled players: IM Richard Jones (Wales), IM James Morris (VIC), IM Moulthun Ly (QLD), and FM (IM-elect) Kanan Izzat (Azerbaijan).

Left to right: Brodie McClymont, Graeme Gardiner, Mark Stokes, Charles Zworestine.

As for my own tournament, well, it left a lot to be desired. Most of the time I was playing reasonably well but due to trouble thinking clearly I have had for a while I got low on time in two of my games and made some very costly mistakes. Unfortunately I also had to miss the first round of the tournament as I was stuck at Sydney Airport all Friday due to the power outage there.

Until I get my hands on some of Brodie's games or other notable games to put up, here is one of my better games from the tournament.

Full results can be found here.

Figjam Mid-Year Update

by Andrew

Greetings Readers, 

First of all, I'd like to say sorry about our general inactivity on here. I am going to try to post twice a week starting from next week (aiming for a Tuesday post and a Friday post).

Second of all, I would like to offer my congratulations to two of our contributors, Moulthun Ly and Junta Ikeda, who have been selected to represent Australia in the 2014 World Chess Olympiad in Norway starting the 1st of August! In the Sydney International Open (SIO) at the end of April, Moulthun and Junta both had fantastic performances, with Moulthun winning the tournament outright and registering his first Grand Master norm and Junta narrowly missing a GM norm but placing Equal 2nd and fulfilling the requirements for the International Master title. It will be great to watch how they go in Norway against many of the world's best. Before then however, they, along with two other members of the team, GM David Smerdon and 13-year-old FM Anton Smirnov, will be competing in the Politiken Cup - a strong open tournament in Denmark - as a warm up.

For more info on either of these tournaments, you can click on the links below:

https://chess24.com/en/olympiad2014

http://www.ksu.dk/politiken_cup/default.aspx?la=en

Thirdly, the Gold Coast Open is on this weekend. Moulthun, Jonas and I are all participating, with Moulthun currently being the top seed. Last year Moulthun placed Equal First but was unlucky not to win outright, missing a last minute opportunity in his final round game with GM Lubomir Ftacnik:

Ly - Ftacnik GCO 2013

62.g4? (62.Kh7 +- - e.g., 62...Kf7 63.g4 Kf6 (...h5 64.g5) 64.h4 Kf7 65.g5 or 62...h5 63.Kg6 h4 64.g4) Kg8 63.h3 Kh8 64.h4 Kg8 Draw agreed.

Hopefully there will be better news to report this time around - Moulthun is certainly the favourite to win this year's event. Either way, the tournament should be hard fought and enjoyable to play in as it has been in previous years.

Fourthly, Magnus Carlsen just won both the World Rapid and the World Blitz Championships, meaning he is now World Champion in all three of the major time divisions of chess - a triple crown, if you will.

Lastly, White to play and win. Highlightable solution below. Enjoy!

White to play and win - A. Wotawa 1960

1.f8=Q Rxf8 2.gxh5+ Kf7 3.Rh8!! (3.Rxf8+ Kxf8 4. Rf1+ Kg8 5.h6 (5.Ke7 h6 =) gxh6 6.Ke7 h5 7.Rg1+ Kh8 8.Kf7 h6 =) Rxh8 4.Rf1+ Kg8 5.h6! gxh6 6.Ke7 with mate next move.

Not as easy as it seems

by Andrew

This position was produced by one of the other Canberra chess coaches, Peter Simpson, on a demo board at Norths Junior Chess Club yesterday.

White to play and win.

A number of coaches including myself and a certain Armenian Grand Master found this one quite difficult; in fact, none of us were able to solve it before the end of the session. See how you go. (Highlightable solution below.)



1.Bd7!! Ke3 (...Kf3 2.Kd4 Kf4 3.h4) 2.h4 Ke4 (...Kf4 3.Kd4) 3.h5 Ke5 4.h6 Kf6 5.Be8 White wins. 

IM Max Illingworth annotates

by Junta

Thanks Max for annotating some of my Doeberl Cup and Sydney International Open games on his blog! It's very nice to have strong players looking at your games, as you can observe a difference in style and learn from their thoughts and evaluations. Max is a very good annotator. You can also check out his posts from the previous two weeks where he annotated Moulthun's games from the SIO.

Max Illingworth's blog

Morozevich in 2014

by Junta

Alexander Morozevich hasn't been active in 2014 - his first appearance was in April at the Russian Teams Championships where he played six games with an average result. I was excited to see him in the line-up of the 15th Karpov Poikovsky tournament (running May 11th-20th), and as the tournament began, I immediately discovered that he still holds the highest place in my heart for chess players - he is the only player I feel like a 'fan' of.

When he wins, I feel like I've won a game myself, playing through the game, marvelling at his play, the world is going in the right direction, Caissa is doing a good job - I might return later in the day to play through the game again over the board. When he loses, I feel an injustice has occurred - I play through the game much quicker this time, frowning, seeing what went wrong, feeling an irrational enmity towards the opponent - how could this happen?!

You can imagine how I felt following the 2012 Tal Memorial (With a field comprising of Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, Caruana, Nakamura, Grischuk, Radjabov, Tomashevsky and McShane, he surged forward with an emphatic 4/5, only to lose to Nakamura, Tomashevsky and McShane in succession and finish on 50%).

Nevertheless, it feels much more engaging and fulfilling to have such a player you admire and want to emulate, than to have no such 'heroes'. Moro is currently sharing the lead with 2.5/3, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he plays for the rest of the event.

And as I just went to check over his two wins on 2700chess.com, I saw he won in Round 4 as well. I'd say this was a good day.

Edit: Yes, this was another fantastic game. How can he play like this!?

You can see games from the event here.