Australian Juniors Nostalgia

by Junta

I'm currently working as a coach for some ACT players at the 2015 Australian Junior Chess Championships in Canberra (Results here) - I played seven Australian Juniors from 2002-2008, and I still remember the excitement from the 2002 edition as a 10 year old, playing interstate for the first time. 13 years later, I'm coaching 10 year olds playing their first Aus Juniors, and I couldn't help but check out my first ever Aus Juniors game. Not a bad game considering the rating!

Vikings Weekender 2014 Open Section - Pictures

by Junta

Canberra's third biggest annual tournament (after the Doeberl Cup in April and ANU Open in July) is the Vikings Weekender held in November. This year the Open section saw 21 players and the Minor section 38 players, a healthy turnout.

There were six players rated over 2000 in the Open section.

Registered players sorted by rating and title

ID	Name	Fed	Origin	Title	RtgF	RtgN
1	Ly Moulthun			IM	2463	2512
2	Ikeda Junta			IM	2418	2427
3	Smirnov Anton			IM	2415	2402
4	Hu Jason			--	2138	2192
5	Yin Wenlin			--	1986	2064
6	Bliznyuk Andrey			--	2132	1999

A truly Aussie weekender in its toughness of having to play four games of 60 10 on the Saturday (10:30am-10pm), followed by three on Sunday.

6/7 - The winner was Moulthun who conceded draws with Jason and Anton. As usual he played games in his correct and positional style, not giving his opponents any chances, only being in real danger in our Round 4 encounter.

5.5/7 - 2nd was Anton who surprisingly conceded a draw to rapidly improving ACT junior Dillon Hathiramani (rated under 1700 - a great upset!) in Round 1, and otherwise just conceded draws with Moulthun and myself on the second day. It was nice to catch up with him after we played together in the Politiken Cup and Olympiad back in July and August.

5/7 - I came 3rd after losing to Moulthun in a close game in Round 4, and drawing with Jason and Anton on Day 2. I was happy with most of my games after a 3-month break from playing.

4.5/7 - three local players shared 4th-6th, with special mention going to Dillon - after drawing with Anton in Round 1, he did not slow down and scored 4.5/7 (PR 2033) against opposition averaging 1931 - his expected score was 1.75! He is coached by local trainer Peter Simpson (who has also been the trainer of Olympian Emma Guo, and has been helping many Canberra juniors over the years). 

Jason Hu was one of the players on 4/7 - he has recently been performing strongly, and in this tournament he managed to hold a draw against Moulthun, took a half-point bye in Round 4 due to illness, drew with me in Round 5 when he had a rather simple mate in the final position (instead giving perpetual check), and lost to Anton from a position of strength in Round 6. In fact, his biggest test may have been the drive to Canberra - on his last two occasions, in pretty much the same area on his way from Sydney he had crashed into kangaroos who had 'come out of nowhere'.

Dillon is on his right

Local junior Michael Kethro celebrated his 15th birthday on Day 2 of the tournament. Apart from Jason, he was the only player to play against the three IMs in the field.

The final crosstable:

Cross Table at round 7

Pos	T	NAME	Rtg	Fed	Pts	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	APRO
1	IM	Ly Moulthun	2512		6.0	21 1	5 1	7 ½	3 1	2 ½	4 1	11 1	1968.0
2	IM	Smirnov Anton	2402		5.5	6 ½	22 1	11 1	5 1	1 ½	7 1	3 ½	1781.9
3	IM	Ikeda Junta	2427		5.0	10 1	13 1	8 1	1 0	7 ½	11 1	2 ½	1995.1
4	--	Chibnall Alana	1882		4.5	19 1	7 0	20 1	13 1	8 1	1 0	5 ½	1844.0
5	--	Bliznyuk Andrey	1999		4.5	17 1	1 0	18 1	2 0	20 1	9 1	4 ½	1843.4
6	--	Hathiramani Dillon	1661		4.5	2 ½	14 ½	9 1	8 ½	11 0	12 1	13 1	1739.4
7	--	Hu Jason	2192		4.0	18 1	4 1	1 ½	BYE ½	3 ½	2 0	8 ½	1991.2
8	--	Press Harry	1903		4.0	15 1	9 1	3 0	6 ½	4 0	17 1	7 ½	1882.9
9	--	Yin Wenlin	2064		4.0	16 1	8 0	6 0	17 1	13 1	5 0	14 1	1679.4
10	--	Braguine Victor	1770		4.0	3 0	12 ½	21 1	11 0	18 1	14 ½	17 1	1647.4
11	--	Kethro Michael	1961		3.5	BYE ½	20 1	2 0	10 1	6 1	3 0	1 0	2078.7
12	--	Van Den Hoff Damien	1460		3.5	13 0	10 ½	14 0	22 1	16 1	6 0	20 1	1410.7
13	--	Booth William	1911		3.0	12 1	3 0	16 1	4 0	9 0	20 1	6 0	1785.4
14	--	Suptut Jeff	1817		3.0	20 0	6 ½	12 1	BYE ½	BYE ½	10 ½	9 0	1768.6
15	--	Badrinarayan Sankeer	1334		3.0	8 0	16 0	19 ½	21 0	22 1	BYE 1	18 ½	1306.5
16	--	Radisich Matt (W)	1620		2.5	9 0	15 1	13 0	BYE ½	12 0	19 1		1551.2
17	--	Hellmann Oskar	1483		2.5	5 0	21 ½	22 1	9 0	19 1	8 0	10 0	1498.4
18	--	Hummel Mark	1623		2.5	7 0	19 1	5 0	20 0	10 0	22 1	15 ½	1483.9
19	--	Yuan Ziqi	1053		2.5	4 0	18 0	15 ½	BYE 1	17 0	16 0	22 1	1286.3
20	--	Nwosu Nnaemeka	0		2.0	14 1	11 0	4 0	18 1	5 0	13 0	12 0	1578.1
21	--	Barker David (W)	1783		1.5	1 0	17 ½	10 0	15 1				1845.5
22	--	Jain Kamal	1694		0.5	BYE ½	2 0	17 0	12 0	15 0	18 0	19 0	1612.3

#1 on Chess.com Tactics Trainer

by Junta

Shameless self-promotion: I've made it to the top of the list on the Chess.com Tactics Trainer rankings.

Having unlimited access to the Tactics Trainer as a titled player, I'd been solving an average of around 20 problems a day since June. Answering a problem incorrectly, it gives you the same one (with the exact same variation) again after a while, and since the problem pool only had a finite amount of problems rated 3000+, soon I'd pretty much gone through them - even after answering correctly, the same ones kept coming up, so I figured it was a good time to stop. I may come back to it from time to time, but for tactics I think I will go back and resume work on the book Grandmaster Preparation - Calculation by Jacob Aagaard which I highly recommend for players rated over 2000 or so (very challenging problems)

I hadn't solved tactics online since chess.emrald.net many years ago, but this Chess.com Tactics Trainer was very well made, with plenty of challenging and interesting problems for any level. I've heard that the Tactics Trainer on Chesstempo is just as good.

Video: Chess.com Bullet Match Live Commentary

by Junta

Cool, a friend notified me of a video where American IM John Bartholomew live commentates on a recent 10-game bullet match we had on Chess.com. Good opponent. The many blunders and missed opportunities can't be avoided in bullet chess, but it is for fun after all.

I started playing on ICC in 2004 and used to play a lot there. For the last few years I haven't been playing much online, but this year I signed up to Chess.com and have found the Tactics Trainer there quite a handy training tool, as well as playing the occasional blitz or bullet.

FIGJAM in January 2015

The four of us will be playing in the two big national opens of Oceania in January 2015.

Andrew, Junta, Moulthun: Australian Open in Castle Hill, NSW, January 2nd-11th.

First prize of $8000, a record in Australian chess! Perhaps it will also be one of the strongest Australian Opens ever, with 13 GMs, 7 IMs and 2 WGMs already registered!

Registered entries

The playing venue is the Castle Hill RSL Lyceum - picture from Western Sydney Academy of Sport gallery here

Fedja: New Zealand Open in Devonport, Auckland, January 1st-9th.

Although a continuation of the Queenstown tradition from 2006, 2009 and 2012 was not seen, playing in New Zealand is always an enjoyable experience, and Devonport looks like a beautiful seaside resort. There are already 4 GMs, 3 IMs and 1 WGM registered.

Registered entries

The playing venue is the New Zealand National Chess Centre - picture from official site

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.

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