A little chess experiment...

by Andrew

I have composed a couple of problems to help you test your decision making and creative thinking capacities in chess. To give myself the best chance of avoiding people hating me following this exercise, I will advise you to take a very close look at the initial position before you make your first move. Good luck!

                                  Position 1: White to play, mate in 20 moves or less

If you were able to solve this, well done. Your solution may resemble somewhat one of the following lines:

If you weren't able to solve it, was it too long? Too hard? Too boring?

Okay, I understand; try this one instead.

Position 2: White to play, mate in 1

Yes, I have given you the same position--only with a different stipulation. Well, I did say 20 moves or less.

Probably you have found the solution by now, but let us consider for the moment how this position could have arisen. What was Black's last move? For instance, the queen could not have moved last as it already would have been giving check; similarly for the light-squared bishop and d7, and for the e- and g- pawns if they had been on e6 and g6 respectively. The d6 pawn could not have moved on the last turn given the light-squared bishop has somehow made it out already. And no black piece could have moved from a square that with White to move is currently occupied by a white piece.

(By the way, this position is possible: We can assume that prior to this White had played either b6 or c6, and Black had been oscillating with knight or light-squared bishop.)

So, a close inspection reveals that, in fact Black's only possible move prior to this position was  0...g7-g5, upon which, in accordance with the en passant rule, we are allowed to play the move 1.hxg6 checkmate.

Of course it was a bit of a trick puzzle, and perhaps a few readers/solvers dislike me right now for feeling I have wasted their time, but I think it teaches an important principle: that it can be very hard to see what you are not looking for. Maybe you began by seeing the number 20 and expecting the problem to be a very long one, thereby neglecting to appraise the initial position with much scrutiny or lateral thinking. I reckon if I had presented the first problem as "mate in 1" it would have been a very different story. Our expectations and assumptions inform our judgments and the way we view the world all the time without us realising it.

To be creative and heighten your ability to see different possibilities in chess it is important to be willing to identify and question what you think you know, to be open to receiving new information, and not to cast judgment before judgment is due. This, I believe, is the sort of perspective one should try to adopt if one wants to develop and maintain a free-thinking and creative mind, for chess and for life.

I hope, dear reader, that I have not perturbed too severely your faith in my trustworthiness and that you will come back to read my future posts. Next time I will try not to be quite so mean. :)

More fun with pins

by Andrew

This time the theme is answering a checkmate (or rather an almost-checkmate) with a checkmate. The first three are pretty simple, while the last has many variations and may require a bit of effort (but hopefully it is worth it!).

 

White mates in 2

 

White mates in 2

 

White mates in 2

 

White mates within 6 moves

 

 

 

 

Solutions

 

 

 

 

Fun with pins

by Andrew

Here are a couple of puzzles I composed based on the pin.

Pinning Around

 Black to play, mate in 5

 

Pins and Needles

 

 White to play, help mate in 13. "Turn the man standing on his head into the main who has stood on his head for too long."

Solutions below.



 

 

The Magnus Effect?

by Junta

As a chess player, it's a nice feeling when chess occasionally reaches the non-chess public (in a positive light!). Thanks to the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Vishy Anand currently going on, today I had several non-chess playing friends here in Canberra ask or talk to me about the match, and Magnus.

One chanced upon a broadcast of Game 2 on twitch.tv, the #1 broadcasting site for gamers, while another 'was watching a few videos of Magnus Carlsen this morning, beating a little girl in chess with a 30-second timer. So brutal.' Another, already a fan of Magnus, sent me a picture of watching the match on the big screen (connected to PC) in her room.

One can easily point out some of Magnus' endeavours in the last year to promote the game - continued modelling with G-Star RAW, the Play Magnus app, utilising social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and making high-profile appearances in public (opening a Real Madrid soccer match, meeting Mark Zuckerberg, playing a game with Bill Gates...).

Magnus is again in the driver's seat in this match with a lead after the first two games. I'm looking forward to seeing him promote the game in a continued reign as World Champion next year!

a screenshot from the official website, sochi2014.fide.com

The Unexpected - Part 2

by Andrew

This week I am looking at one reason in particular for why certain moves have the power to surprise.

I think most of the time when a move is unexpected - apart from those times when the player is unfamiliar with an idea, or the move is just a blunder - it is because it would ordinarily be a bad move, but something about that particular case makes it not so.

We might normally expect a move to be bad for instance because it loses material, because it jeopardises king safety, or because it doesn't appear on the surface to serve any real purpose. I am going to show some examples of moves that would not only seem bad ordinarily, but actually downright absurd.

Warning: These are quite difficult.


The Quiet

White to play and win - Wotawa 1955

1.Rd2!! Rxd2 (1...e1=Q 2.Rb2+) 2.Rh1+ Rd1 3.Re1! Rxe1 4.e7 Rd1 5.e8=Q e1=Q 6.Qg6+ leading to mate.

The Cunning

White mates in 4 moves - Ernst 1935

1.Ng2! hxg2 2.Rg3! hxg3 3.Bg1! gxh2 Bxh2#

The Heroic

This last example comes from a game I had recently. I was black against Chris Wallis in the Ballarat Begonia Open. The solution should be relatively easy to find given it was played in a game, but apt nonetheless.

White to play and win - C. Wallis vs. A. Brown 2014

1.Qf6! Qa1+ 2.Ke2! Rb2+ 3.Ke3!! +-

For a beautiful rendition of heroism in chess, Sam Loyd style, see this post.

The Unexpected

by Andrew

I'm afraid I must start by bringing into contention a well-known cliche: that for greater wisdom, or grasp of reality, or success in some area, one must "expect the unexpected". It is fairly easy to recognise (not that many people would have thought of it consciously) that in order for us to survive we need expectations. Or more precisely, we need the constants or "unchangeables" (such as rock = hard) or highly probably things (such as fall = pain) that make expectations possible. If we could not ordinarily expect that when we wake up tomorrow we will still be in the same bed, in the same house, and have the same box of cereal sitting in the cupboard, for instance, the world would be unintelligible. Now consider the concept of the unexpected. For an example, if I were to expect the unexpected, it may be that I expect that my bookshelf is going to turn into a glass of orange juice. Merely keeping such an expectation in my psyche could be quite burdensome, aside from the other issues it may cause (e.g., need to buy a new bookshelf ... or alternatively the need to sell that and all other bookshelves immediately lest they suffer a similar fate). Not to belabour the point, we must expect the expected; if we couldn't do that we would be constantly on a collision course with reality. 

However, often in life we discover that in order to learn we must extend the borders of our expectations - hence "expect the unexpected" (...when not taken too literally...). This is due to the vast number of low-chance occurrences human beings encounter just about every day, in whatever area of life. These things help us to learn and grow in all kinds of ways. Ironic though it may seem, unexpected things actually happen all the time.

19-year-old Canberra tennis player Nick Kyrgios beating World No.1 Rafael Nadal 

(Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/5557668-3x2-700x467.jpg)

Talking of a similar phenomenon my favourite psychologist Nathaniel Branden once said, with respect to learning and personal development: "Don't deny or disown what you see or experience merely because you can't explain it, justify it, or fit it into some familiar frame-of-reference. Allow a large space in your psyche to accommodate ambiguity and uncertainty. Don't invent explanations prematurely just so you can tell yourself you have the universe all tied up in one neat package. Keep your eyes open, keep observing, and be confident that sooner or later the truth will appear to you."

Right, you say, so where does chess come into it? 

In chess we are constantly being reminded of the possibility of surprise, and therefore the needs to learn and to check our premises. Very often one well-placed pawn will make a crucial difference to the position - or even a poorly placed one. As well as this, I believe one of the tasks of a chess player is to think "outside the box" of what is already known them, and to forever keep searching for more possibilities. I am confident that there are great many possibilities there for us, waiting to be unearthed, in chess and in pretty much everything else. 

In the NSW Open in June I was on the less fortunate side of one of these unexpected chess occurrences - where things were not quite as they seemed, though perhaps the reader will show more of an open mind than I did upon encountering the game position.

Melkumyan - Brown, Black to play

With very little time left I decided that rather than beat around the bush with a move such as 55...Kh5, I would force my opponent to decide what to do, by playing the threatening but perfectly safe looking 55...Rf1. As soon as I played it I realised I'd made a horrible mistake; and sure enough, my GM opponent realised this as well. Can you see how the game finished?

Rather than defend d1 or resort to a perpetual via Rg7+ my opponent played the strange looking 56.Kg2. Right, well, there's no backing out now: 56...d1=Q 57.Rg7+ and after double, triple, and quadruple checking that 57...Kh6 (or h5 or h4) 58.Rh7+ Kg5 will not in fact end in perpetual check but with 59.h4 checkmate I decided it was time to admit defeat. 

A study-like finish

For top players, the need to be aware of possibilities that are out of the ordinary is just as or perhaps more important. One player who does this very well is the young Hungarian grandmaster Richard Rapport. While at 18 years of age he is ranked inside the top 50 in the world, his play differs from many of his rivals in the amount of creativity he brings to the game, evident from his unusual but highly successful opening repertoire, his impressive tactical ability, his hairstyle, and so forth. Recently one of Richard's games featured a prime example of what I am talking about.

Rapport - Idani, Reykjavik 2014

Black has just played the seemingly innocuous 41...Nf6. Rapport replied 42.Qxf6+!! Kxf6 43.Ne8#

While there are numerous examples to convey the theme of surprise in chess - in fact virtually all good puzzles have some element of surprise to them - I have chosen this study to conclude because of the "Wow!" moment I remember getting from solving it, at seeing what's it's like when all the pieces are working to their full potential.

White to play and win - Kubbel 1922

1.Nc6! Kxc6 2.Bf6 Kd5 3.d3!! a2 4.c4+ Kc5 5.Kb7 a1=Q Be7#

So, should you expect the unexpected? If it means keeping a curious and open mind, I would say yes. If it means somehow losing your grounding in reality, I would say no. If it means dismissing your normal expectations in favour of new ones, well, I suppose it depends on the context...

In any case, I can say for sure that you can expect The Unexpected - Part 2 - next week.


NB: Figjam has some surprise posts coming very soon. Keep watch! :)

The Most Beautiful Game I've Ever... Failed to Win

by Andrew

"Simplicity, carried to an an extreme, becomes elegance." - Jon Franklin

"You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try." - Homer Simpson

This game comes from the recent Commonwealth Chess Championship and was the anticlimax of my tournament, and possibly my chess career. I don't remember ever feeling so devastated after a game before, and not because I'd missed an opportunity for a good result, or a norm, or some kind of recognition (though Kasparov had actually looked at my game at the start of the round).

It was because I had destroyed something I considered to be really beautiful, but more than that it felt like I had missed the opportunity I'd been waiting for for many years. By this I mean to say, one cannot create a masterpiece if one's opponent allows the 4-move checkmate; your opponent's decisions of course play a vital role in the process, and hence, games like the following are quite rare. 

I see the first part of this game as a kind of humorous testament to the advice every beginner is given when they first learn to play. You'll see what I mean in a minute.

1.e4 e5 (D)

"Move a central pawn forward two spaces."

2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Nf6 c3 (D)  

"Develop knights before bishops."

4.Qe2?! Bc5 5.f4 0-0 (D) 

"Castle early."

6.Nf3 d5! -+ (D)

"Push your other central pawn so you can
develop your last minor piece."

7.exd5 Bg4! (D)

"Now it is time to develop your last minor piece.
(Never mind the knight for now.)"

8.dxc6 (8.fxe5 Nxe5) e4 (D)

"Advance your central pawns to open lines for your pieces."

9.d4 (9.cxb7 exf3 10.gxf3 (10.bxa8 Qxa8 -+) Re8 -+) exf3 10.gxf3 Re8 (D) 

"Last but not least, bring your rook to the open file."

Perhaps chess is simpler than I thought? 11.Be3 Bxf3! (D) 

"...now that development is complete
it is time to sacrifice a bishop..."

12.Qxf3 Bxd4 (D)

"...and another one..."

So, now things aren't quite so 'simple', but it turns out that these sacrifices are completely sound, as 13.cxd4 is losing after ...Qxd4. E.g. 14.Kf2 Rxe3 15.Qxe3 Ng4+; 14.0-0 Rxe3 15.Qf2 Ng4; 14.cxb7 Rxe3+ 15.Be2 Rae8 16.Qf2 (Qg2 Qxb2) Ng4 17.Qg2 Rxe2+ 18.Qxe2 Qf2+ (D)

My opponent saw these lines and decided instead to opt for 13.Be2 (D)

The game continued 13...Rxe3 14.Qg2 Nh5 15.cxb7 Qh4+?! (D) my first real error of the game. Black is significantly better after the safe 15...Rb8 as Nxf4 cannot be stopped (e.g. 16.Rf1 Qh4+), but naively I decided against it for fear of compromising the game's beauty. Following this the game went rapidly downhill.

Here was the high-point in the game, at least in terms of beauty, where White could have played the remarkable 16.Qf2!! whereupon ...Rxe2 does not win the house as it appears but in fact after the calmest of moves, 17.Kd1!... (D)

...even being a piece up, even with all of White's major pieces on the edge of the board, and even with 3 pieces attacking the White queen, Black is hopelessly lost. Like Frodo at the Fires of Mount Doom, the b7-pawn will ultimately win the day for the White army.  

Instead the game continued 16.Kd2 (D)

After which I played Rd8 (Rae8 -+) 17.Bxh5 Qxf4 (Bb6 is still winning) 18.Kc2 Qf5+ 19.Kc1 Rxc3? (D) (Still aiming for the beauty prize, of which there was not. Qxh5 was fine.)

20.bxc3 Be3+ 21.Nd2 Qd3?? (D) (The end is nigh. Rxd2 would have still given me chances)

Then came 22.Bxf7, and to give you an idea of how rapidly things went downhill, on Move 29 the position looked like this:

Final Position

Consequently I had to resign to avoid further embarrassment.

Getting over this game was pretty hard, but it's something that needed to happen for me to be able to start playing well again. Kind of like one of those movies where the main character dies but saves the world at the same time. I found I was doing things like this nearly every game, going for beauty or misguided creativity over objectivity. 

The rest of the CCC was nothing special - in fact I dropped 35 rating points. But the whole experience was very important for me in a variety of ways. Since this experience I have found that the more objective I've been, both with chess and other parts of life, the more enjoyment I have got out of it. 

And of course my chess has started to improve, but that is a story for later.

I will leave you with some photos from my trip. Enjoy!

  

Great things happening in Australian Chess - Part 2

by Andrew

Part 2 - February - June 2013

February:

On the 1st of February Bobby Cheng is listed in the top 100 juniors in the world with his new rating of 2425.

Anton Smirnov continues his good run, convincingly winning the Newcastle Open with 5.5/6.

Junta and I tie for first in the ACT Championships (for the 2nd year in a row). Remarkably, last year's tournament results for us were almost identical, with Junta beating me midway and then drawing two games towards the end so that we finished with 8/9 each. One of these draws was against junior Aelfric Gardiner-Garden rated in the 1300s, who played a super-solid game comfortably swapping off into an equal ending and holding. Aelfric also produced a number of other big upsets and this showed on the March rating list on which he made a 250 point jump.

 

March:

The Ballarat Begonia Open traditionally attracts a number of top Australian players each year from Victoria and interstate. In this year's edition, the top boards were occupied by young players round after round, and after 5 rounds first place was shared by 3 young Australian players, IM James Morris, FM Chris Wallis, and Brodie McClymont, all on 5/5. In Round 6 Chris beat Brodie, while James drew with New Zealander Luke Li. In the final round James managed to beat Chris and take the $1500 first prize with 6.5/7 while also taking his FIDE rating over 2400 for the first time and entering Australia's Top 10: a highly commendable achievement. A number of other juniors gave strong showings here, with the oldest player in the final top 6 being only 22.

At the end of the month, Australia's strongest weekender, the Doeberl Cup, took place at the Hellenic Club in Canberra. This was the strongest ever Doeberl, and possibly the strongest tournament ever in Australia, with 11 GMs (including one of China's best Li Chao and Dutch superstar Loek van Wely) and many other titled players. After 9 rounds GM Li Chao emerged as the victor with 7.5/9. IM Moulthun Ly scored best out of the Australian contingent with 6.5, however the tournament standout was once again young Anton Smirnov. Throughout the tournament Anton consistently held his own against Australia's best and by round 9 racked up a performance rating around 2500, only missing out on an IM norm due to a technicality - that there were 19 overseas players instead of the required 20 in the tournament. Here is a great attacking game Anton played in Round 3 against the young Chinese girl Tingjie Lie (2232).


Unfortunately for some of us this year's Doeberl was not our best ever. However Junta and I were happy to come away with having played GM Loek van Wely (2684) who was once ranked inside the world's Top 10.

April:

After the Doeberl came the 6th edition of the Sydney International Open, held in the Parramatta Town Hall. Though no members of Figjam participated in this one there were a total of 12 (!) GMs who played - all of the GMs who played in the Doeberl plus Polish GM Bartlomiej Heberla. In first place after 9 rounds was Loek van Wely on 7.5/9, edging out Li Chao who finished in outright second on 7/9, by winning their ninth round game. However the real star of this tournament was yet again young Anton Smirnov who got the equal best score by an Australian in the tournament with 6/9, scoring a well-deserved first IM norm! Anton was undeafeated throughout - an impressive feat considering his opponents included 5 GMs and 1 IM.

Bobby Cheng also did well, scoring 5.5/9 against a very tough field and getting his final norm and therefore (since he is well over 2400 now) the IM title. From what I can tell he is the youngest Australian ever to achieve the title by normal means. Congrats to Bobby!  

As it turns out, April truly was a great month for Australian chess, with Australian No.1 Zong-Yuan Zhao winning the super strong Bangkok Open. Yuan had a fantastic tournament the whole way through and remained undeafeated after 9 rounds (+ 6 = 3 - 0). His best game came in Round 8. Faced with the unenviable task of having to beat former World Title Challenger GM Nigel Short with Black, Yuan well and truly rose to the challenge, playing a brilliant double pawn sac for good control of the centre and well-placed pieces.

Short was unable to develop adequately and eventually had to give back material to break free. In the resulting endgame Yuan had a Q for B + N + P albeit with a king stuck in the corner. Apart from one small scare on move 39 when he allowed Short the opportunity to make use of his weak back rank (which Short luckily did not see) Yuan was able to convert quite comfortably and take the full point. (I might add, this truly was a great game to be able to watch live!)

 

In the last round Yuan took a short draw with his opponent who only needed a draw for a GM norm, and nobody else was able to catch him.

Full results here.

After that Yuan, having played three big 9-rounders in quick succession, decided to play a 7 round tournament in Melbourne, which he won smoothly with 7/7. From these last four tournaments Yuan gained nearly 30 points, significantly furthering his lead over the rest of us.

May:

Fellow Figjammer Junta Ikeda won the Japanese Championships (as you should already be aware).

You can read a few interesting posts about his tournament below. Well done, Junta!

The Oceania Zonal took place this year in Fiji. Anton Smirnov, Ari Dale, and Justin Tan all did well enough to earn a title, with Anton and Justin earning the FM title, and Ari earning the IM title. This will mean in the upcoming World Youth Under 16 Olympiad 4/5 of our top team will be titled. Justin reached a live rating of over 2300 in the tournament and therefore got the title by normal means.

Congratulations to FM Igor Bjelobrk who won the tournament with 7/9 (and picked up a well-deserved IM title) and will therefore be Australia's representative in the World Cup this year, to be held in Tromso, Norway.

June:

NSW Open

IM Max Illingworth led all the way (beating me in a nice sacrificial game in the process) till Round 7 when he lost a long hard fought game against GM Zong-Yuan Zhao, and had to settle with =1st.

Gold Coast Open

Visiting GM Lubomir Ftacnik won on tiebreak with 5/6 over IM Stephen Solomon and FM Chris Wallis. IM Moulthun Ly would have take Ftacnik's spot on the top of the table had he chosen the right move at one point in their K+2P each endgame. Moulthun said he saw the move but for some reason thought it was his turn rather than his opponent's when he calculated it, which would have made it losing. Bad luck, and well done to all the prize winners.

More on NSW Open and Gold Coast Open tomorrow.

Victorian Open

Ari Dale led the whole way (like Max) till Round 7 when he lost against young NZ FM Luke Li, resulting in a four-way tie for first.

Leading final scores:

=1st Dragicevic; Dale; Li; Matheson 6/7
=5th Stojic; Nemeth 5.5/7

Victorian Championships

A big congratulations is owed to IM Bobby Cheng who demolished the field here scoring 10/11 (with his only loss being to IM Ari Dale). Bobby played remarkably well throughout. From viewing his games it is easy to tell that he calculates well in attack and (especially) defense, and he is not afraid of going on the occasional king march...

Cheng - Hacche

The king has made it from e1 - h7 in World Record Time (29 moves).*

*OK, I'll admit I have not checked all 5 million games in my database just yet... but it's got to be close!

However, clearly by the end of the tournament Bobby's king was all tired out, as the following game shows.



Needless to say, king march or no king march, Bobby sure knows how to get the job done. Well done Bobby on becoming No.3 in Australia, now only behind GMs Zong-Yuan Zhao and David Smerdon!

Leading final scores:

1st: Bobby Cheng 10/11
2nd-3rd: Justin Tan; Ari Dale 7.5/11
4th: Dusan Stojic 7/11

Following on from that, Bobby will lead the Australian team at the World Youth Under 16 Chess Olympiad, to be held in Chongqing, China from the 21st-30th of this month. Our top team now looks like this:

Board 1: IM Bobby Cheng 2438
Board 2: FM Anton Smirnov 2289
Board 3: FM Justin Tan 2322
Board 4: IM Ari Dale 2310
Board 5: Yi Liu 2174

...and is seeded well up there in the tournament (3rd or 4th, I believe) alongside chess superpowers Russia, China, and India. Our coaches this year will be GMs Zong-Yuan Zhao and Ian Rogers. Australia is looking to get its first olympic medal/s in chess, and with that lineup, we will surely have a pretty good crack at it.

Best of luck to everybody, it will be very exciting to watch.

Before that however, I am off to Port Elizabeth, South Africa tomorrow morning for the Commonwealth Chess Championships (5th-14th). I am seeded around 20th for this 11-round tournament, in a field consisting of several strong grandmasters. I am hoping to blog regularly throughout the tournament (unlike in previous overseas tournaments...). I will be giving a bit more info about it all when I arrive - that is, if I survive the 5am bus trip and 14 hour flight. Stay tuned!

Great things happening in Australian Chess

by Andrew

Over the last 6 months or so, Australia has seen some great new developments in chess from some of our younger players. I have compiled an annotated list of some of these recent achievements. Though this list could really span the last few years it has been the last 6 months in particular in which young Australian players have demonstrated tremendous success nationally and internationally and, by some in particular, an unprecedented rise in chess ability.

Part 1 - November 2012 to January 2013

November

• 20-year old (19 at the start of the tournament) IM-elect Max Illingworth convincingly won the very strong MCC Cup Weekender with 8.5/9, ahead of IM Stephen Solomon on 7.5, myself on 7 and NZ's young star Luke Li on 6.5 (now living in Australia!).

• 20-year old QLD IM Moulthun Ly not long after his excellent olympic debut for Australia won the Tuggerarnong Vikings tournament in Canberra with 6.5/7, ahead of IMs George Xie and Vladimir Smirnov (and just in time for his 21st).

• 20-year old ACT FM Junta Ikeda (who you should know pretty well by now...) played in the Commonwealth Championships in Chennai, India and scored 7.5/11 with a 2400 performance, just missing an IM norm.

December:

• Junta then played in the super-strong Rose-Valley Open in Calcutta scoring 6/11 with another 2400 performance and narrow miss of a norm. In total Junta gained around 40 points which in India, where people are often substantially under-rated, is very impressive.

• Over in England a bunch of Australian players participated in the London Chess Classic FIDE Open. Ari Dale, Justin Tan, and Arianne Caoili all had suberb performances, though Arianne was very unlucky to miss out on a WGM norm playing and losing against Ari in the last round.

• The Australian Young Masters in Adelaide featured fantastic performances from local Alistair Cameron who scored 6/7 and Queensland's Brodie McClymont (a perfect 7/7!). (Unfortunately for me as top seed, I got rather 'beaten up' this tournament, scoring a dismal 3.5/7.) In the game between the two Brodie held a solid advantage for most of the game but missed a tricky tactic forcing the loss of a piece that could have eventuated in the game, later pointed out by GM Ian Rogers.
• Brodie's win was of course no small feat and to my knowledge was only the 2nd time in the tournament's history that the winner has got a perfect score. Though Brodie has gotten into the habit of doing this in recent times, with picket-fence victories in a series of strong weekenders in 2012. Brodie is 20 years old and has only been playing a short number of years. He does not often play FIDE tournaments which has held that rating back a bit but is on the verge of breaking 2400 ACF following his stellar performances in 2012. It is clear to me that he has immense talent and with some real dedication and study I am sure he could reach the grandmaster title and go well beyond.

• At the same time an I daresay even more impressive feat occurred in the Australasian Masters tournament in Melbourne. 11 year-old Anton Smirnov places =1st with 6/9  (yes, 11, you are reading correctly), and wins on tiebreak ahead of IM James Morris (18) and FM Bobby Cheng (15), narrowly missing out on an IM-norm in the process. This tournament signalled Anton's emergence into the top echelons of Australian competitive chess, and within the coming months he proved for certain that this victory was no fluke. On January 1 2013 Anton was listed as the number one player for his age in the world, a feat that to the best of my knowledge has never before been achieved by an Australian. 

January:

• The 2013 Australian Open Chess Championships at Norths Chess Club in Sydney was one of the strongest Championships to date, featuring at the top of the list GM Igor Khenkin of Germany, at the time ranked in the top 100 in the world, and nearly all of Australia's best active players. However it was 15-year-old (former World U/12 Champion) FM Bobby Cheng from Melbourne who took the $4500 top prize with one of the most impressive performances by an Australian in an open tournament to date. Having taken a bye in the first round, Bobby mowed down his opposition (Khenkin included), to win 9/10 (+ 8 = 2 - 0) and take the Championship by a full point. At the same time, he also scored his second IM norm (exceeding the required score by 2 points) and with a performance rating well into the 2700s missed out on a GM norm only for the fact that he didn't get the opportunity to play GM Darryl Johansen for his required third GM.
• Other notable performances by young Australians were =2nd to Figjammer IM Moulthun Ly, Australian No.1 GM Zong-Yuan Zhao, and IM Max Illingworth all with 8.5/11. Junta and I scored 7/11 - with Junta picking up his second IM norm and both of us performing in the 2400s for the tournament. Western Australian 20-year-old Yita Choong also performed very well, just missing an IM norm, but still picking up a bucketload of rating points.

• In the Lightning, which was the strongest for many years, yet again it was Australia's young players who shone, with FM Bobby Cheng and IM James Morris tying for 1st with a huge score of 9.5/11 (and both beating GM Khenkin in the process).

• In the presentation, IM Max Illingworth was awarded Australian Player of the Year for the second time running, in recognition of his excellent performances in such tournaments as the NSW Championships (8.5/9), the Ryde-Eastwood Open (6.5/7), the aformentioned MCC Cup Weekender (8.5/9), and the World Chess Olympiad where he scored his final norm and thus fulfilled the requirements for the International Master title.

• In late December and early January ACT's WIM Emma Guo (17) played in several strong European tournaments and performed extremely well, gaining over 85 points over the period. Unfortunately the tournaments were only 7 rounds so she was not able to get any higher title norms.

• And last but not least Victorian Ari Dale (14) and Figjam member Fedja Zulfic (20) played in separate challengers tournaments associated with the famous Tata Steel Chess (Wijk aan Zee) festival in The Netherlands. Fedja played well in his tournament making solid rating gains, and Ari played magnificently, winning his event with 8/9 and skyrocketing his rating well into the 2200s - overall a very successful Europe trip for Ari.

Congratulations to everybody on these recent successes!


Part 2 - February to May, will follow next week.

My favourite move in chess

by Junta

We all have our favourite things - favourite song, favourite colour, favourite food, favourite sport. It is natural for chess players to also hold such affections in the world of chess - favourite player, favourite opening, favourite combination, favourite tournament to play in. But one relation not many may have discovered is their favourite move to play in a game.

Of course, we are all fond of aesthetic moves - most of us would love to sacrifice our queen in attack, unveil a counter-intuitive passive piece sacrifice for an unstoppable pawn breakthrough in the endgame, or showcase an awesome novelty in a hot line even elite players have not discovered. But here I'm talking about playing the same piece to the same square (with colours reversed also) regularly in games, not just a one-hit wonder (or the chess equivalent thereof).

I've held a fondness for flank (pawn) attacks since my early years in chess, but looking over my games from the two recent tournaments in India, I realised a certain little guy in my army had had his fair share of deployment, and he has probably earned a number of medals and commendations through my years of playing by now.

Maybe this phenomenon of a favourite move is like a guy who comes up with suggestive jokes all the time in conversation: in the appropriate context, it can be highly effective; it can be utilised in practically any stage of the game; sometimes, it fails miserably; it can hold surprise value; and the opponent feels the need to react; along with any other half-decent metaphorical/metaphysical relations.

Anyway, here are the positions from my 22 games where the move was played:
(my rating is 2304)

#1: Nov 23 - Ikeda-Sai (1654), Commonwealth Championships, Round 1.50

The position after 16.g2-g4. The game finished 16...f5 17.gxf5 Nf6 18.Qc2 Ng4 19.Qb3 Nxf2 20.Qxe6+ Kh8 21.Qxh6+ 1–0

#2: Nov 24 - Ikeda-Raghunandan (2042), Commonwealth Championships, Round 3.38

After 7.g2-g4 - the Shirov-Shabalov Gambit which I loved from first sight in childhood.

#3: Nov 25 - Ikeda-Seshadri (1990), Commonwealth Championships, Round 5.37

After 5.g2-g4 - objectively its not nearly as good as the SSG above, but it is playable. I was amazed to find in the database later that Mamedyarov had essayed it against Ponomariov in Dortmund 2010 (the result was a draw)!

#4: Nov 27 - Ikeda-Deepan (2500), Commonwealth Championships, Round 7.16

After 28.g3-g4 - I was able to open lines up on the kingide favourably and gain the advantage soon after.

#5: Nov 28 - Himanshu (2417)-Ikeda, Commonwealth Championships, Round 8.14

After 29...g6-g5, the game was kept in balance.

#6: Dec 1 - Ikeda-Narayanan (2438), Commonwealth Championships, Round 11.20

After 21.g2-g4 - objectively it may be a bit dubious, but practically I felt that I had to play it here. I was able to free my knights and gain equality.

#7: Dec 3 - Ikeda-Vaibhav (2494), Rose Valley Open, Round 1.25

After 17.g3-g4 - although I didn't follow up in the best way, I'm happy with my position here.

#8: Dec 7 - Karavade (2385)-Ikeda, Rose Valley Open, Round 5.33

After 15...g6-g5 - sadly, I had neglected castling after the opening, and my position was already difficult.

#9: Dec 8 - Ikeda-Rishi (2185), Rose Valley Open, Round 6.44

After 9.g2-g4 - a nice line I had wanted to play in a tournament game since learning it.

#10: Dec 12 - Ikeda-Thejkumar (2442), Rose Valley Open, Round 10.26

After 27.g3-g4 - a decent move - 27.f4 and 27.h4 also looked good, but perhaps my favouritism dictated matters here.

#11: Dec 13 - Rathnakaran (2435)-Ikeda, Rose Valley Open, Round 11.25

After 15...g7-g5 - although White would have been better after 16.Nb3 or 16.b4, after the game continuation 16.fxg5 Nxe5 I was very happy with my position.

So, overall, I pushed my g-pawn to g4 as White or g5 as Black in half of my 22 games I played recently in India! The results in these 11 games was pretty good (of course, it helps that I was White in the majority of these games), with 5 wins, 4 draws and 2 losses against opponents of average rating 2271, for a performance rating of 2432. I'll wait and see if this trend of touching the g-pawn continues.