AusJCL_Team for 2011 WYCC

Dear All,

The deadline for appeals against the selection for 2011 WYCC in November has passed. In addition, parents and juniors have confirmed their participation or non-participation as the case may be.

The following is the Australian junior team participating at the 2011 WYCC (to date and subject to further possible changes). The players are listed in order of selection, the * indicates that this player is the primary selected player in that category (and whose name is also in bold).

17 Nov – 27 November World Youth Championships (U8 – U18)
Caldas Novas, Goias, Brazil

World Youth Chess U8
Kevin Willathgamuwa*

World Youth Chess U10
Rowan Willathgamuwa*

World Youth Chess U12
Karl Zelesco*
Daniel Lapitan

World Youth Chess U14
Justin Tan*

World Youth Chess U16 Girls
Leteisha Simmonds*
Abbie Kanagarajah

World Youth Chess U18 Girls
Sally Yu*
Miranda Webb Liddle

Commonwealth & South African Open 2011

The Commonwealth & South African Open 2011 starts today with registration and GM lecture by GM Nigel Short as well as GM simultaneous exhibition. There are two parallel tournaments, the Championship section and the B-section.

Round 1 begins tomorrow after the Opening Ceremony. There is also a SA Blitz Championships in the evening. The full Schedule is here. There are 11 rounds. The games are 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one for both Championship and B-Section.

The Player Lists are found here and here. We have Victorian junior Thomas Feng playing in the Championship section and NSW brothers, Rowan and Kevin Willathgamuwa, playing in the B-section.

We also have GM David Smerdon and Tristan Stevens representing Australia in the Championship section as well a Redeer Omer (?).

Here is wishing them all the best.

GM Wesley So speaks ......

After that post on the future of this blog, let me again head overseas to the future Philippine chess. Philippine was for many years the leading chess country in Asia but no longer. With the rise of China and India and also Vietnam, Philippine is now a distant 4th. However, they do have an incredible 17 year old by the name of Wesley So who engenders a lot of patriotic (and fanatical!!!) pride in Pinoys the world over. Just log in to any chess forums and you will understand.

There is a very nice interview with Wesley conducted by WGM Alina L'ami (see here). As usual interesting excerpts follows:

Which is your priority now: chess or school?

For this year it is chess 100%. But sometimes I get lazy and work very little. On that topic, I like Gelfand's interview after his win in the Candidates Matches. He said that social networks (facebook, twitter), movies, some music (and I think computer games as well), are a waste of your time, which is mostly true I think.

What does chess mean for you?

I have been playing chess for almost 10 years already and if you have hold on long to something, it's not that easy to let go haha:) But I like playing chess. It's fun for me, although I realize it's getting more difficult each year.The computers get stronger and faster and opponents are more dangerously prepared. As an example, you could see my game in Malmo against Grandelius, where I was lost after the opening. And still...I love playing chess, I accept my defeats. It's just a game, either you win or lose.

How does a day look like in the life of Wesley So?

I mostly stay alone in Manila (my family moved to Canada,Toronto a year ago).
I go back and forth to Canada often,but Philippines has a better chess support in general, and I still want to play chess. I usually work around 3-4 hours a day but sometimes I work hard and I can do around 6-7. Besides, I read some books, some novels and I like reading the Bible. I also go to the cinemas quite often (my place in Manila is surrounded by malls!), especially after a tournament, to relax and forget about it. It makes me feel at home. I don't go online much nowadays, I think it is mostly a waste of time.

Do you have idols or people you admire?
Not necessarily chesswise. In chess, I'm a fan of Magnus Carlsen*. I like his style of play, sometimes he plays just brilliantly. And he is very kind as well. I think it's sad that FIDE does not really give him much attention, because, in my view, he should have been the World Champion some while ago.

[Note that this question is tied to The New Yorker article on Magnus Carlsen published recently. I do not have a copy as the New Yorker is a subscription only magazine. However, Alina has also included an excerpt from the article which is revealing and related to Wesley.]

* Extract from an article published on March 21, 2011, in The New Yorker: "Carlsen was already thinking ahead to the Amber chess tournament, which is being played this month, in Monaco. … “I really, really want to win and restore the power balance.” He added, “I just have to improve so much myself now.” He was even willing to let someone help him, if that’s what it took. In the days after Fashion Week, he had contacted Wesley So, a rising seventeen-year-old Philippine grandmaster, and offered to pay his way to Europe if he would train with him. In London, Carlsen had described So to me as his stylistic opposite. “I think his entire training has been with a computer,” he had noted with amazement. When I last spoke to Carlsen, he was in Majorca with So, and they had been working together. Carlsen once told me that if chess ever stopped being fun for him he’d “have to do something else.” He added, “If you have that feeling all the time, what’s the point of playing?” But, for now, he was appreciating the new training: “We’ll see if something good comes of it.” If he wound up playing more like other modern players, so be it.

There are of course many ways to improve one's chess level, but which do you find most rewarding?

On my level and on most levels, I think it is very important to not just study theory, but you have to understand the positions you play. You have to know where the pieces belong, how to improve your structure, you should know the typical plans and realize whether you are better in the position or not. Of course you will gain this by experience. I also think that, in most cases, it does not reward you long-term to play and change many openings at once. Because then you won't really understand why you play that opening.

I urge readers to read the entire interview as there are also interesting bits about being a 17 year old teenager and also life as a minor chess celebrity in the Philipine.

Very much preaching from the pulpit here but I thought the point made by Wesley about computer games and online social media was very interesting. In case you missed it, he said it was all a waste of time. The other interesting bit which I have blogged previously is the observation that Wesley is an autodidact in chess. The last autodidact in chess well known to most chess players is of course Bobby Fischer. But a huge difference between the two, something to do with the advances in technology and the world we live in now in the 21st Century compared to Bobby in 1950s USA. Bobby read a lot (and I mean a lot!!!) of chess books including a lot of chess books written in russian. Thus you could say he had a Soviet School of Chess education by one remove. Wesley taught himself via the chess engine. Is this the future? I believe so but as with everything there is a natural limit. I think the opinion amongst many is that Wesley has a reached a barrier in terms of what the chess engine can offer. He needs now the guiding hand of a human mentor/coach/trainer. But that is a problem for the Philippine chess community and Wesley to grapple with.

The ongoing future of this Blog ......

In a comment to the previous post, an Anonymous said: "However I think it would be a good idea to cover the Australian tournaments played on the long weekend, where a number of young players had notable performances." I agree. Thanks, Anon.

You are absolutely right that this is an Australian juniors chess blog and should highlight the achievements of Australian juniors. In years past, I have done so and I have blogged about tournaments I have personally visited. But this year, two things militated against my good intentions: 1) I have been extremely busy at work and coupled with AusJCL and NSWJCL stuff, it was a struggle just to keep up with news let alone blog about it. 2) Of more concern is the fact my son has "given" up tournament chess and therefore I have not been present in any tournaments at all. It is very hard to blog about tournaments when you are not there physically. Just re-posting results are not very interesting (and quite boring).

So the solution? I can think of a few:

1)If there are any juniors or parents who attend tournaments and are willing to email me personal accounts, I will post them.
2) I will try to highlight Australian juniors achievements. Having said that, I am mindful that I do not wish to create a culture of highlighting only occasional "giant-killing feats". I know I have been guilty of this in the past. But the posts of Melbourne chess player Erik Teichman has persuaded to some extent that this practice has some dangers. I think it is more important to track a junior's achievement and performance over time, ie by saying he/she is playing at 1900 level now which means on a good day, the junior can defeat someone over 2000 but yet suffer defeat to someone below 1700. Mostly it means that the junior at 1900 is able to comfortably draw with others at 1900 level. I am not sure whether this is correct but that is my present opinion. Also remember that juniors (and to some extent adult chessplayers as well), make progress in the familiar step-like pattern: after some progress, there is a plateau until the next jump in skill and knowledge.
3) To fill the time in between blogs (of my own), I have taken the lazy bloggers' path of cutting and pasting from overseas blogs.
4) I would still like to blog on the use of chess engines in junior training and recommend some simple ways and methods to utilise the power of the chip. A second topic I would also like to blog is on the issue of psychology of competing and winning. In these two areas, nothing original but the distillation of my reading of "lots" of books in the two areas.

2011 US Closed Junior Championships

It is that time of the year again and 10 of the strongest junior chess players in the US are battling it out in St Louis, USA for the 2011 Junior Champion crown. The Championships is run as a single round-robin tournament. The contestants are:
Gregory Young 2384
FM John Bryant 2486
Jialin Ding 2233
IM Conrad Holt 2473
FM Alec Getz 2398
Kayden Troff 2345
IM Daniel Naroditsky 2536
FM Warren Harper 2412
FM Victor Shen 2435
Raven Sturt 2375

Remember that IM Naroditsky (2007 World U12 Chess Champion and chess book author, see previous blogs here and here ) is 15 and Kayden Troff (see previous blog here) is only 12.

More info on the website here.

There are live games to watch as well as live commentary by GM Ben Finegold and FM Aviv Friedman.

So far 4 rounds have been played and Gregroy Young with very attacking chess has taken the lead with 4/4 (defeating IM Holt and FM Bryant) but yet to face favourite IM Naroditsky who is on 3/4. They will play each other in Rd 7.

For Round 1 report by Ken West and replay the games, see here. For Rounds 2 and 3 report see here with guest commentator, former World Champion, GM Garry Kasparov.

I think it will be instructive for Australian juniors to have a look at the games and see the standard of play over in the US. It is also interesting to see the opening repertoires of the US juniors.

GM Boris Gelfand speaks ......

After his remarkable triumph at the 2012 Candidates Match in Kazan where he emerged as the winner of the Candidates Match to find a worthy challenger for the World Chess Championship and its current incumbent, GM Viswanathan Anand, Gelkfand gave a number of interesting interviews in Russian. These have been translated and posted at the excellent Chess in Translation blog. The interviews are collected in two posts, here and here. GM Gelfand also gave an extended interview/Q&A session at the Russian chess site, Crestbook, last year (see translated excerpts here and here, and original Q&A in Russian here (use Google translate)). As per my usual practice, I include excerpts here which I thought are interesting for juniors. But do go on and read the interviews in full.

[From the first set of interviews]
[SovSport] Where did your acquaintance with chess start?

There’s a wonderful children’s textbook, probably the best in history – “Journey to the Chess Kingdom”. My dad, who really loved the game, began to go through a diagram a day with me. One evening I told him that I wanted to study something else. Well, he thought the boy had cooled towards the chessboard and pieces. He told my mum that chess hadn’t interested Boris. My dad couldn’t even imagine that I’d gulped down the whole book in one day and therefore wanted something new. Unfortunately my father didn’t live to see my victory. We lost him one and a half years ago…

Did you soon realise that you’d become a professional chess player?

After school my parents insisted I received a professional education. But when I started to get into the semifinals of the USSR Championship, which was considered a great success back then, they left me alone. I enrolled in Physical Culture at university, so as to avoid the army, and gave myself up to chess completely. By the way, they still dragged me into the military for ten days – the most unpleasant memories of my life.

[ChessPro] Do you agree when people call you “a student of the Soviet School of Chess”?

If you add the essential “detail”: the Minsk School of Chess. That started with Boleslavsky, then passed through Kapengut to me, and other chess players living under the influence of Boleslavsky’s ideas. In Minsk they always played the most principled opening variations. In Riga, let’s say, they played in the style of Tal, in the Caucasus – in the style of Tigran Vartanovich [Petrosian]: offbeat systems, based on subtleties… In Lvov it all derived from Stein. In Belarus everyone played the Sicilian, the King’s Indian… And always the most challenging systems.

[From the second set of interviews]The interview moves on to the question of how Gelfand works on chess [......]

[Evgeny Surov of Chess-News] You expressed an interesting idea in one of your interviews – that you have a method of preparation which consists of working constantly almost every day, regardless of when the next tournament will be or when the last one finished. Did I understand you correctly?

Yes, that’s absolutely the case. And that’s also how it was in those years when there were no tournaments at all. I have to say there were tough years around the turn of the century – from 1999 to 2003, 2005, – when there were no tournaments, and no realistic chance of any. But still, I worked in more or less the same manner, with about the same intensity. I didn’t do anything very differently.

And could you – maybe not so much for me, as for young chess players – say what this daily work consists of? I’m not asking you for an hour-by-hour breakdown, but still, what is it you do? How do you prepare?

Well, how do I prepare… I review the games that have been played. If, for example, you don’t have much energy for creative work then you can sit and look through the games played, searching for some ideas. There are a lot of ideas you can draw on from tournaments. That’s become the norm for everyone now – reviewing other people’s games. Sometimes I look at old books, or read magazines. I flick through endgame books. You still have to refresh your endgame knowledge. If you don’t refresh it for a long time then at the critical moment it might not surface. It should be at the level of instinct.

I also sit, of course, and look at my own games. I try to advance opening theory. There are specialists who don’t consider that so important for the growth of chess players and think few games are decided in the opening, but it strikes me that’s not exactly the case. Take, for example, Polugaevsky. Or Geller. Or also Kasparov. They became great chess players precisely because of their work on the opening. Therefore it seems to me that working on the opening is incredibly important, particularly nowadays. If you don’t work on the opening you often can’t even get a playable position. Your opponent will be well-prepared and you simply won’t get any chances of making a game of it. Or you’ll do that at too high a price – you’ll end up with a bad position. I’d also formulate a concept that’s rarely seen now: how you set out to play the game. It strikes me as an incredibly important concept as it’s crucial you don’t simply look at opening moves, but the idea behind the play. That’s the area I think about and work on.
[......]
I’d like to return for a while to your daily preparation between tournaments. I’m still interested in whether you take a break from chess? I can’t believe you’re only involved with chess.

But that’s the secret. If you do something every day then you don’t need to make any, let’s say, extreme efforts. If you don’t work for a month then you need to make extreme efforts in order to catch up on what you could have done in that month. But if you work regularly then you can also do other things and lead a normal way of life, finding time for everything.

From the earlier Crestbook Q&A:

In order to become a good chess player do you have to have natural talent – or is hard work enough?

It’s a very interesting question, absolutely, of course, unexplored. But then, how would you explore it? What is talent? And what level of “good chess player” are we talking about? I think that practically anyone, if they set themselves the goal of becoming a grandmaster and work hard and consistently can achieve that goal, as long as they can organise their work well. But in order to become a top-class grandmaster – then, of course, you need a combination of many qualities – talent, and work, and an effective approach to work, and energy and a tough nervous system.

What distinguishes an IM from a GM?

I wouldn’t even know what to say. Before it was straightforward. Now there’s such title and rating inflation that it’s really difficult to know. It even seems to me sometimes that some players with a rating of 2500 play stronger than others with 2650. There’s so much corruption, so many people have bought the title of grandmaster, or at least one norm! By some counts – a third. Therefore the title has been devalued and at times I’m even ashamed to call myself a grandmaster. But in general – what distinguishes a stronger player from a weaker: the range of positions which he can play; the depth that he senses and can find in a position; and endgame understanding means a lot… Though in general there are different possibilities. Chess players have many qualities. At times a certain international master knows and understands everything, but he doesn’t have a fighting character, while another plays worse, but has a really strong sporting animus, and so achieves greater success, becoming a GM.

Do those who become grandmasters have an above average intellect and memory? Or can anyone who tries become a GM? Are these two qualities that can be developed, or do you need a certain mould of brain and talent?

I don’t think many of my colleagues have such a high intellect, and then what do you consider intellect? As for memory, it’s well known that Spassky, Alekhine and Karpov didn’t have exceptional memories, but they were the greatest of players. And then you can name a lot of players with exceptional memories who couldn’t get beyond the first category. You need a specific memory for grasping certain types of position, typical ideas, as I’ve already said.

Can anyone who wants to become a GM? It’s a complex question which I’ve already touched on. I’d repeat: it seems to me that it’s possible. Especially if you have unlimited opportunities to study 24 hours a day. Plus an enormous desire to do it – that’s the main thing – whatever it is in life you’re aiming for. On the other hand that’s not the most important goal. The main thing is, why do people play chess? It seems to me that it’s most important to do it for the pleasure it brings you.

Can the intellect and memory be developed? Let’s leave the intellect aside, it’s an abstract concept. While memory can in some ways be trained. At my level I pay more attention to systemising my knowledge. So as not to remember everything, but only the most important things. And as for development… I play the game “Memory” with my daughter and have it on my computer. If children can develop their memory then adults can too… No doubt there are some methods but here the question isn’t for me, a chess player, but for a specialist in the field of psychology.

[How to improve your chess]
I remember the Soviet Union Championship was taking place in Minsk and, as a candidate master, I went to all the rounds, sat in the hall and watched. It seems to me that this moment of empathy, sitting together with leading chess players and thinking, gives you a lot more than you’d think. If you’re on the internet and analyse with a computer, especially a lot of games at once, then it can distract you from immersing yourself in the position. I recall Alexander Sergeevich Nikitin told me at the time (he was with Kasparov at that USSR Championship): “don’t look at all the games, choose one and try to guess the move yourself, and then, at home, see whether you guessed the move or whether the grandmaster played better. And understand, why. Perhaps you were actually right”. And Boris Naumovich Postovski – also a second at that championship, I don’t remember for who. He also came up to me and gave similar advice. And I’d give the same. After all now there are on-line commentaries from all the major tournaments. So look at the games without a computer and then, after the game’s finished, compare it with what the commentator (a good commentator!) wrote. Let’s say, Sergey Shipov, who, of course thinks with his own brain, but nevertheless also switches on a computer. So first, think for yourself, and then the following day look at how the grandmaster commentated with the help of a computer. It’ll help you more.

Which older chess players influenced you most, and who made the greatest impression on you?

I’ve tried to learn from all players but, no doubt, I was most impressed by Yury Razuvaev and Valery Myrachvery’s “Akiba Rubinstein”. I read it again and again in my childhood. And even today when I meet Yury or we talk on the telephone we often return to that book, to Akiba’s games. The striving to play deeply in the opening, and the so-called “long plan”, that is when a game’s played from the beginning to the end in one key… That’s what I like in chess, and it comes from Akiba.

I met my first trainer, Eduard Aronovich Zelkind, when I was 6 years old. He’d only been a trainer for a few years at that point. I was incredibly lucky because, as experience shows, a lot depends on what sort of trainer you come across first. The foundations that are laid out remain for your whole life. There are players at the very highest level who from their first steps in chess solved combinations – and only that! I think that’s how it was for Polgar and Mamedyarov. They have an incredibly well developed combinational vision, and they’ll have it all their lives… For us Zelkind, of course, also developed our tactical vision. I’ve still got a notebook with the first positions that he gave me. I still couldn’t write so either he or my parents would write down my homework. Bishop sacrifices on h7 are noted there… But he also taught us the endgame. At 9 years old I knew rook endgames to the same level as many current grandmasters, with no false modesty.

[On training sessions with Petrosian:]
What did I learn… Firstly, spending time with a player of such great standing is an incredible event for a boy, and some things from that time still remain with me. He said, for example: think about every move, even if you’re playing blitz – don’t simply bang out a move. Every move should have some sort of idea. I still try to follow that. Or some types of position that he would explain… I’d lose a game and he’d say: what was there to think about here, exchange one rook, leave the other, transfer the knight to here and white wins. A global kind of thinking.

[On openings]

Is it true that in games between top players 80-90% of the result depends on the opening – preparing for an opponent, catching him out with a novelty/variation and so on?

No, it’s not. At the very highest level losing or winning games in the opening is only likely if you play a very risky or rare line. But if you play normal openings even if your opponent catches you out then with white they’re unlikely to get more than +=, or more than equality with black, so that afterwards it still comes down to the ability to play chess. The higher the level, the more likely that is. Take Carlsen, who’s now one of the best players in the world: he doesn’t stake a lot on the opening but tries to get playable positions – with great success, as we’ve all seen.

How much influence do you think “opening fashion” has on the opening repertoire of the top hundred players (e.g. the universal devotion of elite, and not only elite, GMs to the Anti-Moscow Gambit)?

Fashion does have a great influence. Even Botvinnik (or was it Korchnoi?) said that there are chess players who move theory forward, and there are others who consume it. There are players-researchers, who love to analyse and work a lot on the openings. And others who look at a game by Kramnik or Anand – and immediately add it to their repertoire. Well, after checking it, of course, on the computer to see that there aren’t any particular holes. Probably about 10-15 people set the fashion and those, as a rule, are the very top chess players. While the majority follow. Actually the Anti-Moscow isn’t in fashion any more. In the past half-year after the Tal Memorial, where Leko lost two games, it’s barely been used. But now in Dagomys I managed to beat Grischuk, so maybe it’ll come back into fashion. We’ll see.

Do you find that in a particular tournament situation against a particular opponent you would choose (if, hypothetically, you had the choice) the black pieces instead of the white, or is the right to start always an advantage?

Overall the right to make the first move is always an advantage. With some opponents it has more significance, while with others – less. The drawing of lots at a tournament is always quite important. Sometimes you get white with a player who aims for a complex game with white while not trying to set particular opening problems. And you get black against a white specialist. If you take the very top, then it’s better to have black against Carlsen and white against Kramnik than vice versa. Because Kramnik is a clear case of a white specialist, while Carlsen, as mentioned, doesn’t go for a real advantage in the opening and simply tries to get a complex but playable position. You can find a lot of similar examples. But if it’s just in one game then I’d always prefer to have white.

In your opinion which first move is stronger: (1. e4) or (1. d4)? Have you changed your opinion in the last 10-20 years?

That’s a good question. I can tell you a funny story. About 8 years ago Sasha Grischuk said two things to me: “Do you really not see that e4 is stronger than d4?! Why on earth do you play d4?” and, “the Najdorf loses. It’s an incorrect opening”. And now he mainly plays d4 and the Najdorf. For a while myself, perhaps under his influence, I returned to e4, which I’d played for the whole of my childhood. Of course, both the one move and the other are entirely playable. It’s a question of style. One person likes the positions arising after e4, while someone else likes those after d4. Of course, ideally, a chess player can play both moves. It widens his range of weapons.

Do you think that after e4 the move d6 is a reasonable alternative to the replies e5, c5 and c6? Is the Pirc (Ufimtsev) a competitive opening, from your point of view?

Of course. Kramnik added it to his repertoire, and he doesn’t play bad openings. For the moment he hasn’t always succeeded with it – he’s won in classical chess, but lost a few games in Monaco. The thing is that it demands great understanding. It’s a very cunning opening and you need to play and observe it a lot in order to get a feel for it. As you’re giving up the centre one or two inaccurate moves are enough to end up in a difficult situation. But if you know it well, and white plays inaccurately, then you can get an immediate advantage.

Boris, can you tell us why you gave up the sharp Najdorf and switched to the duller Russian Game?

Firstly, I don’t agree with the evaluations. I’ve played a lot of lively games in the Petroff. Have a look at my book, at the games with Grischuk and Short. Or the defeat I mentioned to Leko in Nalchik. While Najdorf games are often duller, as it’s either a repetition of computer analysis (and a memory contest is not really something I want to get into at the moment), or it’s simply dull play. I’ve had a lot of such games.

Secondly, I base my opening choice on the degree to which it suits me, the sort of positions I might get. While the fact that its “sharper” or “duller”… I don’t consider that I have to play in the sharpest or liveliest fashion. I consider that I should play as strongly as I can.

BTW you need to read the excerpts in full to discover who are Gelfand's favourite football team and favourite football player (it happens to be one of my heroes as well! ...... which goes to show that Gelfand and I are from the same generation ......).

AusJCL_Selection for 2011 International events (edited Tuesday 14th June 2011 10:32 am AEST)

AusJCL Selections for the 2011 International Junior Events

These are the selections for the 2011 International Junior Event_World Youth Chess Championships. The players are listed in order of selection, the * indicates that this player is the primary selected player in that category (and whose name is also in bold).

Important: Please read the Notes at the end of the list of selection.

17 Nov – 27 November World Youth Championships (U8 – U18)
Caldas Novas, Goias, Brazil

World Youth Chess U8
Kevin Willathgamuwa*

World Youth Chess U10
Glen Qi*
Rowan Willathgamuwa

World Youth Chess U12
Karl Zelesco*
Daniel Lapitan
Jamie-Lee Guo

World Youth Chess U14 Girls
Savithri Narenthran*
Clarise Koh
[note: Savithri Narenthran has subsequently withdrawn from the 2011 WYCC selection.]

World Youth Chess U14
Justin Tan*
Karl Zelesco
Andrew Pan
Ari Dale
Cedric Koh

World Youth Chess U16 Girls
Leteisha Simmonds*
Savithri Narenthran
Abbie Kanagarajah
[note: Savithri Narenthran has subsequently withdrawn from the 2011 WYCC selection.]

World Youth Chess U16
Justin Tan*
Karl Zelesco
Ari Dale

World Youth Chess U18 Girls
Emma Guo*
Sally Yu
Miranda Webb Liddle

World Youth Chess U18
Justin Tan*
Karl Zelesco
Ari Dale

Notes

All players have the right to appeal. See http://www.auschess.org.au/constitution/Selection_Procedures_By-law.txt

9. Appeals

9.1 An applicant may appeal the results of a selection within 7 days after having been informed, pursuant to clause 8, of the results of the selection.

9.2 Appeals shall given to the Selections Director and shall be accompanied by a $200 appeal fee which shall be refunded if the appeal is upheld.

9.3 Appeals shall be on the basis that either:

9.3.1 There was a material error or omission in the selection process that has disadvantaged the applicant.

9.3.1.1. Paragraph 9.3.1 does not apply to an alleged material error or omission relating to the eligibility of an applicant for selection, other than the eligibility requirement in paragraph 4.3.1.

9.3.2 That the applicant was clearly ranked such that no selectors could have reasonably given the applicant that ranking based on the information supplied to the selectors.

Note: It is not sufficient to appeal on the basis that a player thinks that he/she should have been selected. The ranking of the selectors has to be clearly incorrect and unreasonable.

9.4 On receipt of an appeal all players involved in the selection which is subject to the appeal shall be advised that the appeal has been lodged.

9.5 Each player against whose selection an appeal has been lodged shall be given a copy of the appeal and an opportunity to state in writing, within 7 days after having been given the appeal, his or her case with respect to the appeal.

10 Appeals Tribunal

10.1 The Council shall appoint a person known as the ACF Appeals Tribunal Convenor (ATC) who shall be an ACF Honorary Life Member, a former ACF President or an eminent person with appropriate knowledge of chess and of the issues involved in the appeal.

10.2 The ATC shall appoint two other persons, each being either an ACF Honorary Life Member, a former ACF President or Deputy President or an eminent person as described in clause 10.1 to form a three person tribunal with the ATC.

Appeals will close on (end of day) Monday 20th June 2011.


Additional Notes/Instructions

Players selected for World Youth and World Junior events!!

A. If you have a * next to your name and your names in bold, let me know on or before Sunday 19th June 2011 whether or not you are accepting your selection (sooner is better, as I can then pass the selection down to the next person on the list). If I do not hear from you on or before the Sunday 19th June 2011, I will presume you are not going and the next person on the ranked list will be offered the primary selection.

B. If you do NOT have a * next to your name, let me know by on or before Sunday 19th June 2011 one of the following three responses:

1) confirm you will be going regardless of whether or not you have the primary selection;
2) confirm you will not be going regardless of whether or not you have the primary selection;
3) confirm you will only be going if and when offered primary selection.

All other players

I will be giving you the email addresses of all people wishing to attend the events you are playing, as well as sending you the information (when it is put up by FIDE) and you can organise it amongst yourself - if there is free food/accommodation for a player in an age group, then it is the individual with the * next to their name who will get it. You may contact me for advice if needed.

Everyone!!!

Check your email daily, as I will be emailing you if there are any appeals regarding your selection, or if you are a person without a * and you become someone with a * (due to the fact the person(s) above you turned down their selection) to let you know this has happened.

Please note

U8-U18 divisions are held AT THE SAME TIME therefore you CANNOT be a player in multiple divisions in the one tournament. If you have a * next to your name in more then one division of the World Youths, let me know which of these divisions you wish to play in.

Firstever (?) Australian Chess Podcast ......

I have been extremely remiss in blogging about this enterprising attempt by two Sydney juniors in the world of Net 2.0 publishing. After many blogs extolling the virtues of overseas juniors enterprise with internet mnedia publishing such as the excellent and long-running Chess TV (see here), on fair Australia shores, we finally have two intrepid high schoolers willing to dip their chessic toes in the murky exciting world of online chess journalism. [drum rolllllllllllll ...........} I give you ......

Chess Crazy Talk Podcast
Pete and Kev talk Australian Chess Players and Tournaments

They have produced 6 episodes to date of varying length and quality. There are chess tournaments reviews, both local and overseas, interviews with chess players, and a very brief talk on a selected Opening.

I have listened in my car driving to and from work (downloaded on USB and playing through my car stereo) the first 3 episodes thus far. Very promising but much more can be done.

One immediate improvement is to get the pronunciation of names correctly especially non-English names, eg GM Dejan Bojkov.

Perhaps Kev and Pete should check this out: Pronounce That Chess Word by Bill Wall.