2012 Australian Chess Championship Day 2 Round 2

In the Championship division, IM James Morris defeated Indian IM Akshat Khamparia, Chen PengYu drew with FM Max Illingworth and Anton Smirnov drew with Andrew Bird. FM Bobby Cheng got back into winning ways defeating late entrant from WA, Ihsan Ferozkohi (watch the interview with IM Leonid Sandler). In the battle of juniors, Justin Tan defeated Jonas Muller whilst FM Gene Nakauchi defeated Karl Zelesco.

Live games for top 5 boards are here and results are here and here.

Round 3 pairings to look out for:
Top game on Board 2 where it is the battle for the 2012 Olympiad Squad as young gun IM Moulthun Ly takes on old hand IM Aleks Wohl. Another game to watch is Bd 3 where GM-elect George Xie takes on in-form IM James Morris.

2012 Australian Chess Championship has started (in 2011) in Geelong, Victoria

I was out hunting bargains (well, bed linen for an 11-year old who now decidedly has his own taste in fashion and style and toys for an eight-year old) yesterday and "forgot" that the 2012 Australian Chess Championship started even though we are still in the 2011 calendar year. For some of us who comes to chess in recent years, this seems odd. But as I understand, this was the norm until a few years ago when the Australian Championships and the Australian Open (in alternate years) was shifted over to the 2nd January.

Getting hold of results may be a bit of a mystery so here is my guide to full enjoyment for those of us unfortunate enough to follow it only online:
1) Website with results, pairings is here (which is actually the website of the hosting club, Geelong Chess Club.
2) Results and pairings are also available at Chess-Results, here and here.
3)Games can followed live here courtesy of Box Hill Chess Club. You can switch between one giant game display or multiple display windows (4 on my PC).
4) There are a number bloggers following the Championships including IM Aleks Wohl (see here) who has already blog on his Rd 1 game with Vic junior Justin Tan. It seems Wohl, true to form, played a speculative exchange sacrifice which created enough messiness and complexity for Justin to err; FM Carl Gorka's Coffee House Chess.
5) You can also follow the chat at Chess Chat here (from p 20 onwards).
6) Photos by Raelene Zelesco (mother of Karl Zelesco) can be found here.
7) IM Leonid Sandler, Victoria Chess President, has videos here.

Most rounds begin at 1 pm except for Sat 31st December and the last round, Sunday 8th Jan, both which begin at 11 am.

Now onto Round 1:
The biggest story is the no-show on Bd 1 by Black and GM Zhao ZongYuan winning by forfeit! You can read all about it on Chess Chat.

But in terms of juniors, the biggest story is Queensland junior, Liu Yi, defeating fellow junior, FM Bobby Cheng and 2009 Vic Junior Champion, Jason Tang, defeating NZ FM Michael Steadman. NSW junior Chen PengYu drew with 2010 Australian Champion, IM Stephen Solomon. GM Darryl Johansen drew in 14 moves with Vic junior Laurence Matheson. Hmmmmmm! Is there a story here?

And in the Reserves, ACT junior Megan Setiabudi drew with Kerry Stead and NSW junior Kevin Willathgamuwa drew with Peter Fry.

A Refreshing Perspective on norms

From USCF Chess Life Online on Christmas Day comes an article by one of the Shahade sibling, IM Greg Shahade, chess entrepreneur, organiser, promoter, coach and recently, re-emerging player. My recommendation: read the article (see here) for a really refreshing and naturalistic view on chess improvement, titles and norms.

Excerpts:

There are so many pretty good chess players out there obsessed with making a norm, as though it’s going to help them in some way. Here’s another newsflash….unless you are 2500 FIDE, you aren’t getting the Grandmaster title, so if you are hanging around 2400-2440 all the time, making a GM norm isn’t going to help you very much. However if you get your rating to a consistent 2500 level, and you don’t have an especially draw happy style of chess, you are going to make GM norms in your sleep. You sure won’t make them in every tournament you play, but probably one out of every 4 or 5, and then you are well on your way to becoming a Grandmaster.

In my U.S. Chess School camps there are a lot of students who tell me that their goal is to make IM norms as quickly as possible. I always find this ridiculous, because usually while it’s clear to me these kids have talent, they are certainly not IM level players at the moment. Meanwhile I see them play in tournaments, and go through all kinds of weird contortions to improve their chances of making IM norms, and they sometimes seem to think that the only point of playing these events is to make IM norms. The way for these kids to make norms is extremely simple. All they have to do is just get a little better at chess, show up to play in the chess tournament, play normally, and the norms will come.

Do you agree? Comments?

US Extreme Chess Ep 1

Enjoy! Let me know what you think.



PS. To those who share the faith, Blessed Christmas. Shalom! Kyrie Eleison!

To those who do not share the faith, happy and merry holidays! Good luck to all juniors playing in the Australian Championship in Geelong. I will try to blog from watching via Internet in Sydney.

Magnus Carlsen speaks......

Check out the interview Magnus gave after ending the year on a high, a personal record rating high for the year 2011.

Interview with ChessPro translated here and translated here (the same translation).

Excerpts:

I’m a professional chess player, and if that’s the case then I should do all that I'm capable of to fulfil my potential. I like to win and I strive for the best possible results… At the same time, I still manage to get a lot of enjoyment from playing! During a game I cease to think about the result as I become so enthralled by what’s happening on the board.

How much slower do you think your chess development would have been if you didn’t have a computer at hand?

I don’t know. I never thought about it. It seems to me (stopping to think), that the computer didn’t have any kind of fundamental influence on me personally.

That’s hard to believe… You stand out precisely for being ready to play any position “on sight”, for being ready to defend positions where “ugly” machine moves are required…

But that’s how it was. I can tell you that for the first few years I didn’t use the machine’s help at all, even as a database! Back then I simply put a board in front of me, took the books I was studying at the time and looked at everything on that. And the first time I needed a computer for chess was when I started to play on the internet.

Honestly, when I was about 11-12 I didn’t even know what ChessBase was. I realise that sounds pretty implausible from my lips – and the majority of people consider me a product of the “computer chess” era, but that’s how it was! I’d add that my computer “incompetence” in chess even amazed my first coaches. I had nowhere to show them databases, or my analysis.

So your chess understanding, your positional sense – it’s all human?

I think so, yes. And my fundamental chess understanding was formed without machine involvement. That was my approach to chess, my idea of the struggle.

Junior Chess on Internet/Youtube ...... US style:Extreme Chess

Here is the trailer of a US production by that US powerhouse chess siblings, the Shahades, Jennifer and Greg. Enjoy.



Tomorrow, Christmas day: Episode One.

The Sydney Grammar saga ......

I am planning to blog on this saga as I think it raises interesting issues which I have been exploring in the blog as well. For those who does not know, check out the Sydney Morning Herald Saturday 3rd December edition. From the e-version it seems there is also a Channel Ten report. (I have deliberately not provided links because I am personally not enamoured of the whole media circus thingy. But if you wish to find out, you need to do the digging yourself.) The SMH report has also been picked up by Susan Polgar's blog and there are some pretty interesting responses in the comments section.

My blog will consist of my personal views and not the views of AusJCL nor NSWJCL. I am delaying as I want the dust to settle and for every punter to finish their immediate knee-jerk reaction and ranting (check out ChessChat). Another reason is I am trying desperately to finish marking before even attempting to analyse the whole issue.

So stay tuned.