Arianne Breaks Record

Last Friday, yours truly had a front seat preview for tonight's salsa performance by Arianne Caoili and her partner Carmelo Pizzino in DWTS. A quick text to my cell said go to Hippo's (a salsa joint) - so I did. I'm not really the dancing type myself so I spent the whole time doing just about the only "Latin" thing I could do: downing my Coronas!

I must admit, I wasn't impressed with what I saw that night. Arianne seemed stiff. I'm thinking, Jesus woman, don't think - just move. Well, it looks like Carmelo must have been pulling some miracles over the weekend because tonight the two of them blew the competition away.

Thirty-seven points! That's right, 37 points - the highest scored by anyone in this current series and which also includes a perfect 10 from judge Mark Wilson. Sexy, sultry, oohlala!

Arianne is safe for another week. So we'll see her again next Tuesday.

Wohl - Salvador, 0-1

A reader did tip us to this game. It's in the last bulletin. Silly me. Here it is. After Wohl's 36. R1d2, there would follow 36...Nd4+.

Roland Salvador Wins Arco

While we've been covering the exploits of the Australians in The Netherlands (Essent) and the Filipinos in Spain (Calvia) as well as the juniors in Georgia, of course - there were actually another two of our beloved compatriots who were battling it out in another European country - Italy. Both FM Roland Salvador, from RP, and IM Alexander Wohl, from Australia, competed in the 28th Festival Scacchistico Internazionale Open held from 21 October to 29 October.

We're terribly sorry, indeed, that we are very tardy with this information. We just didn't know about it! Now, I must thank our good friend from the Philippines, Mr Michael Rabena, who pointed us to this very important news - especially, from the Pinoy point of view.

Roland Salvador came out on top of a field of 108 players in section A of this Italian tournament. The field included the likes of GM Milan Drasko, GM Dragisa Blagojevic and famous author IM Jacob Aagard. FM Salvador actually scored the same number of points as IM Aagard and Michael Shaeffer but was declared overall winner on tiebreak. IM Alex Wohl scored a total of 6 points. In the ninth and last round, Wohl and Salvador crossed swords. The Filipino won that game. We'd like nothing better than to present that encounter - however, it's not available on the official site.

Instead, we bring you this win by Salvador over IM Paolo Vezzosi. The Italian Vezzosi has had some prior match-ups with Pinoys this year. In the Lodi tournament last June, he lost to Yves Ranola and defeated Arianne Caoili.


Below are the round-by-round results of both Wohl and the eventual winner.

Roland Salvador (7 points out of 9)
1 bt di Lazzaro
2 bt la Manna
3 bt Schaeffer
4 1/2 Drasko
5 bt Vezzosi
6 1/2 Bronznik
7 1/2 Teske
8 1/2 Aagard
9 bt Wohl

Alexander Wohl (6 points out of 9)
1 bt Bondielli
2 bt Wagman
3 1/2 Happel
4 lost Vezzosi
5 bt Schrott
6 bt Diotallevi
7 1/2 Blagojevic
8 bt Isonzo
9 lost Salvador

Video of Moulthun Ly

It's very nice to wake up in the morning and to discover in your inbox a little news tip. Overnight, we received an email from Peter Doggers, from The Netherlands and blogger for Doggers Schaak blog. Peter was writing in to tell us about his latest post that includes extensive coverage of Australian Moulthun Ly who, of course, only recently secured his second IM norm at the Essent Open.

There's a couple of photos and a YouTube video. Well worth checking out here.

Pinoy Final Results in Calvia

The tournament actually ended a couple of days ago so this is late. Here are the final results for the five Filipino players.

Jayson Gonzales - 6 points
Gomez, Dimakiling, Laylo, So - 5.5 points

In the 9th and final round, John-Paul Gomez and Oliver Dimakiling lost to Francisco Vallejo Pons and Michele Godena respectively. 13-year old IM Wesley So drew his game against Holden Hernandez, but Jayson Gonzalez secured a good a finish by beating IM Thomas Rendle. Jayson Gonzales also ended his Spanish outing well with a win over Ali Ehsan for his last encounter.

Round nine games are not yet available on the official site. Instead, we bring you Wesley So's game against Swedish legend Pia Cramling. A draw.



The five Pinoys now haul themselves to Germany where they once again cross swords with some top talents - exactly what these guys need to achieve those highly sought after GM norms. We'll be keeping an eye on the boys in the Bad Wiessee event.

We thank Pinoy journo Marlon Bernardino and the Pinoy fans over at chessgames.com for the various bits of information contained in this post.

Kirsan: There are no compromises

Journo Ed Vulliamy has a very long article on Kirsan Ilyumzhinov for The Guardian's Oberver Sport Monthly. It's an interesting piece that recounts Kirsan's political beginnings and his business ventures. On these three of his interests - chess, politics and business - the Kalmyk leader says:

As in chess, I have to think, in politics and in business, not only about the next move, but to be 10 moves ahead. A ruler and a businessman must be 10 moves ahead of his people or competitors. And as in chess, there are no compromises.

Read: The man who bought chess

Moulthun Bags IM Norm

The Essent Open ended last night and the Australians completed their ninth round missions on a positive with not a single loss to their scorecards. More importantly, Queenslander Moulthun Ly also secured his second IM norm.

Results were as follows:

Peng, Zhaoqin - Rogers, Ian 0-1
Smerdon, David - Vedder, Richard 1/2
Van Der Elburg, Freddie - Ly, Moulthun 0-1
Weeks, Manuel - Kulago, Alexander 1-0

And final scores for the Australians.

Rogers - 6
Smerdon - 5
Ly - 5
Weeks - 3.5

A very good tournament overall for the Australians especially for Moulthun. This young man looks set to one day join our Olympiad firepower and we can only hope that the national chess body, the Australian Chess Federation, does everything it can to provide much needed assistance. If there was a worthy policy aim of the ACF, then it must be surely be to identify talents like Moulthun and helping them get to the top.

Moulthun's tally of 5 points included wins or draws with experiened masters plus, of course, that very memorable victory over GM Vyacheslav Ikonnikov in the first round.

One of the challenges of blogging a tournament is choosing what game to present. Rogers'win or Moulthun's? The Australian GM's full point from Dutch GM Peng was methodical and the end was nice. Still, I think it best to celebrate the future. Go Moulthun!


Official site

Rogers Drops Second Game

GM Ian Rogers dropped his second game in a row after last night going down to third seed Evgeny Postny. The Australian possibly misjudged the consequences after his 21. Qxd8+, forsaking the Queen for two of Black's pieces. Postny's Queen-side pawns were also just a tad too fast in their forward advance and Rogers simply lacked the resources to stop them.


IM David Smerdon was victorious over Dutch FM Menno Okkes and Moulthun Ly drew with the untitled 2378-rated Robin Swinkels. Manuel Weeks lost to Jan Van Der Veen.

Australian Scores after 8 rounds

Rogers - 5
Smerdon - 4.5
Ly - 4
Weeks - 2.5

The Doggers Schaak blog's coverage of this event has been very impressive. Peter Doggers, the blogger, happens to be also participating and presently has 3.5 points after 8 rounds. I love the YouTube videos, the first I've seen this used for a chess event - definitely somemething for a future Australian tournament.

Official site

Adventures in Georgia

Our deepest thanks to Jenni Oliver for sending us a copy of Michael Brown's updates from Georgia whose son, Andrew, is a participant in the World Youth Championships. For easier reading, we're not going to blockquote the text.

****************************

By Michael Brown
Yesterday as I said goodbye to Andrew and he went into the playing hall there was a beaut scene that I'll remember for a long time. As I watched Andrew go in, his 2nd Azerbaijani opponent - the one who had outplayed Andrew for most of the game a few rounds ago but had been stunned and left open-mounted by a sudden somewhat lucky checkmate - saw Andrew coming and raced across to Andrew with a great big smile and handshake and then they entered into one of those "gestures conversations" as they had no common language as they walked in together. Given that the Azerbaijani boy, who looked like about half Andrew's size, could be expected to have rued his missed opportunity against Andrew, I thought that was a beaut gesture - great to see.

The Australian team put in a shocker in yesterday's 9th round (2 wins, 4 draws, 10 losses for 25%) and Andrew put in an absolute shocker. Every one of the older players (U12, U14, U16 and U18) lost except for Angela Song,who drew. The good news is U8 Cedric Koh's form - he is on 5.5 from 9, having strung together 4.5 from his last 5 games. He now has 1/2 a point more than Raymond Song! Today's 10th round, now underway, is bound to be better! Andrew is on 4.5 from 9,and Megan Setiabudi is on 3 from 9. There is some mental fatigue around.

Andrew and I enjoyed some tennis yesterday afternoon. The courts we've been using are tournament-standard courts - which doesn't stop us hitting the ball over the wall from time to time!

I am enjoying many things here that strangely remind me of my childhood in Korea in the 1960s and early 1970s. Figs, chestnuts, persimmons, little muscatel grapes. Given that Korea was then a 3rd-world country, other things here that remind me of Korea of 34-46 years ago are the tiny little street stalls that make you wonder how on earth people eke out a living, and the state of the roads and buildings.

...

Overnight it rained. More furniture rearrangement in our room so that the steady drip from the ceiling hit the edge of my bed rather than the middle.

The thought occurred to me that maybe this hotel isn't real. Maybe it's one of those Hollywood facades, put up temporarily. Maybe as soon as we leave this weekend the cardboard will all be folded up and there'll be a vacant lot once again.

Yesterday I saw the Gregorian (Armenian) church; a gallery; the aquarium; and a museum. The museum was certainly worth a visit. Once again there was a 5 staff to 1 visitor (ie me) ratio.

That's all my news for the moment.

****************************

After 10 rounds, Cedric Koh, playing in the U8 boys section, is the highest scorer amongst the Aussies on 6.5 points. The last 4 rounds were all wins for Cediric. Raymond Song is on 6 points, a run that included a string of 3 straight losses from the 7th to the 9th rounds. The rest of the Australian tally is available here.

Open Thread

We havent' had one of these for a while. But just to get things moving a little, take a look what Matthew Sweeney, Australia's loudest critic of the country's official chess bodies, is saying on his bulletin board: "Several agents from several states are now actively planning to usurp the ACF".

Does he know something?

Australians Suffer Defeats

Round 7 turned out to be a poor one for the Aussie contingent as Rogers, Smerdon and Moulthun Ly lost their games. Manuel Weeks managed a draw against 2122-rated Rudolf Potze.

GM Rogers and Moulthun bowed to their GM opponents while IM Smerdon, playing the Alapin, one of his favourite anti-Sicilian systems, went down to untitled player Robert Ris. Smerdon actually followed his game against Quezada from the World Juniors in 2004 until the 17th move. In that earlier encounter, the Aussie opted for the high risk 17. Qe3 and the game ended a draw. This time around, Smerdon played 17. Bxe7 instead. Perhaps he was fearful of an ambush.



Three players are now in the lead on 5.5 points. The Australian scores after 7 rounds are as follows:

Rogers - 5
Smerdon, Ly - 3.5
Weeks - 2.5

Ian Rogers Defeats Dutchman

A very good day out of chess for the 4 Australians in Hoogeven last night in their 6th round assignments. None of them dropped a full point. On board 4, Ian Rogers defeated ninth seed GM Jan Werle in a long struggle lasting 85 moves. Rogers' h-pawn was crucial in the endgame phase as it threatened to promote. This forced the Dutchman to ditch his only remaining piece and, therefore, also the game.



Rogers goes up to board 2 in the seventh round to face second seed 2632-rated GM Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria.

After beating Ian Rogers in round 2, local FM Babak Tondivar must have been looking forward to his second Australian victim. But I bet that the Australian crew were all hands on deck to help Moulthun Ly produce something special and bring home the point. Indeed, the young Queenslander was the first to deviate from theory with the spine-tingling 7. g4. Ly forced Tondivar's resignation by the 49th move and sets up a date with Russian grandmaster Yury Piskov in the seventh round.

The two other Australian games ended in draws: Weeks with Van Geffen and Smerdon with Hoeksema.

Scores for the Australians at the 6th round mark are:

Rogers, 5 (currently in joint first with Brodsky and Goloshchapov)
Smerdon and Ly, 3,5
Weeks, 2

Official website.

2012 Olympiad in London

The 2012 Olympic Games will be in London. The English Chess Federation's Mark Hogarth says that they'd like to also see the Chess Olympiad held in that city."Believe me...this is a massive opportunity for this country. People would be amazed by the scale of the event. We really should go for it", says Hogarth.

From The Telegraph UK.

Paxman's Ozbase Updated

Jonathan Paxman has now integrated the entire Ozbase into his own verson of the Australian chess games database. You can see his site here.

There are also a couple of enhancements. The search facility is now cleaner and more usable. Search results, for instance, appear below the form field instead of above. For the moment, move search has been disabled as, we understand, Jonathan is still working on that. What we have here though is pretty fantastic!

Gomez GM Kill

Poland's GM Heberla Bartlomiej must be scratching his head wondering what these Filipinos are eating. Sir, let me tell you: sweet smelling dried fish! In the second round of Calvia, the Pole played against 13-year old Wesley So and drew. Then in the 4th round, Bartlomiej faced another Pinoy and this time, the Pinoy won. That makes Bartlomiej John-Paul Gomez's second GM victim at this event.

For our Pinoy fans, enjoy:



A game worthy of any 'how to attack' books. It's beautiful to witness the power of those Bishops. A needed win by Gomez who is targetting another title norm (he has one IM norm from the recently compeleted World Juniors).

Other Pinoy results were as follows:

Spraggett - Dimakiling, 1-0
Laylo - Planas, 1-0
So - Fokin, 0-1
Gonzales - Klein, 1-0

Three Wins for Rogers

Grandmaster Ian Rogers is cranking up his game as he posts his third win a row in the Hoogeven Open. Last night he defeated local FIDE master Petra Schuurman. IM David Smerdon, currently a resident of Holland on uni exchange, also won by beating another Dutchman Adrian Clemens.

Olympiad captain Manuel Weeks lost again. He was outplayed by IM Willy Hendriks who sacrificed his Queen on the way to victory. A nice win by Hendriks.



It's easy to see that one day Moulthun Ly will hold a master title. He already has one IM norm which he acquired in this year's World Open. Our only hope is that he gets there very soon. The young Queenslander certainly does have the talent. Last night he drew his game against Israeli IM Yochanan Afek. That result takes Ly to 2.5 points overall and sets up a showdown against FM Babak Tondivar (GM Rogers' conqueror in the second game).

Unexciting Dance by Arianne

An unexciting but careful performance by Arianne Caoili and partner Carmelo Pizzino who tonight danced the samba. I was expecting a lot more of those hips shake about, but nope, didn't see too many. For their efforts, they scored 27 points.

When asked by the host if there's been some reaction in the chess community to her new found fame, Arianne's answer was a simple, "I don't know actually". Hhhmm...we'll have to fix that. This girl could really do with some coaching in public speaking.

She's through to the next round.

In case you missed it, here is a chessic item in New Idea that features Aussie junior Oscar Wang. Oscar is in Batumi, Georgia proudly flying the Australian flag in the World Youth Championships. After 6 rounds, young Oscar has 1.5 points.

Rogers Was Only Winner

GM Ian Rogers was the only winner among the Aussies in last night's round 4 of Essent. Australia's number one downed Yochanan Afek, rated 2372 - a quick 16-mover miniature. All three other Aussies lost their games.

Van Beek, Alexander - Smerdon, David, 1-0
Rogers, Ian - Afek, Yochanan 1-0
Ly, Moulthun - Peng, Zhaoqin 0-1
Weeks, Manuel - Swinkels, Robin 0-1

And how about Veselin Topalov? That's 0/2 for him after going down to Judit Polgar in round 2 of the Crown Group. I just feel like screaming out loud to this guy, "You're going down man!" Chessbase has their usual coverage and brief analysis here.

Near Win for Dimakiling

Pinoy fans, observing on chessgames.com, were getting a little bit excited over the round 3 clash between Oliver Dimakiling and GM Hichem Hamdouchi in the 3rd Calvia Festival. In a completely winning position, the game suddenly ended a draw!

Here is the game.



Instead of 35. Ne5, 35. Rh8+ would have given the Pinoy a 3/3 start.

Pinoy scores after round 3 are:

Gomez, Dimakiling - 2.5
So, Laylo - 2
Gonzales - 1.5

Georgian Royalty Visit Aussies

Well, chess royalty at least anyway. Latest reports from Michael Brown Eunice Koh (team manager), via Jenni Oliver, indicate that conditions are on the improve for the Australian team in Georgia after that very shabby treatment by Georgian border guards late last week.

Even the menu has been overhauled. Pasta, salads, fresh fish and lots of party food are now keeping the Australian juniors happy.

When I headed to the organizers’ office today to sort out the Georgian passport problem, I was advised by the organizer, Akaki Iashvili that Denis had complained to Ignatius Leong (FIDE secretary) about the treatment for Australian delegation. It became a major issue such that we started to lose some of our team members to the 5-star hotel Intourist. But fortunately for the team, it is getting better. We asked for light lunch meals and a more substantial breakfast. Today for lunch, we had pasta, a variety of salads, much better as the days go by, the hotel is improving on a daily basis. Dinner was excellent, there was pizza, fresh fish (with bones), soups, lots of salads, biscuits – party food! We also had a surprise visit from the Georgian chess royalty – Akaki Iashvili did mention he was coming to visit to view the conditions but he brought along the VP of FIDE, Azmaipashvili Zurab & his spouse Marina, Makropolou Fide CP, Nana Aleksandria, Gaprindashvili Nona - 5 time world champion, Michael Khodarkovsky.

...

They checked out the place and I got all the parents to give feedback with the exception of those parents who left to go to Intourist Hotel. Anyway, Akaki promised us that the standard of food will be the same as what we now have. He also wanted us to write back to you folks in Australia to try & spread the word that things are improving and not as bad as what we initially reported.

After 5 rounds, Raymond Song (who moved to Shanghai, China last June) is the highest scorer among the Australians. He is on 4 points. And James Obst thankfully appears to have bounced back well from that illness which forced a visit to the hospital. The South Australian is on 3/5, the same score as compatriot Andrew Brown.

The rest of the Australian info are available here.

Arianne's Mother Jailed!

This is a revelation that even we didn't know about. In this week's New Idea magazine, Annette Caoili, mother of Arianne Caoili, tells readers that she was once imprisoned in a Manila jail. The charges, later proven to be false, were apparently for heroin trafficking. The story is so unbelievable that it's like reading a spy thriller. Take this for example:

Every week the military police would blindfold me and take me to an underground room. They would shine a spotlight in my face and ask me questions, but I didn't know what they were talking about.

To make matters worse, Annette found that she had fallen pregnant to a Filipino boyfriend (who, apparently overwhelmed by all that drama, left the Australian). This next account is quite possibly the most shocking revelation. Annette aborted the pregnancy!

Abortions were illegal, so the only person I could find ran a horrible backyard clinic. There was no anaesthetic, it was horrendous.

Nearly one year after she was arrested, Annette was eventually acquitted of all charges and her case thrown out on 16 December 1980. She travelled to RP apparently to celebrate her overcoming something called Guillan-Barre Syndrome.

Moulthun Ly Still Unbeaten

Queenslander Moulthun Ly is still unbeaten at the Hoogeven Open. Last night he drew his third round game against IM Anatoly Donchenko of Germany to set up a 4th round meeting with GM Peng Zhaoqin. The 3 other Australians won their games.

We should also mention the top section running in the Essent event - the Crown Group. Doggers Schaak made an interesting video of round 1. You can view that here.

Just back from losing to Kramnik, Bulgarian Veselin Topalov is off to a poor start by going down to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, the 2005 World Junior champion.

Congrats Greg Canfell

New South Wales Chess Association vice president Andrew Bird has just announced that FM Greg Canfell has won his fifth NSW state championship. Canfell has an unpassable 2-point lead with only one more round to play.

Congratulations to Greg!

We don't have too many games from the NSW state championships event but Andrew Bird did send us this crazy game between Simon Quick and Minir Nanavati.

Is it spam?

The second issue of Matthew Sweeney's "unofficial" newsletter has just been blasted out. Two things about this issue: first, Mr Sweeney appears now to have learned from his terrible gaffe last week when he published the names and email addresses of all his recipients to each other. A Queensland chess official was quick to point out the breach of privacy.

Secondly, we have these questions for Mr Sweeney: (i) where in the world did he collect the emails from? (ii) did he have permission from his recipients to receive that newsletter? (iii) how do people unsubscribe from this newsletter? (iv) does his newsletter direct readers to a site or sites that where goods or services are advertised?

And to the guys at the ACF: what are they going to do about this rebel publication?

Pinoy Masters Invade Spain

A troop of five Pinoy masters have descended upon Calvia (in Spain), host city of the 2004 Olympiad. IM Darwin Laylo, IM Wesley So, IM Jayson Gonzales, IM Oliver Dimakiling and John-Paul Gomez are there to test their powers against the likes of Dutchman GM Sergei Tiviakov, local GM Francisco Vallejo Pons and Cuban number two GM Lazaro Bruzon in the 3rd Calvia Chess Festival.

In the first round, all Pinoys achieved victories in their respective assignments. But round two was a mix bag of outcomes: two draws, two wins and a loss.

Darwin Laylo wrestled against Vallejo Pons' QGD but, sadly, the Spaniard's abilities was too much. Pons produced 8...0-0, a rare continuation which, according to my database at least, was tested only once in D'Arruda - Ronco, American Continental 2005. Jayson Gonzales drew against GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami; while Wesley So, only recently awarded his IM title, also drew against Poland's GM Heberla Bartlomiej. And playing against the 2295-rated Vidal Alejand Gonzales Arribas, Oliver Dimakiling took 60 moves to deliver the point.

RP's most notable win came courtesy of recent World Junior participant John-Paul Gomez. The 20-year old overpowered the 59-year old Romanian grandmaster Mihai Suba. Maybe Mihai was just tired. According to the site, he is also participating in the seniors section.




I should thank our regular contributor Pinoy journo Marlon Bernardino for tipping me of this news item. Marlon informs me that he'll actually be visiting Sydney from the second week of November this year. Hope to see him then.

Tondivar Upsets Rogers

In round 2 of Essent last night, GM Ian Rogers lost his game to local FIDE master Babak Tondivar, rated 2367. Black in the French Defence, Tondivar's c3-pawn bursted down its file for a promotion. This forced Rogers to lose a Bishop and the Australian survived for just another 6 moves.



IM David Smerdon appears to be still missing his mojo as he once again had to settle for a draw against local Roeland Pruijssers. Smerdon's Olympiad skipper, Manuel Weeks, also posted a drawn game to his lower-rated opponent Richard Hendriks.

The standout performer among the Australians is again 14-year old Queenslander Moulthun Ly. After beating GM Ikonnikov in the first round, Ly last night drew with 2423-rated Dutchman Jeroen Willemze.



Ly's next opponent will be IM Anatoly Donchenko of Germany.

Official site. There is also extra coverage by the Doggers Schaak blog.

Bad Night for Blogger

I can't resist blogging this. Some of us can wake up in the middle of night and realise that we've just had a bad nightmare. Well, my fellow blogger and admin over at the World Chess Network, Goran Urosevic, wasn't having a dream.

He was about to go to bed when suddenly - BOOM! I hope that our friend is staying safe.

Rowson on Chess PR

Love him or hate him for his writings (I still haven't finished reading his book "Seven Deadly Chess Sins" mainly for its near sociological impenetrability), one thing you can definitely say about Scottish grandmaster Jonathan Rowson is that he is an original. And in case you didn't know it, Rowson has just won the British Championships for a third time in a row - the first such feat since 1969.

Speaking to the UK's The Herald, Rowson makes some observations about the world of chess. Like this one:

But what's upset me is that chess itself has such little coverage, and this is symptomatic of that. It's not that people aren't interested, it's just that there's something going wrong with the mechanism between tournament players, tournament results and the media. Somehow, those aren't gelling the way they should.

From The Herald.

Ly on Spectacular Start

The Essent chess tournament began last night and, of the four Australians playing, Queenslander Moulthun Ly had the most spectacular beginning. Playing the black side, Ly defeated grandmaster Vyacheslav Innkonikov of Russia.



GM Ian Rogers defeated Richard Vedder while IM David Smerdon settled for a draw with 2184-rated Ben Ahlers. FM Manuel Weeks, the Australian Men's Olympiad team captain, went down to GM Jan Smeets.

Aussie Youths Detained at Border

Sixteen Australians are in Batumi, Gegorgia to compete in the 2006 World Youth Championships. The 16, as well as their scores, can be found on this page.

Now there is no point going to the official site as it's pretty much next to useless. I'm hoping that they can have some games available for download soon.

However, thanks very much to Canberra chess organiser Jenni Oliver (and, of course, her extensive network of contacts), we can at least give you some first-hand reports from Georgia. We understand that the conditions are worse than that near total disaster in Belfort, France.

The following are excerpts from an email all the way from Batumi.

Everyone was expecting a three hours bus trip so we didn’t have dinner. Who could imagine that we got stopped at Turkey/Georgia border? We were always told that there would be no need to apply for visa to Georgia and all we had to do is to give Georgian border our passport and a photo of each person. The border control officer told us that she could not process the visa as a group and it will take 10mins to process each person and there were about 100 of us. We also got told that they could only take Lari for visa application fee and there was no bank open for us to get money exchanged at 12am. My husband called the tournament organizer’s mobile and he talked to the border control officer and he said that he will talk to someone high up and get back to us. Another two hours of waiting….During this time, James got so sick and his face was so paled and he had stomach pain and was throwing up. An ambulance was called. In the mean time, all of us got asked to stay in the bus and the bus door has to be closed. The bus’s engine was shut down so the air inside the bus was really bad. I was yelling at the bus driver and the border control officer and asking them to keep the door open. Eventually we were asked to leave our passports with the border officer so we could keep going our way to Batumi. When we finally arrived in the Hotel Victoria, it was almost 5am.

...

The dinner was a small dish of cold rice with some threaded carrots on top of it. We also got some cold bread with feta chess. That’s our dinner. No meat, no salad, no fruits. They give us some hot tea so we can swallow the cold food!

Well, that's just awful! But let's not start with the bad vibes. We hope that our band of chess warriors can hold their stomachs together and fight hard in that far away place. Our prayers are with them.

Thanks again to Jenni for this scoop.

Noble Ambitions

Here's a new Victorian chess club - the Noble Park CC, just founded in August this year. Already they have big ambitions including hosting of both the Victorian Masters and Victorian Open. These guys really have balls and even tried to attract a certain Arianne Caoili to play in their event.

From The Star News.

Beta Launch: Chesspark.com

For the past couple of weeks now I've been trialling this interesting new chess server, www.chesspark.com. The official announcement of the beta launch will be tonight AEST, daytime in the US - so this post is a bit of a scoop. Actually, I learned about Chesspark when one of the site's developers, Jack Moffitt, pinged me to ask if I could blog for them (an offer which I sadly had to decline).

Users can sign up for a trial account during the beta phase but I have no idea how long the trial period will last. I'm also guessing that once the site goes into full mode, users will be asked to pay. No hint yet of what the potential hit to your credit card might be.

(UPDATE: While writing this post, Jack popped into Chess Park and we got to talking for a bit. He tells me that users who sign up now during beta phase will enjoy a discount of as much as 50% off of the full subscription fee which is still TBD. Beta testing is also expected to last til about January '07).

Chesspark.com can be accessed in one of two ways, either via your web browser or a Windows client; personally, I prefer the latter. If you're an MSN user, you'll find the UI pretty familiar. It has a nice "widgety" feel to it. Your interactions with the server are through this console:

Fig. 1: Main console

From there you can perform the usual like enter a chat room, initiate a chat, open games and so on. But I'd like to see some improvements here. For example, I want to be able to challenge a user (that I see on the list) with either a left click or a right click on my mouse. Right now all I seem to be able to do is open a chat interface with that user.

The game interface is probably a few notches below that of Playchess' UI or even ICC's, but it's bearable. Pieces and their movements are easy on the eyes. However, right now I seem to be limited to just one design, no customisation yet. That also will need to change.

Fig. 2: Game board

One last thing. Some users may not mind the grey-coloured skin, but I prefer a bit of bright colours myself. It's early days, so I guess we can't expect too much. Overall, the user experience is pretty much on the upside, for me anyway.

And, I promise this is it for this longish post, Chess Park are still looking for that blogger. Titled players preferred.

Ozbase Game Viewer

Jonathan Paxman, creator of the instant tournament website application which we posted about here, has gifted the chess community another one of his brilliant ideas - a viewer for Ozbase.

The viewer can be accessed on this this page. What most users will love is this search function that includes a facility for searching moves. Cool! Of course, it could all do with a bit of spiffing up (like search specific results or even ECO codes), but those can come later, I'm sure.

Please note that the official ACF Ozbase site is www.ozbase.com.au.

An Interview with Fischer

Chessbase currently has an item on Bobby Fischer. All good stuff. But a few days ago, Andrew Ooi, our fellow blogger from Malaysia, featured an old interview with Bobby. You can view the video here in Andrew's blog then visit this YouTube page to see other Fischer-related videos.

Four Aussies in Essent

Four Australians will battle it out against some of the world's strongest in the upcoming Essent Chess Tournament in The Netherlands. Led by GM Ian Rogers, the boys from Down Under include IM David Smerdon, Queenslander Moulthun Ly and FM Manuel Weeks.

The event will run from 20 October to 28 October.

Arianne in Wardrobe Malfunction

Talk about instant book, well this is instant blogging. Just a few moments ago, Arianne Caoili had a near disaster in her dance routine. Dancing the foxtrot, Arianne and partner Carmelo Pizzino pulled off an almost perfect performance. Until, that is, the last few moments.

With her leg slightly raised, and in a tender moment of embrace with Carmelo, it seems that she caught the heel of her shoes with the inside of her dress. Arianne had to hop a little to try and free herself. Thankfully, she did! Almost a catastrophe.

So what did the judges think? They loved it! All four judges gave her 8 points each, handing Arianne Caoili the lead with 32 points for the night. But once again, Arianne's main rival is athletics star Tamsyn Lewis who, tonight, scored 31 points.

UPDATE (21:36) - Arianne survives this week's vote-off so we will see her next week.

Instant Book on Elista

Any bets on who will write the first book on Elista? My money's on Raymond Keene (who has apparently written some 120 books on chess).

Blogger James O'Fee, who was instrumental - by the way - in the whole Gormallygate affair, informs us that Raymond Keene will soon author an "instant book" to be published by Hardinge Simpole. The book should come out very soon.

Meanwhile, Keene has written his initial thoughts on Elista in his blog. Says he:

What is Kramnik's position amongst the pantheon of champions after this success? He has survived three title matches and en route defeated the highest-ranked player in the history of the game. He will be champion for at least 8 years.

In my opinion he is now in the same league as Botvinnik, Petrosian, Capablanca and Karpov, having already surpassed the achievements as champion of Euwe, Smyslov , Tal , Fischer and Spassky. If he fulfills his potential he may even go on to rival Alekhine, Steinitz , Lasker and Kasparov himself, the most outstandingly successful of the great champions.

From Justice Triumphs.

Armenian is World Junior Champ

Russian player Nikita Vitiugov had held the lead for several days. But his half point advantage over the rest of the field was never enough. In the crucial penultimate round, the Russian stumbled against local player IM Zaven Andriasian. This allowed Zaven to hit 9 points and finding himself in a must-win situation against GM Levan Pantsulaia in the final round.



Pantsulaia, a Russian, and Vitiugov both on 8.5 points going into the final game themselves had chances to grab the title. However, after a long tournament, it seems that all players were very tired and quick draws were agreed. Thus, Zaven Andriasian becomes champ on 9.5 points overall!

The Australian boys had a tough time in their final encounters. After 2 wins in a row, Nick Chernih lost his 13th game against FM Sylvain Gregoire while compatriot Tomek Rej was taken out by Armenia's Yuri Hambartsumian. On the distaff side, WFM Shannon Oliver ended her run on a high with a draw and a win in her last 2 games.

John-Paul Gomez, RP's only bet in the tournament, succumbed to strong opposition. Gomez faced back-to-back matches against international masters losing to Ildar Khairullin of Russia in the 12th round then to England's David Howell in the thirteenth. The Filipino finished his campaign with 7 points and also goes home with an IM norm in the bag.



Final Scores
Tomek Rej 5.5
Nick Chernih 4.5
Shannon Oliver 6
John-Paul Gomez 7

For complete details, please visit the official site.

Canberra Chess Chicks

Here's another interesting innovation from the ever creative minds of Canberra chess organisers, especially those in the ACTJCL - the Chess Chicks program.

Tell me more about it, you say. This from the 2005 tournament report (available in PDF):

The 2005 Canberra Chess Chicks program aimed to identify enthusiastic young female players and offer them the chance to make new friends, improve their standard of play and consider chess as a sport full of opportunities!

...

Specifically, the Chess Chicks program was structured around “team” participation, helping girls to build friendships with new players and encourage one another. It required the most experienced young members to take on leadership roles and take an interest in the progress and achievements of new players. There was a focus on quality, highly targeted coaching with a view to building skills and, alongside that, confidence as a player.

The program first ran last year and, as I understand it, the 2006 edition has just been completed. Organiser Libby Smith informs me that, "In events that followed the Chess Chicks, we had a marked increase in participation by girls who attend the same school as some of the 'Chess Chicks'. Parents have told me this is specifically because they want a place in the program 'next time'".

It's worth noting that the report was actually part of a grant application to the Women's Sports Grant program. The document includes a full financial costing as well as, very interestingly, a survey. For example, the survey reports that 82% of respondents said that they will play in more tournaments because they have improved and learned new things from the Chess Chicks program.

Arianne Caoili: I won't strip

Appearing once again in this week's issue of New Idea, Arianne Caoili tells the magazine, "I wouldn't strip. Beauty can be seen in different ways and I don't see it that way. Personally, that's not how I would showcase beauty."

The Aussie women's number one was referring to Muscovite Maria Manakova's appearance in Speed.

The New Idea article also features Sydney schoolboy Oscar Wang. Some of our readers may recall seeing him in Dancing with the Stars as part of a 'backstage' video sequence with Arianne. New Idea is apparently sponsoring Oscar and his mum, their "Dreams Come True" campaign, to travel to the World Youth Chess Championships (yuck, that is one ugly website) to be held in Batumi, Georgia later this month. Good luck Oscar!