Be in a Good Mood

IM Alex Wohl's Yusupov hairdo (he calls it his "Ali Baba" beard) may now be gone courtesy of a Marrakesh barber, but he still managed to dish out some wise chessic advice worthy of the prolific German writer. Well, perhaps it was unintentional, but nonetheless insightful for we chessers.

Says the big Australian IM: "One needs to be in a good mood to make good decisions".

Indeed.

Smiling Hefner

This man has better moves than any super grandmaster.

Picture by Reuters

Brain Building

As chess players, it's a good idea for us to maintain good brain health. But maintenance of what you already have is one thing, how about about making your brain better?

This Newsweek article has a couple of familiar tips (physical exercise and meditation), but the third one may come as a surprise.

Finally, some videogames might improve general mental agility. Stern has trained older adults to play a complex computer-based action game called Space Fortress, which requires players to shoot missiles and destroy the fortress while protecting their spaceship against missiles and mines. “It requires motor control, visual search, working memory, long-term memory, and decision making,” he says. It also requires that elixir of neuroplasticity: attention, specifically the ability to control and switch attention among different tasks. “People get better on tests of memory, motor speed, visual-spatial skills, and tasks requiring cognitive flexibility,” says Stern. Kramer, too, finds that the strategy-heavy videogame Rise of Nations improves executive-control functions such as task switching, working memory, visual short-term memory, and reasoning in older adults.

Well, at least now we know that World of Warcraft, so popular among many chessers, actually does some real good!

Why Russia Fails

Kasparov on Russia's failings:

There is a lack of passion. It is about power and business, not the promotion of talent. Russia has more participants than other countries at the World Championships U8 and U18, but it did not get any gold medal. Azerbaijan won three. One can not separate development of chess from the development of the country. Our government despises intellect. The Soviet Union was not a good political system, but chess was promoted because it was regarded as an ideological weapon and a tool for the promotion of intellect. Children did not have many other opportunities. Chess was viewed as something having future. It is similar to current situation in Azerbaijan and Armenia.

From Armenia News. The original interview in German is available here.

Happy New Year from TCG

Over the last 3 weeks I've spent the Christmas and New Year celebrations back here in Sydney. I can say that it was a thoroughly fun time photographing around my old stomping grounds, catching up with the family, of course, and some chess.

Nice to see the blokes at the Town Hall finally organising a more formalised group, a real chess club, but even nicer to see that I can still play, although a lot weaker after many months out-of-OTB action. It's funny how losing games makes me want to recheck my database to patch up some forgotten lines. I hadn't had the urge to do that for a very, very long time!

Anyway, I did also pop into Peter Parr's Chess Discount Sales. As I reported last year, this joint is shutting down and if you go there now you'll bag a 30% discount on pretty much everything. I don't need software or books, at least for the next a couple of years while in Japan, so I settled for a complete set of bulletins from the 1992 Manila Olympiad. A very good buy, I thought, for just a litte under twenty bucks!

On that note, I wish you all a happy new year. I'm flying back to Tokyo tonight so my next post will likely be on Sunday.

Alarm in the Aussie Open

About an hour into today's round at the Australian Chess Open championships, the fire alarm suddenly blasted out all over the North Sydney Leagues Club for a good minute or so. Thankfully it turned out to be a false one, but it did prompt a swift response from the local fire department.



At any rate, as these pictures clearly show, chess players really are an excitable lot. Here's the chess crowd standing up on their feet while the alarm was sounding.



The bridge folks, on the other hand, who were playing in the room next door, remained calm and went on with their business.



The brief commotion aside, kudos to Max Illingworth for drawing against GM Zhao on board one. Max's 8.0-0 is apparently a novelty and doubtless cooked up pre-game. If this kid keeps playing like that, he'll be well on his way to "official" masterhood. I understand that he's taking 2011 as a gap year to pursue that goal.

Spanish Queen of Chess

Watching the "Secret Files of the Inquisition" on SBS tonight I learn that the queen in chess is actually Queen Isabella of Spain. Scroll to about 3.30 of this video.



A quick google after the episode reveals this:

"In its original form, the equivalent of the queen was male, a piece known in Spanish as alferza, from the Persian, meaning something like vizier or adjutant," said Govert Westerveld, a Dutch chess historian and former youth champion who lives in Spain.

"The figure was weak, and its movements limited. Later, around 1475, when Isabella was crowned queen of Castile, the figure became female but able to move only one square at a time, like the king. Not until 1495, when Isabella was the most powerful woman in Europe, were the present rules of chess established, in which the queen roams freely in all directions on the board," Dr Westerveld said yesterday.

More in "Check: powerful queen who changed the world also transformed chess".

Aussie Chess Open

This year's Australian Open began yesterday and while most results have gone according to seedings, Canberran Alana Chibnall, rated 1593 (ACF), has posted a pair of fine upset wins. She beat Joerg Vogel in the first round and today followed up with a victory over New South Welshman John Papantoniou who is rated 1921.

2011 Australian Open
Vogel, Joerg
Chibnall, Alana
A62

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. g3 g6 7. Bg2 Bg7 8. Nf3 O-O 9. O-O Re8 10. Re1 Na6 11. Nd2 Nc7 12. a4 a6 13. Nc4 Rb8 14. a5 Nb5 15. Bf4 Nh5 16. Nxb5 axb5 17. Nxd6 Nxf4 18. Nxe8 Nxg2 19. Nxg7 Nxe1 20. e4 Kxg7 21. Qxe1 Qe7 22. Qc3+ Kg8 23. Re1 Bd7 24. e5 Rc8 25. Ra1 b4 26. Qe3 Bb5 27. b3 c4 28. bxc4 Rxc4 29. Rd1 Rc3 30. Qb6 Be8 31. d6 Qxe5 32. Qxb7 Qe2 33. Rb1 Rc2 34. Qb6 Bc6 35. Qe3 b3 36. a6 Qxa6 37. Qxb3 Qe2 38. Rf1 Bf3 39. d7 Qxf1+ 0-1

Also losing his round 2 match is ex-Aussie Chess Champion FM Douglas Hamilton who dropped the point to the 1707-rated Alex Papp.

Gold Coast Chess Vid

A nice video from the just concluded Gold Coast Chess Festival. Congrats Junta Ikeda.

New Year Blitz in Sydney

The second "name-to-be-decided" chess club blitz tournament was held this afternoon in Sydney's Spanish Club and was won by Ernesto Puzon on 8 from nine games. He lost his last round to Charles Ghenzer.

Firstly, I say "name-to-be-decided" because nobody can decide if we should call ourselves the "Hyde Park CC" or "Town Hall CC" or "Sydney CC". At any rate, it's really the least of our worries for now.

And secondly, there were no big dramas but there were some minor mishaps with the clocks - mostly to do with a faulty lever or a wrong setting (i.e. playing with increment).

But perhaps most amusing was how this supposedly social affair seemed almost like an official tournament when we spent some 5 minutes debating the rules! Except for "you may touch the rook first when castling", the entire event was ran on FIDE regulations. Quite impressive.

Congrats to Puzon, thanks to the organisers, and also cheers to the strong players who turned up - Andrew Bird, Jason Chan and Charles Ghenzer.

The next event should be in a fortnight, same joint. But I'll let you know of exact times and other details later. For now, check out some pics from today's event.



A side note: the inaugural event was actually won on a very impressive score of 9/9 by Leo Arocha. But that was only because I was in Tokyo.