Action on the Rock

If the standards of the Oceania Zonal are not to your taste or maybe you just can't get enough chess, there is also this year's Gibraltar. It's not nearly as packed full of powerhouses as the ongoing Wijk aan Zee, but the long-running open does feature the likes of top seed Ivanchuk, Michael Adams, Nigel Short and Australia's IM Alex Wohl.

2011 Oceania Zonal

I can't believe that it's another zonal. Seems like 2009 was only last week. Except this time, of course, I'm some 8,810kms away. For the 2011 version the zonal is in Rotorua which, according to this account, is a salubrious sort of place albeit perhaps a stinking one.

I have to say, the Oceania zonal might not be a particularly impressive contest by world standards, but the venues are always unbeatable.

As I obviously won't be at this event, you should probably visit Shaun's blog as well as check out the NZCF's official site for some coverage.

Cheatin' Bastards Month

January is apparently cheating allegations month.

The NY Times reports that the French Fed has accused three of their own players - GMs Sébastien Feller, Arnaud Hauchard and IM Cyril Marzolo - of "organised" cheating in last year's Olympiad. I don't know what the penalties are for this sort of thing at this level, but if the accusations are proven true, then these guys ought to be stripped of their titles.

But what punishment to my fellow Pinoys?

Writing in his blog, international master Jimmy Liew of Malaysia lobs one over the fence at the neighbours and practically calls his then Pinoy opposition a bunch of cheating bastards. A bit like Fischer did to the Russians.

In the tournament were a number of Filipino players. From observations I determined that they were playing as a group. Basically they were fixing the games in favour of the one with the best chance of winning the highest prize. One of them was racing with me for the first prize.

If I drew it was a certainty that one of the Filipino would take clear first prize. I considered a safe draw to secure the IM title. But I felt victimized by the Filipino game throwing tactics. It was incredibly frustrating. I had to struggle every round (I played six Filipinos) while they could plan to draw or lose their games.

But least Jimmy could be trusted not to mince his words. Another Malaysian blogger, Raymond Siew, sparked a minor controversy when he suggested that a Malaysian also threw a game in last year's Olympiad provoking a response from IM Liew as well as this post.

Chinese Parenting Make GMs

Listen up chess parents! Dreaming of turning your kids into super grandmasters or maybe just the next Yo-Yo Ma? Law professor and mother of two Amy Chua reckons that she's got the right formula. Bring up your kids the "Chinese Way"!

Be blunt. Be cruel. Be absolutely brutal to your offspring.

Your kid lost a Sicilian Defence despite memorising some 30 moves of theory? Just call them stupid. That'll learn 'em. Not even 50% in the Aussie Juniors? Toss out all their toys and ban all the partying until the next Aussie Juniors. Then sit back and watch the trophies roll in.

Amy Chua in the Wall Street Journal:

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)

Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out.

You're probably thinking that this woman's a total nutjob. But hey, she's a law professor, at Yale no less. She knows what she's talking about.

Secrets of Chess Masters

Why are chess masters so much better? According to some Japanese brain researchers, it's basically right down to wiring!

Using spot games of shogi, the researchers have now pinpointed for the first time two brain regions involved in specific aspects of such intuition. Activity in the precuneus of the parietal lobe, a brain region responsible for integrating sensory information, was observed when professional players perceived and recognized realistic board patterns. Rapid generation of next-moves, in contrast, was identified with activity in the caudate nucleus of the basal ganglia. Among professional players, the results moreover highlight a strong correlation between these regions during next-move generation, suggesting that the precuneus-caudate circuit in their brains has been honed to this specific task.

Courtesy of a PR release from Japan's Riken Brain Science Institute.

Drawmeister So

The Philippines' GM Wesley So seems to be doing a Kramnik. All his four games so far have ended peacefully. Not that those were not interesting or hard-fought games. In fact, all but one went past the thirtieth move. And even So's second round 26-mover against Sargissian was a likable contest. I was once fond of the Scotch system myself and it's always nice to see it appear at this level from time to time.

73rd Tata Steel, Wijk aan Zee
So, Wesley
Sargissian, Gabriel
C45

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nxc6 bxc6 6. e5 Qe7 7. Qe2 Nd5 8. c4 Ba6 9. b3 g6 10. f4 d6 11. Qf2 Nf6 12. Be2 dxe5 13. O-O Qc5 14. Be3 Ne4 15. Qf3 Qxe3+ 16. Qxe3 Bc5 17. Qxc5 Nxc5 18. fxe5 O-O 19. Nd2 Rfe8 20. Nf3 Ne6 21. Bd3 Bb7 22. Be4 Nc5 23. Bc2 Ne6 24. Be4 Nc5 25. Bc2 Ne6 26. Be4 1/2-1/2

It's quite interesting to note that So began his Wijk career back in 2009 with another junior, GM Anish Giri. Both played in the C group with So winning on 9.5 points, while Giri was second a point behind. Last year, they both went up to the B group and this time Giri grabbed victory with nine points, while So managed just 7.5.

Thus, we now see Giri in the exalted A group, whereas So remains in the second rank. But, of course, I look forward to the day when this Filipino will take his place among the A-listers.

Speaking of Giri, by the way, it's even more interesting to know, to me at least, that he was at one point a fully a paid up member of the JCA!

2010/11 ACF Medal Winners

The 2010 Australian Chess Federation medal winners have just been announced. They are as follows.

2010 Steiner Medal: IM George Xie
2011 Koshnitsky Medal: Kevin Bonham
2011 Purdy Medal: David Cordover
2010 Arlauskas Medal: FM Bobby Cheng

So, that's a big congrats to all winners, especially to FM Bobby Cheng who bags the Arlauskas for a second straight year. After moving to Australia from NZ, Cheng has rapidly established himself as one of Australia's future stars. He is currently leading the Australian Juniors.

Congrats, too, to Dr Bonham (a doctor specialising in the study of snails, if I remember), who, at last, bags the Koshnitsky. That one's well-deserved.

By the way, there is actually another ACF medal or, at least, there used to be. It's the Whyatt Medal, an award for problem composition. Maybe the ACF killed this thing due to a lack of problem composers in the country. Who knows?

DISCLAIMER: I was a selector for the Steiner.

Chess on MXit

As if there aren't enough chat applications out there to keep the geeks occupied, along comes MXit. I have just heard of these guys and apparently they're some sort mobile-based social network where users can chat, shop and even play games like, you guessed it(!), chess. And on new year's eve this year, there were a reported 50,000 games on MXit's portal.

That almost seems like an impressive number but I bet that there were many more on sites like ICC and Playchess.

At any rate, I hope MXit's iPhone app is way better than the ICC's. For some reason, the Internet Chess Club's iPhone app doesn't allow me to seek games. Instead, I just get a message saying to download Dasher and to contact some guy named FREEBIRD.

RIP Greg Hjorth

Courtesy of Chess Chat, I've just found out about the very sad news of Greg Hjorth's sudden passing. There is a brief tribute to him in The Age's pages.

Greg Hjorth was an international master and represented Australia in 3 Olympiads, '82 to '86. He was also, of course, a mathematician and was a professor at both UCLA as well as at the University of Melbourne.

In an interview last year with Melbourne Chess Club's Grant Szuveges, Hjorth had this piece of advice for young hopefuls: "If the aim is to have fun, then I would suggest trying not to burst in to tears when you lose. If the aim is to become a professional, then if you can't get in to the top 100 by the time you are 21 have a good hard rethink. Oh. And never a borrower or a lender be. Floss *before* you brush. Invest your savings in Vanguard's Wiltshire 5000 Index Fund :)"

Rest in peace IM Greg Hjorth.

Xie Wins Aussie Open

International master George Xie wins the Australian Open on tiebreak. Details, games and even some well-taken pictures are available on the official site. That's yet another great result for Xie and should hopefully give him the much needed boost to press on for that GM title. He, of course, now has 3 grandmaster norms and just needs to raise his rating to 2500.

I also want to say a big congrats to Vladimir Smirnov. This professor of economics over at the University of Sydney's Business School has been an FM for some time. Thanks to his fine performance in North Sydney, he finally notched up his third IM norm.

Worth mentioning is that these two guys, Xie and Smirnov (as well as his son, Anton), are actually veterans of the Hyde Park chess club. I hope that we'll still continue to see them in the years to come. The boys always get excited when some big fish comes along.