Victorian Bushfire Appeal

Something different, something worthwhile. I've been in this country for 20 years, and this bushfire disaster is just about the most mind-numbing event I've ever seen. We need to help the bushfire victims. Here's how:

The Salvos or 137 258
Red Cross or 1800 811 70
Vinnies
National Australia Bank

And Coles stores across the country will also donate all their profits from this Friday, 13 February, to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal. So make sure you shop there this Friday.

2009 Canterbury Rapid

The Canterbury Chess Club 2009 Rapid Play Championships began tonight with 22 players. It's a standard G30 with nine rounds over three Monday nights (9, 16 and 23 February). Ex-Australian Chess Champion (1970) Fred Flatow is the top seed. So far, Fred is on 3/3. His only likely challenger for this year's title will be Ernesto Puzon who is also on a perfect score. My own tally is 2/3.

Here's a position from round 1 between Ashfaqur Rahman and Richard Blake. Blake, handling the black pieces, finds a neat combo to finish off the game.




2009 Canterbury Rapid
Ashfaqur, Rahman
Blake, Richard

1... Qb6+ 2. Kh1? (2. Qf2 Qxf2+ 3. Kxf2 Bxc3 4. Bxc3 Nxe4+) 2... Ng4 3. Rf1 With his time fast disappearing, Ashfaqur finds only the quickly losing move. But really, the alternatives are barely better. (3. Na4 Rxd1+ 4. Rxd1 Qe3; 3. Re1 Nf2+ 4. Kg1 Nxe4+) 3... Bxf1 4. Rxf1 Ne3 5. Qb3 Nxf1 6. fxe5 0-1

The club meets on Monday nights, from 7.30PM. They're presently looking for a TD, preferably someone who knows their way around computers and can quickly learn how to use Swiss Perfect. If you're interested, or just looking for a bunch of friendly guys to play chess with on Monday evenings - then drop by at the Lakemba Services Memorial Club, Corner Quigg Street and The Boulevarde, Lakemba. Or email Henk Jens at hwj at zip dot com dot au.

No Databases, Just Chess

On my last day in Queenstown I had a brief chat to IM Alex Wohl who revealed that, for the last few months, he has gone about his business without the assistance of a database! No Chessbase, no Chess Assistant, no SCID. Nothing. Basically, he's just been playing chess. Well maybe it did him some good because, as far as he's concerned at least, his results have been very positive. He is, of course, a joint winner of this year's Aussie Open. And in Queenstown, he produced these two gems.

2009 Queenstown Chess Classic
Duneas, John
Wohl, Aleksander
A40

1. d4 e6 2. c4 b6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 Bb7 5. Nf3 f5 6. a3 Bxc3+ 7. bxc3 Nf6 8. Bd3 O-O 9. O-O d6 10. a4 a5 11. Rb1 Nbd7 12. Ba3 Ne4 13. Qc2 Rf6 14. Ne1 Rh6 15. g3 Qg5 16. Be2

Position after 16. Be2

16...Nxg3 17. fxg3 Qxe3+ 18. Rf2 Qxg3+ 19. Kf1 Qh3+ 20. Ng2 Rg6 21. d5 Qxh2 22. Bf3 Ne5 23. Ne1 Qg1+ 24. Ke2 Nxc4 25. Qb3 exd5 26. Nd3 Re8+ 0-1

2009 Queenstown Chess Classic
Wohl, Alex
Johansen, Daryl
B42

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Nc3 e6 6. e4 Qc7 7. Bd3 Nc6 8. Nxc6 dxc6 9. O-O e5 10. Kh1 Be7 11. f4 Nd7 12. f5 g5 13. Be3 h6 14. Rc1 Bc5 15. Bd2 Qd6 16. Qe2 Bd4 17. b4 b6 18. Rfd1 Kf8 19. c5 bxc5 20. bxc5 Nxc5 21. Bc4 Nd7 22. Qh5 Qe7 23. Bxg5 Nf6 24. Qh4 Kg7 25. Bd2 Ra7 26. Ne2 Ne8 27. Qg3+ Kh7 28. Nxd4 exd4 29. Bd3 Rg8 30. Qh3 Qf8 31. Rxc6 1-0

Actually, that reminds me of something that I've been meaning to write about: so-called preparation particularly by, let's just say, "average" players. These guys use the very latest, not to say expensive, chess databases. Yet it's not clear to me what good this activity, and the tools, actually serve them. Often it's all just memorising a few moves, sometimes of an opening that they've never even played before. And that's if they get lucky. More likely, either the expected opening or line just simply fail to appear! This leads to panic, the player fails to adjust and, before they know it, the point is lost.

Much better I think to do what Alex did. Just play chess. Have fun!

Meet Joshua

This is Joshua, a chess playing robot. As you can in the announcements, a new system has just been released. The programmers have given this a "new 'personality', not so much aggressive, but no more suicide".

Kamsky v Topalov Coming Up

Kicking off later this month is that much-awaited Kamsky v Topalov Challenger Match, to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria from 16 Feb until the 28th. My pick for this one is the Bulgarian, Topalov. He wasn't there in the just completed Corus event, so he's pretty well-rested plus also enjoying a little extra time on his preparations. On the other hand, he will be under pressure. As his manager says in this interview:

The pressure for Veselin and for me is big. A loss will be a real national tragedy. Everyone expects victory, while this will be a very difficult match. I preferred that it were played abroad. In the end they could not find the money and it was either our offer or no match. I am happy that they were reasonable and this match will take place.

Thanks to our friends over at ChessDom for this story. And by the way, Anton (over at CD) tells me that they'll have as many as 10 contributors on-the-ground in the playing hall. So, it looks like plenty of news about this event will come from them. Meanwhile, no word yet on an official site for the match. And that seems rather stupid. If I were a sponsor, I wouldn't be too terribly impressed!

Of Rare Beauty

Real chess players get excited by this sort of thing. Beautiful finishes. A mate of mine got so excited by this one, that he just had to photocopy the book then handed them around this afternoon! Imagine if you could deliver a killer blow like this. I reckon they'll hand you the GM title on the spot! It's from a game, Loyd - Moore, USA 1906.

USA 1906
Lloyd
Moore
C33

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. d4 d5 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. Bxf4 c5 6. Bg5 dxe4 7. Bxe4 cxd4 8. Bxf6 Qxf6 9. Nf3 Bc5 10. O-O O-O 11. Nbd2 d3+ 12. Kh1 dxc2 13. Bxh7+ Kxh7 14. Qxc2+ Qg6 15. Qxc5 Na6 16. Qb5 Nc7 17. Qc4 Qb6 18. Nh4 a5 19. Ndf3 Ra6 20. Ne5 f6 21. Rf3 Qxb2 22. Re1 f5 23. Rh3 f4

Position after 23...f4

Here, the author, R.G. Thimann (in King's Gambit) writes: "A fairly ordinary game despite its unusual opening, is now tranformed into a thing of rare beauty by one of the most remarkable moves ever made in actual play. Loyd, the great problemist, must have been well pleased."

Find the winning move.

Happy 50th Darryl Johansen

Today is GM Darryl Johansen's birthday, his fiftieth. Happy birthday Darryl and may you have another half century ahead of you. More fighting chess!

From the couple of times when I had beers with him in Dresden, I can say that he is one funny guy. Ask him about the time when he was "almost" saved from drowning, for example. And how about that time in an Irish pub, in Dresden, when he suddenly leans over and whispers, "if he (a famous GM who shall remain nameless) touches her (an Aussie Olympiad rep), I'm gonna kick him in the balls"? I thought it was funny, but I tell you, Dazza was completely serious!

Let's look back at a couple of nice things said about our second ever grandmaster. Guy West in Australian Chess into the Eighties.

Coming from a working class background, Darryl is tuned in to people's thoughts and emotions when stripped of their veneer of sophistication. A certain lack of tact amounting to an almost offensive bluntness and a humorous way of putting things, gives Darryl a tremendous ability to make people laugh. His perceptives also leads to sensible and logical views on contentious matters through easy recognition of the motives of those involved.

More recently, the Victorian grandmaster was featured in what could perhaps become an important training book, Ivan Sokolov's Winning Chess Middlegames - An Essential Guide to Pawn Structures (published in 2008 by New in Chess).

Back in the 1992 Manila Olympiad, the then 2485-rated Johansen handed out a lesson to his more powerful opponent - Ivan Sokolov, who was then rated 2630 and still playing for Bosnia & Herzegovina (later in action for Holland from the 2002 Olympiad in Bled). The game made such a critical impression on Sokolov that the encounter is actually the first fully annotated specimen in his book! Here, I quote the relevant parts (see pages 14-17):

1992 Manila ol (Men)
Sokolov, Ivan
Johansen, Darryl Keith
E44

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 b6 5. Nge2 Ne4 6. f3 Nxc3 7. bxc3 Be7 8. e4 Nc6 9. Ng3 Ba6 In a separate commentary (see Megabase), GM Ian Rogers comments: "By a strange move order the players have reached a highly thematic Nimzo- Indian position. Black's plan is to attack the doubled
c pawns while White must attack in the centre." 10. Bd3 Na5 11. Qe2 d6 12. O-O Qd7 13. Rb1 h5 14. Re1 At this point, Sokolov says, in part, "In the game I definitely saw the possibilities associated with 13. f4!, but playing White against some under-2500 Australian guy, I thought 'regular' moves should suffice, and the win should arrive without any risks involved. This is perhaps a reasonable way of thinking when you play some Catalan line with white, but not in this type of Nimzo. White is about to learn this lesson soon." 14...h4 15. Nf1 c5 16. Be3 Rc8 17. Nd2 e5 18. f4 Bf6 19. dxe5 dxe5 20. Nf3 Qe6 21. fxe5 Be7

Position after 21...Be7

Sokolov again: "Looking at my horrible pawn structure and slowly becoming aware of the long and difficult defence that lay ahead, I could not help but wonder abut the speed of my positional collapse: in a mere 20 moves, playing White against an opponent I had never heard of and not having made any clear mistake - except that my whole concept was a positional blunder." 22. Rf1 Bxc4 23. Bg5 Bxd3 24. Qxd3 Nc6 25. Bxe7 Qxe7 26. Rbd1 O-O 27. Qd7 Qxd7 28. Rxd7 h3 29. gxh3 Rce8 30. Kg2 Nxe5 31. Rxa7 Nc4 32. Rf2 Rxe4 33. Ng5 Re5 34. Nxf7 Ne3+ 35. Kg3 Rf5 36. Re2 Nf1+ 37. Kg2 R8xf7 38. Rxf7 Kxf7 39. Kg1 Kf6 40. Kg2 b5 41. Kg1 c4 42. Kg2 Kg5 43. Kg1 Kh4 44. Kg2 Rf4 45. a3 g6 And Sokolov's last words? "And White resigned. A painful defeat and a positional lesson that I have taken to heart". 0-1

Very nice! And bravo to GM Sokolov for his wonderful honesty and humility. We patzers can surely learn some important lessons from these two.

Tackle Chess

In yesterday's Superbowl, the Pittsburg Steelers defeated the Arizona Cardinals 27-23 in what turned out to be a nail-biting finish. The game had a particular interest for Australians thanks mainly to Ben Graham, a former Geelong player who, yesterday, served as the Cardinals' punter.

But up in Queensland, there is already a strong following for American football. In fact, they even have their own competition. And up there, they call American footy (or gridiron), "tackle chess"!

1973 Aussie Open Chess Champs

Now how often is it that you read an Ian Rogers win being described as "[a] creditable effort"? And how often do you see this fellow finish near last?

The other day I managed to get my hands on the tournament book for the 1973 Australian Open Chess Championships. Edited by W. McLean plus game annotations by Jamieson, Woodhams and Winslade - the book contained the event's "100 best games". In 1973, Ian was just a 12-year old boy and finished the tournament with 3 points! First overall was Max Fuller with eight.

On page 39, the editor writes: "Trying to console Ken Henrick for his 6 losses, the DOP told him he had paired him with a twelve-year old, and that if he couldn't win this time he should give up chess!"

Here is the game which I also give in old school. Apologies for the poor formatting; unfortunately, the blogspot platform doesn't allow me to present a tabulated text.

I. ROGERS - K. HENRICK

1. P-K4 N-KB3
2. P-K5 N-Q4
3. P-Q4 P-Q3
4. PXP KPxP
5. P-QB4 N-N3
6. N-KB3 B-K2
7. B-Q3 O-O
8. O-O N-B3
9. P-QN3 P-KR3
10. B-N2 B-N5
11. P-KR3 B-R4
12. QN-Q2 B-B3
13. P-KN4 B-N3
14. N-K4 BxN
15. BxB P-Q4
16. B-Q3 PxP
17. PxP NxQP??
18. NxN BxN
19. BXb N-Q2 and White won

Zhao: Sportsman of the Year

Adding yet another notch to his string of awards, GM Zong Yuan Zhao was given the honour of being his city's "Sportsman of the Year". It was a particularly impressive achievement since Rockdale happens to be the home of the St George Rugby League Club and the award could easily have gone to any one of their more well-known stars.

In his column today for Sydney's Sun Herald, GM Ian Rogers observes that it's significant also because "it's the first time in Australia that a chess player had been deemed eligible for a sports award".

Congratulations GM Zhao!