It is very late notice, but the 2024 AVT Rapid Championship is on tomorrow (21 December). It is being held at King O'Malley's, City Walk, Canberra City, starting at 11am. Entry is $10 ($5 for juniors), and is a 7 round swiss with a time limit of G/15m
Plenty of fun and plenty of prizes to be had.
The end of the Ding v Gukesh World Championship match elicited a number of comments concerning possible reasons for Ding's error, but trying to simplify when behind on material isn't unprecedented. In local Canberra circles doing so even has a name. It is known as Forace's Legacy, discovered by, and named after, local player Lee Forace.
It apparently came about during an analysis session many years ago, involving a number of (then) junior players. In a position where one side was behind on material, Lee suggested a move that involved the weaker side swapping off a piece. When the other players looked confused, Lee asked 'what's wrong?'. The reply came back 'you don't exchange when behind on material'.
Now like most chess rules, there are exceptions, as shown in this years World Championship. Exchanging to reach a fortress, or going into a drawn ending a pawn (or even a piece) down are well known motif's. But these are special cases, and in general keeping pieces on the board is normally preferable when behind. However, I will also suggest that blindly exchanging pieces when you are ahead on material is not always the best strategy either.
The 2024 World Chess Championship is barely over and already people are finding ways to argue about it. The most prominent one is the number of 'Official Champions' although a few silly arguments have also popped up.
The cause of the argument about who is an 'Official" champion started with the claim the Gukesh is the youngest World Champion in history. A number of people pointed out that Ruslan Ponomariov won the 2002 FIDE World Championship at a slightly younger age, meaning that Gukesh was not actually the youngest. This of course then devolved into a debate whether these events could be considered proper World Championships.
Normally it would be assumed that FIDE itself would have the final say in this, but it appears this is not the case. While they recognise their own version of the World Championship, they also seem to omit the winners of these events (Khalifman, Ponomariov, Kasimdzhanov and Topolov) in their numbering of world champions. This does make sense if the criteria is "Undisputed or lineal" World Champions, although at the time of the split between Championships, FIDE certainly never made that argument.
BTW if you think that finding the answer at place like Wikipedia might help, I would suggest you wait a few weeks. There seems to be an edit war going on on the World Championship page, which as a result has restrictions on who can actually now edit the page.
When I trawl through pile of 2nd hand chess books, I often see that previous owners have underlines certain moves or written notes in the margins (I have found a forced win for White in the starting position, but this margin is too small to write he proof ...).
At first this horrified me, but now I am starting to see that this is sometimes acceptable. I am working through some coaching books, and to get full value, I often think I should highlight unsuggested alternatives, or record analysis for later checking. While this would obviously reduce the quality of the book, it would probably improve my understanding of the text.
However, there is one problem. When I tried to do this, my hand refused to put pencil to paper! So for now my books remain unsullied, at least until I can overcome the psychological road block that stands in front of me.
In a match full of twists and turns, the 2024 World Chess Championship ended in the most unexpected way. Game 14 was the final game played at long time controls, and with the match tied 6.5-6.5, a win for either player would secure the title, and avoid a playoff at faster time controls.
For almost the entire game the evaluation remained fairly equal, even after Ding chose to go into an ending a pawn down. Being a pawn up, Gukesh saw no risk in playing on, but by this stage most of the online chatter had turned to finding out what time the playoff games started after this game had finished.
But on move 55, Ding offered a trade of rooks, which Gukesh gratefully accepted. Due to the poor placement of Ding's bishop (on a8), Gukesh could immediately trade off into a winning king and pawn ending. When I saw the position I first assumed that either (a) the game was over and extra moves were being analysed or (b) Ding had a stalemate/fortress trick that the engines did not understand. Neither assumption was correct, and the sad truth was that Ding had just played one of the most consequential blunders in World Championship history.
The final position was winning for Black, although there is only one path to victory (the f pawn has to be sacrificed at the right moment). Ding decided not to test Gukesh's elementary endgame knowledge, resigning instead.
So Gukesh becomes the youngest World Champion in history, beating Kasparov's record. It caps a remarkable run for Gukesh, winning both the Candidates tournament and the World Championship at his first attempts.
For Ding, this loss must be a heartbreaker, and where he goes with his chess from here remains to be seen. Possibly the burden of being a World Champion has been holding him back, and in the long term, losing the match may be a net benefit.
Game 13 of the 2024 World Chess Championship turned out to be tougher than many predicted. With decisive results in the previous 2 games, I for one expected that both players would try not to take too many risks so close to the end of the match, Instead another sharp game was served up, and again Ding found himself scrambling to defend a worse position.
Gukesh tried another line against the French, and this time emerged with a small opening advantage. It was Ding's turn to play the position defensively, which Gukesh tried to exploit. However, at crucial moments both players found '2nd best' moves, which changed the evaluation of the position. Probably the most consequential choice was around move 30, where Ding;s best move was to give up the Queen for 2 rooks and hold the draw, Instead he kept the queen, which gave Gukesh a chance to increase his control of the central files. But he failed to choose the best line, and despite some small tactical threats, a fairly equal ending was reached soon after move 40. But equal does no mean drawn, and Gukesh pushed for another 20 odd moves before a draw was agreed to.
The last round is tonight (not tomorrow as I suggested the other day). Having got all my predictions for the match wrong so far, I simply suggest juts tuning in to watch it from 8pm Canberra time.
It seems like all my predictions for this match have been well off the mark. While I was at the match (for games 7,8,9) I predicted that I would see at least one decisive game, which I did not. And having seen yesterdays game (and game ending blunder) I was sure Gukesh was ready to steamroll Ding. He did not.
Instead, Ding recovered from yesterdays disaster with a comprehensive win in Game 12. As White, Ding held a slight edge throughout the opening (basically more space), but around move 16 Gukesh started to make some poor choices. This allowed Ding to target weak points in Gukesh's position and get in the important d4 push in. After that it seemed like Gukesh didn't have a plan to defend the position, and Ding just built up a dominating position. By the end it was so overwhelming that he could afford to miss the strongest computer choices (26.Na7) and still cruise to victory.
So an amazing comeback for Ding, with the match now tied at 6-6. Another rest day today (and one after game 13), so at least Gukesh will have time to recover.
