Chess over the holidays

 While the end of the year normally sees a degree of rest and relaxation, it is often the busiest time for Australian chess players, While the tradition of the '2 weeks leave at Xmas' has long since fallen victim to workplace 'reforms' , the tradition of holding major events at this time of year continues. 

For Canberra players, the ACT Rapidplay Championship is on today at 11am (very short notice if you didn't know this already). It is being held at King O'Malley's, in the newly revamped Garema Place, Canberra City. Previous editions have attracted GM's and IM's, and fingers crossed for a strong field this year.

If you are in Melbourne (and avoiding the cricket), the traditional Canterbury Summer Swiss starts on the 27th December. Details are at https://www.trybooking.com/DGWVD

The 2026 Australian Championship starts later than usual, beginning on the 5th January at Sydney University, Sydney. Details are at https://australianchampionships.usydchessclub.org/

And then after that is the Australian Junior Chess Championship, which begins on the 17th January at St Edmunds College, Canberra. There are already close to 300 entries, but you can still enter via https://australianjuniorchesschampionship2026.org/

2025 FIDE GA

 I'm not sure I have ever attended a FIDE General Assembly that has gone 'right'. Whether it is confusion about procedural rules, a lack of quorum, or just downright chaos, something always seems to go wrong.

This was the case with the 2025 FIDE General Assembly (held yesterday), but for me, with the added bonus of a midnight start and a 6:30am finish (a fate the befell all federations in this part of the world).

The big ticket item on the agenda was the readmission of Russia and Belarus into the team events (at the senior level). The FIDE Council had been pushing this for a while, and had laid the groundwork by allowing a 'FIDE' team to compete in the Women's World Teams Championship, a team consisting entirely of Russian players, and who won the event. 

The debate was of course at the level that normally happens at the GA, a combination of speech making, delegates addressing the wrong topic,  the selective presentation of facts, and attempts by both sides to take the moral high ground. For this year it consisted of the tired old trope of 'Sport and Politics should not mix', often stated by federations who actively boycott other federations, both in chess and in other sports. One of the best points raised against this was veteran FIDE official Allen Herbert who pointed out that of all things, sports boycotts are often the most effective at bringing about change. His example was South Africa in the 1970's and 80's, which was particularly relevant, as they were expelled from FIDE, a move spearheaded by the then USSR.

But in the end the motion to allow them to play was passed, and for good measure, a 2nd motion allowing them to play under neutral flags was also passed. The reason for this was in case the first proposal gets bounced by the IOC, they can fall back on the 2nd one. This of course then lead to more confusion as there was a debate about which motion took effect (the most recent one or the first one), and by the time it should have been resolved, a large number of delegates had logged off from the call, meaning that the meeting lacked a quorum.

2025 Oceania Youth Chess Championship

 The 2025 Oceania Youth Chess Championship got off to a successful start, with 360 players descending on the Brisbane Church of England Grammar School for the first day of play. The Under 20 Open is particularly strong this year, with 5 players rated above 2200 and half the field rated above 2000. The Grils Under 20 is equally competitive, with more than 13 players holding FIDE titles.

More impressive than the overall numbers, are the number federations represented. Apart from the host federation, New Zealand, Nauru, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Guam, Fiji and Tonga have all sent representatives. As a result, direct FIDE titles can probably be awarded  in all age categories except the Under 8 sections.

The tournament runs until the 18th December with 2 rounds per day, except for the final single round day.  Full results, pairings, and DGT broadcasts can be found at https://ace.aunz.net/2025-oceania/

The blitz kids

 It is normally a given that after a certain age you lose to younger players, especially at faster time controls. But not always ....

I decided I needed to play some more chess (inspired by my time at the World Cup) and so wandered into an end of year blitz event at one of the local Canberra Clubs  (a club I normally don't play at), It was a 9 round event with a generous 5m+3s time control and with more than half of the 36 players being juniors, there was a good chance I would play at least some of them.

By the end of the night I finished on 7/9, which was good enough for 3rd, but more significantly, the two players who finished ahead of me (and who I lost to) were both older than me. All my wins came against younger players (including 5/5 against juniors) , which did make me smile.

Of course there were a few lucking escapes but old age and treachery will always beat youth and enthusiasm!

Casto Abundo (1950 - 2025)

 Casto Abundo has passed away at the age of 75. Casto  (Toti to his friends) was a fixture on the international chess scene for the past 50 years, as a tournament arbiter, organiser and administrator. Initially a trusted colleague of Florencio Campomanes, Toti filled a number of important roles in FIDE. He was FIDE General Secretary from 1988-1990 as well as FIDE Excutive Director from 1994-1998. Even after Campomanes retirement, Toti stayed on, being a member of the FIDE Rules commission, FIDE Qualification Commission as well as serving as Executive Director of the Asian Chess Federation.

As an Arbiter he was the Chief Arbiter for the 2000 World Championship Match and the 2001 World Cup. He was one of the organisers of the 1992 Chess Olympiad, and was an active FIDE Arbiter Lecturer. Although he had suffered ill health in recent years, he remained active in the chess world, organising events, and conducting arbiter trainer courses. 

As a member of the Qualification Commission he provided valuable information on the history of previous decisions of QC, and insight into what federations or organisations needed in terms of rating and title services. He was also a strong player in his own right, being rated 2175 at the time of his passing. 

His loss will be felt throughout the chess community, especially in the Asian region, and across the many FIDE Commissions and committees.

Late entries

 Entries for the 2026 O2C Doeberl Cup have been open for a month. The event already has 4 GM's registered (all from overseas federations), and a couple of IM's. At this stage overall entries are small, but I do want to highlight something related to this.

For 2025 I handled a number of begging emails from players who missed entry into their preferred sections. Some of these were from players who did not qualify anyway, but a number were from players who tried to enter after the sections reached capacity. Although they could play in a lower section, they were quite insistent they needed to play in the higher section.

As far as I can see, none of these players have entered for 2026. Possibly the nature of the email exchange with me has put them off, but given the 'it will help my chess development' nature of requests, such a decision seems unlikely. Instead I assume a lack of planning is to blame, which is both a fatal flaw in life as it is in chess.

So if you don't want to miss out (or cop an earful from me), click https://www.doeberlcup.com.au/ and get your entry in

Chasing numbers

 A couple of important rating lists were released yesterday. There was the FIDE list, as well as the Australian Rating List. The release of the FIDE rating list results in some extra work for me (due to my roles as QC Secretary), not so much the ACF list (having stopped being the ACF Ratings Officer long ago).

A lot of the extra work is due to people 'chasing' numbers. For example, I received a request to certify a player as the youngest ever player to get a rapid rating. 'Nope, not doing it' was basically my reply, as (a) this is something FIDE does not do and (b) such records are exploitative. 

But a more general issue of this nature is players only wishing to play certain players or events. This is because they wish to maximise their chances of a rating increase. The flipside of this is that possibly maximise a rating decrease for an opponent, which should hardly be considered 'fair'. To paraphrase a popular saying 'ratings don't care about your feelings'. They simply measure your results against other players, and to be truly accurate, that group of players should be reasonably representative of the general chess playing population. 'Gaming' the rating system at best is a short term fix for yourself, but ultimately creates problems for other chess players.