The Smackdown Challenge

The influx of new (and strong) chess players into Canberra has resulted in a number of new (and bold) ideas. One idea is the revival of interstate team matches, either against teams representing states, or teams representing clubs. Two players who are keen to see this happen are IM David Smerdon, and Endre Ambrus. Both of these players have had plenty of experience in playing in teams events overseas, and both think that it would be great to have it in Australia.
One suggested format is a team of 6 match. Each team would be required to have at least 1 male player, 1 female player, and 1 junior player. Teams would play in ratings order, although players could be swapped as long as the difference between the swapped player and the next player on the team wasn't more than 100 rating points. So for example a Canberra/ANU Chess Club team might be 1.IM David Smerdon 2.IM Andras Toth 3. Endre Ambrus 4. Junta Ikeda 5. Gareth Oliver 6.WIM Arianne Caoili
Now for the moment this is still in the discussion/early planning stage, and how the matches would be played is still being thought out. One obvious way is to play the games over the net, but once again do you use real boards and board runners, or does each player have a terminal. But in the discussion on this matter there was a strong opinion that it would be much more enjoyable to play face to face.
Either way, if anyone else from outside Canberra is interested in participating in such a match, I'd be interested in hearing from you.

3 way tie in Baku

The first FIDE Grand Prix event ended in a 3 way tie for 1st, between Vugar Gashimov, Yue Wang and Magnus Carlsen. Each score 8/13 with local boy Gashimov edging the other 2 players on tie break. Half a point back were Shakriyar Mamadyrov and Alexander Grischuk.
Probably the key game for the tournament was the round 12 clash between Gashimov and Grischuk, which crueled Grischuk's chances for first place and catapulted Gashimov into the lead.

Gashimov,V (2679) - Grischuk,A (2716) [C72]
FIDE GP Baku AZE (12), 04.05.2008

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 d6 5.0-0 Bg4 6.h3 h5 7.d4 b5 8.Bb3 Nxd4 9.hxg4 Nxb3 10.axb3 hxg4 11.Ng5 Qd7 12.Qd3 Rb8 13.Rxa6 f6 14.Nc3 fxg5 15.Bxg5 Be7 16.f4 gxf3 17.Qxf3 Nf6 18.Nd5 Nxd5 19.Qf7+ Kd8 20.Qxg7 Kc8 21.Qxh8+ Kb7 22.Qh7 Qg4 23.exd5 Qd4+ 24.Kh1 Bxg5 25.Rfa1 Be3 26.Ra7+ Qxa7 27.Rxa7+ Bxa7 28.g4 Rf8 29.g5 Rf2 30.Qe4 Rf1+ 31.Kh2 Rf4 32.Qxf4 exf4 33.c3 1-0

Hack of the Month

"Miniature" is to kind a description for this game, as White just tears into Black's position. The only slight flaw in the game (if it can be called that), is the Black doesn't allow White the pretty pawn mate on move 15.

Kurnosov,I (2577) - Dzhumaev,M (2527) [B07]
2nd Agzamov Memorial Tashkent UZB (8), 27.03.2008

1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Bg5 Nbd7 5.Qd2 [ 5.e5 can be tried if you are feeling aggressive. 5...dxe5 ( 5...Nh5±) 6.dxe5 Nxe5 7.Qxd8+ Kxd8 8.Bf4! Nc6 9.0-0-0+ Bd7 10.Bc4 e6 11.Nf3 and threats of Ng5 and Nb5 allow White to regain the pawn with advantage.] 5...a6 6.0-0-0 b5 7.e5 b4 8.exf6 bxc3 9.Qxc3 e6?? [ 9...Nxf6 10.Bxf6 Bh6+ ( 10...exf6? 11.Re1+ Be7 12.Qf3+-) 11.Kb1 exf6 12.Re1+ Kf8±] 10.Re1 Nb6 11.d5! Na4 12.Qc6+ Bd7(D)
13.Rxe6+!! fxe6 14.dxe6 Bg7 [ 14...Bxc6 15.f7#] 15.exd7+ [ 15.exd7+ Qxd7 ( 15...Kf8 16.fxg7+) 16.f7+] 1-0

Are you old enough?

When you are young you tend to overstate your age (especially approaching 18 years old) while when you are older you tend to understate it ("it's the 12 anniversary of my 39th birthday"). Now news from India reveals that people who are older are also understating the age of those who are younger.
It seems that 5 players in the Indian Under 9 Girls Championship have been found to be overaged, after medical tests conducted by organisers. Despite the fact that the players parents had presented birth certificates showing they were eligible to play, there were sufficient suspicions to have additional tests carried out.
The full story is here in The Hindu.

Correspondence Thematics

For all the sneering that CC receives from some OTB players, a significant amount of opening theory is developed in Correspondence Thematic events. These are events where all the games start with a specific opening, either at an early stage, or in some cases, a theoretically crucial position.
However, the most common thematics usually involve openings that are avoided at the top levels of OTB chess, although these openings may still be popular at the club level. Probably the two openings most closely associated with CC Thematics are the Blackmar-Diemar Gambit (BDG) for White, and the Latvian Gambit for Black.
Now the BDG is one of those openings where the players who use it are so passionate about it that the wins for white tend to be over publicised, at the expense of the games where Black hangs on to the pawn and frustrates White's attacking plans. So just to redress the balance here is a game where Black launches the big attack, and cleans White's clock in pretty short order.

Christensen,J (2069) - Hauser,J (2126)
WSTT/3/07/2 - Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, D ICCF, 15.06.2007

1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3 exf3 5.Nxf3 c6 6.Bc4 Bf5 7.Ne5 e6 8.0-0 Bg6 9.Bf4 Nbd7 10.Nxg6N Turns out the open file is worth more than the 2 bishops. [ RR 10.Rf2 Nxe5 11.Bxe5 h5 12.h3 h4 13.Bd3 Bh5 14.Qe1 Nd7 15.Bf4 g5 16.Be5 Rg8 17.Bh7 Nxe5 18.Bxg8 Qxd4 19.Ne4 0-0-0 20.Kh1 Bb4 21.c3 Nd3 22.cxd4 Bxe1 23.Rf1 Rxg8 24.Nf6 Bf2 ETC_Chess-Peze/www.playchess.de 2003/Aftermega Pt.1/0-1 (45)] 10...hxg6 11.Be2 Qb6 12.Bg3 0-0-0 Already Black has a better position, even discounting the extra pawn. 13.Na4 Qa5 14.c3 Ne4 15.b4 Qg5 16.Bf4 Bd6!! 17.Bxd6 [ 17.Bxg5 Bxh2+ 18.Kh1 Ng3#] 17...Qe3+ 18.Kh1 e5 19.Bxe5 Nxe5 20.Bg4+ Kc7 21.Bh3 Nd3 22.Qf3 Ndf2+ 0-1

The 10 second curse

Jonathan Speelman often bemoans the effect that the 30s increment has on the quality of endgames in modern chess, but imagine the damage that 10s increments cause. As an example, won one of the last games to finish at the ANU Chess Club the other night contained the following sequence of missteps and near misses. I'll leave the players unnamed as it isn't my intention to criticise their play, just to highlight the difficulty in finding the right moves when you only have 10 seconds to do so.

1...Kg7 [ 1...e5+ At the time I thought this was the drawing move, but Black explained after the game that he was still looking to win the position! He also felt that moving the pawn stopped him from playing Rf5+ which he used in the game.
As it turns out my instincts were correct as it is the only move that draws (with correct play!). 2.Kg4 e4 3.Kf4 e3 4.Kxe3 Kg7 And Black captures the g and h pawns.] 2.Kg5 Rf8 3.Rh1 Rf5+ 4.Kg4 Rf8 5.Kg3? Now it is White's turn to go wrong, although at 10s a move Black misses the right idea. 5...Kh8? Not only does this miss the draw, it puts the King into a mating net. [ 5...Rh8 draws as the g pawn is indefensible.] 6.Kg4 Re8 7.Kg5 e5 8.Rh5 Re7 9.Kh6 Watching the game I felt that Black seemed surprised to see himself in this position. 9...Re6 10.Rxe5 And once again Black was caught unawares, so much so that he missed the stalemate trick which would have saved half a point, but then again so did White! It seemed only the spectators saw what was up, and to their credit, they managed to keep their 'poker' faces. 10...Rf6 One more square would have done it! [ 10...Rxg6+ 11.Kxg6 ( 11.Kh5 Kxh7 12.Re7+ Rg7) ] 11.Re8+ Rf8 12.Rxf8#

Zipf's Law

Zipf's Law is one of those wonderful rules of the universe which describe how things are, rather than why things are. Other examples might be Bode's Law (for the distance of planets) or Vizzini's Classic Blunder ("Never get involved in a land war in Asia").
It's major application (these days at least) is in explaining the popularity of competing services. Not the why, but just the fact that twice as many people use Google over Yahoo, or Facebook over Linked-In etc
It may even apply to the shifting sands of the Canberra chess scene. For reasons to do mainly with geography, Canberra has usually had 3 or 4 clubs in operation. Unfortunately, mainly to do with population, these clubs periodically go through periods of boom and bust. In an ideal competitive market, the busts would shake out the under performing clubs, leaving Canberra with one or two constantly successful clubs, rather than 2 successful clubs and 2 struggling clubs.
Anyway, the two clubs that are doing well in Canberra at the moment are the Tuggeranong Chess Club, and the ANU Chess Club. Indeed the ANU Chess Club is doing so well that until we get some bigger space, we are turning players away from our tournaments. Which is a little unfortunate, as obviously getting more players into the chess scene is obviously a good thing.
Now while the ANU Chess Club members obviously turn up to the club for a reason, I suspect it is more a "crowd attracts a crowd" mentality the motivates new players to change clubs. And while Zipf's Law doesn't explain this, it certainly does measure it.