Aussies abroad

One of the great things about the London Chess Classic is that the organisers put on a large number of subsidiary events that caters for almost every level of chess player. There is a FIDE Open Swiss, which would normally be a headline event on its own, given the field of 247 players contains 28 GM's and 34 IM's. There was a successful Weekend Swiss event as well, run over a number of grading sections. The weekday swiss has also attracted a sizeable field, while the Rapidplay event at the end will probably have a couple of hundred players taking part.
In amongst these events are a number of Australian players. In the Open, Pengyu Chen is on 3/5, with Yi Liu on 2.5 and Emma Guo on 2. Chris Skulte and Derek Roebuck took part in the Weekend Under 2000 event, with Skulte finishing on 3/5. And finally Stephen Jago is playing in the Weekday Under 2000 event, which began last night.

Kirsan steps (slightly) aside

After a week of silence over the US Treasury sanctions concerning FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the FIDE website finally makes mention of it. The short of it, is that Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has withdrawn from any "legal, financial and business operations of FIDE" and has authorised Georgios Makropoulos (FIDE Deputy President) to carry out the functions of President.
In the statement FIDE say that Ilyumzhinov will stand down until his name is removed from the sanction list,   which I suspect will be a lot longer than he imagines it will be.
In terms of how this effects FIDE itself (or more importantly, FIDE governance), probably not at all. Makropoulos pretty much runs FIDE on a day to day basis anyway, with Kirsan mainly being responsible for "blue sky" ideas and securing funding for FIDE events in the old Soviet Bloc.  As the actual sanctions simply prevent US citizens from having any financial dealing with Ilyumzhinov, this is less of an earth shattering change, and more of a move to allow FIDE to legally do business with the US.
Where this might end up being a more permanent change is in the context of the Russia - Turkey dispute over who is buying and selling ISIS oil. Turkey has made mention of the involvement Russian "chess champions" in their claims about Russia, although it is assumed that they are referring to Ilyumzhinov. It may well have been politically convenient for Kirsan to assist the Syrian government at some point in the past viz-a-viz oil supplies, but it may now turn out to be an embarrassment to the Russian government, and if it is, they may try and argue they had no knowledge themselves, and cut him loose.

(** Full disclaimer: I have worked on a number of FIDE commissions in the past, and know a number of members of the FIDE Presidential Board and Executive. However this working relationship ended in August 2014 after the FIDE Elections, as a consequence of me refusing to commit the PNG Chess Federations vote to Ilyumzhinov. I was asked to do this by a senior FIDE official in March 2014 and when I informed him that it was a decision for the entire PNGCF board, he said to me "If the PNGCF does not vote for Kirsan, then it will not be good for you". Despite being re-nominated for the commissions I was previously on, I was not appointed to any of them **)

Know when to hold them

Despite the recurring hoo hah about draws in chess, there is a certain appeal to games that end in "exciting" draws. By "exciting" I mean positions where won side is materially losing or facing imminent death, except for that one drawing resource they have.
Of course for the experienced professional a draw is a draw, no matter how its achieved, and what may be flashy to the spectators is simply a means to an end for the players.
Round 2 of the London Chess Classic saw all the games drawn, but at least in the Carlsen v Caruana game, the rather dry play out of the opening was somewhat redeemed by the last few moves.

Carlsen,Magnus - Caruana,Fabiano [C67]
London Chess Classic Olympia, London (2.4), 05.12.2015

When does the ending start?

While the start point of openings is pretty straightforward (Move 1!) and the middlegame starts when your memorisation of opening theory runs out, the start point of an ending can be a little trickier. When I was writing chess engines (which evaluate positions differently in the ending), I had an arbitrary rule that the ending started when there was less than a Q+R in material (excluding pawns) for each side. The other possible definitions include "when pawn promotion becomes a goal" or "when the king can move about without the risk of getting checkmated".
It is the last definition that I use most often when coaching. Of course it does depend upon on recognising all the threats in the position, and there are plenty of endings that have ended in checkmate.
A kind of counter-example (in a different sense) turned up from last nights first round of the London Chess Classic (the reason why this post is late btw). The Grischuk - Nakamura game started off with a Berlin Defence to the Ruy Lopez (which is an opening known for a quick transition to an ending). On move 18 Grischuk decided that the king could be used as a fighting piece and moved it up the board. This was a brave decision as there were still plenty of pieces on the board (2R+3 minors each), and it was no surprise that found itself surrounded 10 moves later. However Grischuk had just enough the avoid getting mated and in the end Nakamrua had a repetition but no more.


Grischuk,Alexander - Nakamura,Hikaru [C67]
London Chess Classic Olympia, London (1.5), 04.12.2015

Poor AN Other

Flipping through some of my old games I came across a game I seemingly played against a very famous, and very prolific opponent. The opponent in question was AN Other, the hero of many a spectacular loss, often at the hands of some of chess's greatest players. And in the game we played he certainly lived up to his reputation, allowing me to sacrifice a piece for a a winning attack.
At first I wasn't sure why I Mr Other deigned to play me, but digging a little further I realised that it was played outdoors in Garema Place Canberra, and he just happened to be wandering by the giant chess board. The other interesting facts about this game was that it was played on my birthday, and it was in fact one of two games he lost to me (The other is noted here)


Press,Shaun - Other,A.N. [C33]
Casual, 09.10.2009

London Chess Classic

The 2015 London Chess Classic is already up and running as I type this, although the main event (the 10 player RR) does not begin until Friday. Today is the 2nd day of the British Knockout Championship, with David Howell up against Gawain Jones and Nicholas Pert playing Luke McShane. There is also a 9 round FIDE Rated Open, as well as  rapidplay's, simuls and other events.
Also of interest is the Chess and Education Conference which is being held on the 5th & 6th of December. John Adams (from Australia) is presenting a paper at this conference, looking at the direct economic benefits that chess can bring to a country.
The home page for the tournament is http://www.londonchessclassic.com/ and from there you can find all the tournament goodies.

Some big improvement

The release of the 2015 December Australian Ratings threw up a somewhat remarkable occurrence. On the list of most improved players there were 8 players (out of 30), all from the one club. The Belconnen Chess Club recently became a bit of a mecca for improving juniors, and this is now being shown on the rating list.
To be absolutely honest,  in a lot of cases the players who joined the club were already on the improve, and would have jumped up the list anyway. But there are also some players (with higher ratings) who's improvement has been helped by the step up in competition. Of course the trade off for the club is that some existing members ratings have taken a bit of a hit, although this hasn't been too drastic (due to the use of the Glicko 2 System in Australia).
So congratulations to the young Belconnen members for their improvement, and it will be interesting to see how far this improvement extends.