And another example

 I didn't think 5. ... h6 helped, but maybe he was worried about Nh4 (which I was unlikely to play before I had developed everything else first )

Press,Shaun - Gyalpo,Padma [D11]
Belconnen Cup, 17.06.2025

If only I had more time

I saw a quote previously about time travel "The greatest fear about time travel is that one small change in the past, could have a huge effect on the present. So why do we think small changes in the present won't make a huge difference in the future?"

How does this apply to chess? Well, one excuse I often hear is "I was one move short of a winning attack" or "I needed one more move to prevent my opponents winning plan". But in my (recent) experience, I often see my opponent unnecessarily lose that move earlier in the game. For example, in the following club game, I happily developed my pieces, without having a definite plan (except maybe open the c file at some point). But my opponent helped me a lot with 12.a4 and the Qc1-b2 follow up. So when I played 15 ... e5 it wasn't just that my pieces were better placed tactically, but they were better placed when the central pawn structure changed. And after another 8 or so moves I was up 3 pawns, in part because of small decisions made earlier in the game. 

  

Dixon,Alex - Press,Shaun [D94]
Murphy Memorial, 13.05.2025

2025 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Teams

 The 2025 World Rapid and Blitz Teams event is finishing up in London today. I attended last years event in Kazakhstan (as an official) and enjoyed it immensely.  While it is a fairly high level tournament (112 GM's) the rules were structured in a way that lower rated players also had a chance to take part. 

The Rapid ran across the the first 3 days and was won by MGD1 on 21 MP, ahead of Hexamind on 20, with Freedom finishing 3rd on tie break. 

Yesterday the Blitz qualifiers were held. Sensibly to organisers spread this event over 2 days (avoiding the madness of 2024), with 4 13 team RR's qualifying 4 teams from each pool towards tonight's KO final. A quick check of the results seems to indicate that most of the top teams went through, although once the KO starts, it becomes a lot more random. If you want to follow the final (or catch up) there is plenty of coverage on youtube. Rather than post links, I'll leave the searching up to you

2025 NSW Open

 The 2025 NSW Open finished in a tie for 1st between GM Jacek Stopa and IM George Xie. They were the top 2 seeds and went through the event undefeated. They started with 4 straight wins, before drawing their round 5 game. Stopa then defeated IM Gary Lane in round 6, before a quick draw with Ethan Chang in round 7 left him in the lead on 6/7. Xie drew his round 6 game against WCM Bayasgalan Khishigbaatar, before beating CM Hui Li to join Stopa in 1st place.

Equal third was shared between Chang, CM Daniel Wang, CM Seth Peramunetilleke and Taifeng Liu. Chang and Wang were both undefeated in the event, but dropped some early half points to lag behind the winners for most of the event.

The 98 player Open section ran without any serious incidents. Probably the major issue was the number of forfeits and withdrawals (NB this also affected to Under 1600) event. While some players had the courtesy to inform us of their withdrawals a few players simply failed to show up. This has been an ongoing issue with this event for a few years now, and I am not quite sure what the best solution is.

The Under 1600 event attracted a competitive field of 77 players. Kamal Jain  won the event with 6.5/7, his only draw the result of a stalemate trick in a totally lost ending. Steven Hemsley finished outright 2nd on 6 points, losing to Jain and winning the rest of his games. Isaac Huang was third on 5.5, ahead of another 12 players tied for 4th on 5 points. Again a number of forfeited games did inconvenience the players who did show up, but in at least 2 cases, this was because some players (in their first event) thought it was a knockout competition!

A modern King hunt

 WH Cozens wrote "The King-Hunt" in 1970, which was updated by John Nunn in 1996. The book showed a number of historical games where the King was chased out of (or ran from) it's natural home on the back rank, and was driven up the board to be mated on the other side of the board. 

A very modern example of this occurred at the 2025 NSW Open, where the tournament winner GM Jacek Stopa did this to IM Gary Lane. While most choices by Black were forced, there seemed to be a degree of willingness to run the king, in the hope that and unlikely sanctuary might be found. Alas there was none.

Stopa,Jacek (2326) - Lane,Gary W (2237) [D45]
2025 NSW Open Sydney, Australia (6.1)

Choosing the fancy finish

 I was watching the following game in the final round of the 2025 NSW Open. White played a nice exchange sac in the middlegame and built up a crushing attack. After 33.Qf4 White had a number of mate threats, including some that started with 34.Rh8+ So when Black played the 'desperado' 33 ... Rxf3 it wasn't a shock. I assumed White would play Qxf3 and just organise the mate anyway. So when Lane played 34.Rh8+ anyway I was a little surprised. 34. ... Kxh8 35.Qh6 Kg8 36.Qh7+ Kf8 37.Qf7+?? doesn't work due to the rook on f3, but as Lane played these moves I realised that he had always intended 37. g7+ as the finisher, which did result in resignation.

Bur after the game he said that he noticed my expression after the rook sac, and for a fleeting moment wondered if he had missed something. It turns out he wasn't the one who did.

Lane,Gary W (2237) - Liu,Eric (1963) [B38]
2025 NSW Open Sydney, Australia (7.7), 10.06.2025

The pen conundrum

 One of the essential tools for any tournament player is a pen. Not hard, just put one on your pocket and head off to play chess. So it does irk me when players turn up to club or tournament without one. Especially if their goto move is to simply ask you to supply them with one.

For events like the Doeberl we provide 'loaners'  with a $1 deposit. In practice this means we are simply selling pens for $1, as pens are never 'borrowed'. For the Chess Olympiad, pens were supplied by the organisers, but to prevent massive loss, they had to be collected at the end of the game (by the arbiter). 

One other option is to supply a pen, but when the player returns it, they have to provide us with a 2nd pen, so we can then lend it to another player who has also forgotten their pen. The advantage of this system is twofold. Firstly, it will teach players the importance of bringing their own pen, and secondly, it will create a giant pen pyramid scheme, which can be converted into other goods and services at some later date.