Being British

There was a time when 'British' in the British Championship stood for the British Empire. Commonwealth players had the same eligibility to play as UK citizens, with the title occasionally heading off to the colonies. This eventually came to an end when an influx of strong overseas players made it seem like a Commonwealth Championship, rather than a English/Scotland/Wales affair.
This years Championship looks to have done a great job of attracting most of the strong UK players to Hull. Fourteen GM's are in the field, including Michael Adams, Gawain Jones, David Howell and Luke McShane. Interestingly there are a number of non UK players taking part, but instead of being from India,Canada etc they are from various European countries. I assume that this is due to permanent residency/citizenship eligibility, rather than any ironic attachment to European Union work rules.
Australia even has a representative in the tournament with soon to be GM Justin Tan. At the two thirds mark he is on 4/6, winning two games and drawing four. Adams and Jones share the lead on 5/6, and play in round 7. David Howell is half a point back, but has already played the two leaders (both games were drawn). Another player on 4.5 is GM Nick Pert who has had to work very hard, playing 3 of the 4 longest games in the event, winning a 90 move game, while drawing two others in 105 and 133 moves respectively.


Murphy,Conor E (2336) - Tan,Justin Hy (2481)
105th British Championships Hull City Hall, Hull (3.7), 30.07.2018

Last round pressure

The last round of any sporting contest can be a real make or break situation (yes I did see the highlights from the US Masters today!). For some players it is all about controlling nerves, while for others it is an opportunity to step up, and lift their game to the level required for victory.

The last round of the 2018 Doeberl Cup Minor saw an example of this, with Oliver Yang needing to beat Lachlan Lee to grab a share of first place. Not only did Yang do this, he did it in a particularly brilliant way.

Lee,Lachlan - Yang,Oliver [A45]
2018 Doeberl Cup Minor, 02.04.2018

Mini-Games

Although I learned chess at a fairly young age (6 or 7), it took me another 10 years before I began to play seriously. In the meantime I played a number of 'simpler' games, although they did have 'chess' like features (two players, turn based play etc). These included Nine Men's Morris, Feudal and Connect 4. Often these were played during the school holidays, either with my brother, or with friends. Although the results of these friendly matches are long forgotten, but I do think they helped me develop the kind of thinking that I used when starting my chess career.
Of course there a number of games which fall between the simplicity of noughts and crosses and the complexity of chess/go/shogi. One such game is an invention of IM Ken Regan, dating back to his time as a student at Oxford University. It is a checkers like game, although no pieces are actually captured. Instead the goal is to run your opponent out of moves. He describes it in detail in a post about AlphaZero  as an example of a game is small enough to be solvable, but large enough that this cannot be done too quickly.
I find games of this nature quite interesting, as it is far easier to test the success of players strategies (both human and computer). As the search space is smaller, the number of good and bad ideas is much more manageable for the human brain. However, two evenly matched players should be able to challenge each other, as what may work most of the time, might not work *all* the time.

Does move order always matter?

For some openings there is only one move order. For others, there are many ways to reach the desired position, although how you get there may be significant. I was wondering how important move order was all through the early stages of the following game.
The opening was slightly unusual to start with as my recent games against Matt had started with 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7 4.f4. So when he replied with 1. ... e5 I smelt a rat, thinking that after 2.Nf3 he would try and head back to that line with 2. ... d6 and avoid the sharp f4 line. Hence 2.Nc3. But it seems there was no trick, and I went into a Four Knights, which is kind of a 2nd/3rd string opening for me.
After 5.d3 I assumed we were heading down the mainline, but 5. ... Nd4 came as a surprise. Turns out I should have castled before playing d3, as Nd4 works a bit better in the game. Even my choide of 6.Bc4 is not that popular, although b5 again transposes to Ba4 lines.
After those adventures the game settled down a bit, but after Matt missed the main ideas behind 12.f4 I was always on top, and picked up a few pawns before he walked into a mate.


Press,Shaun - Radisich,Matt [C49]
Belconnen CC, 03.10.2017

Not quite the 4 move checkmate

At schools events the 4 move checkmate is of course a regular occurrence. It may be a testament to the improving levels of chess knowledge amongst young players that it seems either less common, or at least, not happening in its purest form. I've seen a few 1. ... e6 openings throw a white player for a loop, while early queen moves by Black at least allow Kd8 after Qxf7.
But today I saw a completely new variation on this theme. Answering the question "Is this checkmate?" I immediately noticed the queen on f7, with the Black king having nowhere to run.  But when I looked for the bishop on c4 it was not there. In fact it was still at home on f1. Instead White had performed a rook lift via h3, and the supporting piece was happily sitting on f3. But mate is still mate, no matter how it is achieved, and so the inventive White player still scored the point.
 (The following game is probably not an exact record, but a recreation of how it might have occurred)


White - Black
ACT Primary Interschool, 11.06.2015

2015 O2C Doeberl Cup - Day 1

With the shift to the third new venue in 3 years, it would be interesting to see how the players reacted to the new, quieter surroundings of University House at the Australian National University. As it turned out the reaction was very positive, although it turned out that the venue gave a surprising home ground advantage to one group of players.
The 70 player Premier was headed my a group of Grandmasters, followed by some talented and ambitious IM's. But it was a group of local Canberra players who provided some of the real surprises in the early rounds. Dr Andrey Bliznyuk, who is a researcher at the ANU held third seed GM SS Ganguly to a draw. Then Fred Litchfield, a first year ANU student, upset IM Bobby Cheng. It wasn't just locals doing the damage though, with Jonas Muller from Queensland really upsetting the form guide by beating GM Zong Yaun Zhao on board 4. Indian GM RB Ramesh also had an interesting experience, being paired against his wife WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy in the first round, taking a draw in game where she was better for quite a while.
Upsets continued in the second round when the top seed, GM Loek Van Wely, was beaten by IM Gary Lane. Young Victorians Ari Dale and Jack Puccini drew with their GM opponents, Karl Zelesco beat IM Trevor Tao, and Fred Litchfield scored a second win, this time against 2395 rated Mu Ke in a tricky knight and pawns versus lots of pawns ending.
So while there are still 9 players on 2/2, only 2 of them (Zhou and Johansen) are GM's, Round 3 begins at 1pm thus afternoon, which will also see the Major (Under 2000), Minor (Under 1600) and Mini (Under 1200) start. Even if you are not playing, you can come alog and watch, as well as listen to GM Ian Roger's commentary which normally starts abut 90 minutes into each round.
Full results, games, live coverage etc can be found at www.doeberlcup.com.au


Litchfield,Fred - Cheng,Bobby [B24]
O2C Doeberl Cup Premier Canberra (1.8), 02.04.2015

Tricks and traps

I am just looking over the games from the Gibraltar Masters, which was won by Hikaru Nakamura with 8.5/10. As in a big open swiss like this, there is plenty of variety in terms of the games, from long drawn out 2700 v 2700 clashes, to the 'oops I missed that' brevities.
It is often the latter that interest me most, so I present a small selection of very short games from the event.

In this first game Black made the familiar mistake of leaving the bishop hanging out on b4 while allowing Qa4+. But the big mistake was not calculating further, as 6. .. Nc6 7.d5 Bxc3+ 8.bxc3 exd5 9.cxd5 g5! 10.dxc6 b5!! at leaves Black in the game.

Holleland,Sigve (2116) - Mahoney,Ian (1838) [A00]
The 2015 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festi Caleta Hotel, Gibraltar (7.106), 02.02.2015

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Bg5 h6 5.Bh4 d6 6.Qa4+ 1-0

In the second game, White is seemingly unaware of a similar trick in the Albin Counter Gambit, and greedily grabs the bishop on b4. After 8. ... exf2+ the White queen drops.

Kuenitz,Klaus (1680) - Bauer,Dieter (1728) [A00]
The 2015 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festi Caleta Hotel, Gibraltar (5.122), 31.01.2015

1.d4 c5 2.Nf3 cxd4 3.Nxd4 d5 4.c4 e5 5.Nb5 d4 6.e3 Bb4+ 7.Bd2 dxe3 8.Bxb4 exf2+ 0-1

And in the final game 12.Nh5 might be termed a 'positional' trap, as after 13.Nxf6 Black has to play gxf6, with a ruined pawn structure. Instead 13. ... Qxf6 14.Bxd5 just wins as any recapture allows a winning check by White.

Compton,Alistair (2071) - Klug,Christian (1884) [A00]
The 2015 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festi Caleta Hotel, Gibraltar (6.103), 01.02.2015

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 Nf6 8.Ne5 Bh7 9.Bc4 e6 10.Qe2 Nd5 11.0-0 Be7 12.Nh5 Bf6 13.Nxf6+ Qxf6 14.Bxd5 1-0