2017 World Rapid and Blitz Championship

The 2017 World Rapid and Blitz Championship begins tomorrow in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. At this stage I'm not sure who is playing (or allowed to play) as the tournament website is pretty light on detail. Of course this is of some interest as there was a fear that players from Israel (and some other countries) would be given visa's to play. Without a players list it is hard to find out what is going on in this regard, although this report from Leonard Barden indicates that FIDE's assurances on this issue may come up short.

Eighty percent of success is showing up

The 2017 ACT Rapidplay Championship was held today, and it attracted a strong field of 32 players. At the end of 7 rounds, FM Michael Kethro and IM Andrew Brown tied for first place on 6/7. However, IM Brown did create a little bit of a handicap for himself, by turning up late for the first round, and starting with a half point bye (NB He wasn't the only one, with Canberra Christmas parking being the likely cause). As a result he was playing catchup for the first half of the event, until he beat Kethro in their individual game. Then the missed first round came back to haunt him in the final round when a fortunate escape against Fred Litchfield only garnered him a half point, while Kethro drew level with a win over Willis Lo.
The larger than usual field (for a normal Canberra rapid) meant that 5/7 resulted in a 4 way tie for third. In fact all the section prizes (Under 1800, Under 1600 and Junior) needed at least +1 (4/7) to be collected, showing how competitive the tournament was.
While this was the last ACTCA event of the year, chess will be continuing over the holiday season. The local clubs are taking a bit of a break (until mid January), but Street Chess will still be running every Saturday. So if you are keen for some chess success, just remember to start by turning up.

Street Chess in Yorkshire?

Given the weather in Leeds at the moment (snow is forecast), holding Street Chess in Yorkshire may see a few chess players coming down with exposure. But that is not to say that something similar isn't worth trying. The Wakentake Cafe in Leeds hosted a semi-casual Rapidplay this evening, which had a number of similarities to the Canberra version.
The event was a 14 player tournament with 5 rounds of G/10m. The top seed was probably around 2300 but otherwise it was a group of players who would have been similar in strength to the Street Chess regulars. Between rounds we had enough time to grab drinks (beer or soft drink were both popular), and the tournament host, Peter Mason, arranged for food to be laid on before we started.
The tournament it self was smoothly run by IM Richard Palliser. Although there were prizes, it was more about having fun than the final scores. But the players gave it a big thumbs up, so much so that they are now looking at holding more events at the venue.
As it was a rapid, I did get to wheel out some of my more dodgy openings. Probably my best win was in the following game where I got to play the Traxler. My opponent captured on f7 with the bishop but I was able to use the open f file to my advantage. A coupe of pieces had to be sacrificed along the way, but this led to the mate I was looking for.


Other,An - Press,Shaun [C57]
Wakentake Blitz, 12.01.2017

Rapid and Blitz in Qatar

For the last few years the Qatar Masters has been a big event this time of year, but for 2016 it has been replaced with the FIDE World rapid and Blitz Championship. 120 players in the Open and 36 in the Womens event are playing a 3 day 15 round Rapid, and a 2 day 21 round Blitz. Magnus Carlsen is the top seed, but plenty of the worlds top players are also taking part.
After the first day Anton Korabov is the only player on 5/5. Lev Aronian is on 4.5, with a number of players on 4. Carlsen had a very shaky start, drawing with SS Ganguly (with Ganguly missing a forced mate), and losing to Pantsulaia in the 2nd round. 3 straight wins kept him in touch with the leaders, but he now has some work too do.
The official website is here, while you can follow the games at Chess24