A lovely piece of writing

The Riot-Act is a bulletin board that discusses all things Canberra. Politics, live music scene, various weird stuff is their usual beat, but one thing they do well is fan based rugby coverage (especially the ACT Brumbies). So there is some angst about the direction that Australian Rugby is heading under coach John Connelly. It provoked "johnboy" to write an open letter to the Australian Coach, which began with the following passage

Dear John,

We know that as a fat old neanderthal Queenslander you despise the Brumbies and all their works and long for the happy days when Queensland v. NSW was all that mattered in the world of rugby.

I think that eloquently sums up all that is wrong with Rugby in this country.

It's getting harder to attack

I was having a conversation (via Skype) with my PNG Olympiad teammate, Stuart Fancy. During the course of the conversation I remarked that chess had got much harder, especially over the last 15 years. This, I might add, is not because of the effects of age (well maybe a little), but due to the fact that players just defend better these days. I attribute this to the widespread use of computers.
As an experiment (for over 35's) , try and feed some of your early games (pre-1990) into Fritz and check out the error count for both sides. Then, if you can, try and remember what you thought of the game at the time. I'm sure the 'computer-assisted' conclusion is much harsher than the original one. Indeed, for my game against Fritz Van Der Waal that I gave a couple of days ago, I spent 5 or 6 years believing that instead of Bxf6 I would have won with Rxf6+. It was only when I put the game through my computer did I discover that I was lost no matter what I played.
Of course some games still stand the test of time, and here is one played in the 1982 Olympiad by Stuart Fancy himself. While it is certainly true that Black could have defended a whole lot better at the start, the Queen sacrifice by Fancy remains perfectly sound.

Fancy,S - Pickering,H [B06]
Luzern ol (Men) Luzern (4), 1982
1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 e6 4.Be3 Ne7 5.Qd2 0-0 6.h4 h5 7.0-0-0 d5 8.e5 Nbc6 9.Bh6 Nf5 10.Bxg7 Kxg7 11.Nge2 Nxh4 12.Qf4 Nf5 13.g4 g5 (D) 14.gxf5!! gxf4 15.f6+ Kh6 16.Nxf4 Kg5 17.Nxh5 Ne7 18.f4+ Kg6 19.Bd3+ 1-0

Games that are not Chess - Poker

Apart from chess there are other games I play. Bridge, Backgammon, Poker are the more serious of them, although I've even played an Othello tournament.
At the moment there is a real concern that Poker (specifically Texas Hold-em) is taking players away from the chess world. And it is probably a valid concern, but only in the short term. I think Chess and Poker (and Bridge, Backgammon, Pokemon etc) can all happily co-exist, and indeed provide a source of players for each other.
My recent experiences with Poker have not convinced me to give up chess. I don't believe I'm a good poker player (people keep stealing my blinds), but I thought I'd give the online tournament scene a go. The online site I used offered a series of "freeroll" qualifiers (free entry) to a money tournament. The qualifiers ran for a month, were restricted to Australian players only, and the tournament final was last night. The prize money was pretty generous compared to chess, $17,000+, especially as there was no entry fee. Each qualifier attracted about 1500 players, so I'm guessing there were 40,000+ entries in the series, although most of those would have been multiple entries. Over the month I probably played 7 to 10 qualifiers, which would have taken about 12 hours of my time. I made it to the final in the second last qualifier (top 50 finish required), and needed a top 250 placing (out of 1,320 players) in the final to earn some prize money.
Now this is not going to be some pathetic tale of how I caught a bad beat and missed out on a trip to Vegas. Instead I played very tight poker, folded most of my hands, and after two and a half hours went out when I played 55 v AQ offsuit and my opponent paired the ace. I finished 155th and earned some prize money.
How much? For 14.5-15 hours of play I earned $10. Thats about 75 cents an hour. For that I'm not giving up my day job. And indeed for that, I'm certainly not giving up chess, even if I earn $0.00 an hour for playing.
Nonetheless it was an interesting exercise to see how I would go in what is basically my first experience in tournament poker. The plus side was that I could play from home, usually lying on the lounge, and I got some free entertainment when players completely lost it after getting "backdoored" on the river.
But I guess like everything in life, if your not doing it for a living, then you're doing it for enjoyment. And if you enjoy chess more (as I do), why would you give that up.

2007 Candidates Matches

The 2007 Candidates Matches are underway in Elista. 16 players qualified by various means (2006 World Cup, Rating etc) and the top 4 players will make it to the World Championship tournament later this year. The Candidates is being run as a knock-out with 6 games matches.
The first game of Round 1 was played last night, with results and games available at the official site http://globalchess.eu/main.php. There is also coverage at the site for the World Championship tournament http://www.chessmexico.com
The players are bracketed into groups of 4 based on seeding so that the winner of the Aronian v Carlsen match will play the winner of the Adams v Shirov match to determine one of the World Championship slots.
My predictions for the 4 qualifiers are: Aronian (beating Adams), Leko (beating Bareev), Grischuk (over Ponomariov) , Gelfand (over Kamsky).
Of course with such a strong field my predictions could be utterly wrong, especially the Grischuk/Ponomariov group.
At the time of this post, both Aronian and Grischuk won their opening games, while the rest of the games were drawn.

Giving it all away

One thing I try and do with this blog is to post something new each day. So far I've been able to do that, and hopefully I will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Of course to do this I need a collection of interesting things to talk about. Sometimes current events provide me with enough information (Doeberl Cup, SIO, Zonal etc) but sometimes I have to dip into my archives to find the post of the day.
While looking through a back issue of Australian Chess Forum (a magazine I used to edit/publish, email me for prices on back issues!) I came across an article I wrote for the Xmas 1999 issue. The article was titled The Season of Giving and contained two remarkable games. Here I present the second of the two games (keeping the first up my sleeve for another day).
The games is between Grigory Serper and Ioannis Nikolaidis from 1993. The remarkable thing about this game is that Serper sacrifices every piece he has, either by allowing it to be captured for nothing or by exchanging it for a piece of lesser value. (Notes for the game are from the original article)

Serper,G - Nikolaidis,I [E70]
St Petersburg, 1993

1.c4 g6 2.e4 Bg7 3.d4 d6 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Nge2 Nbd7 6.Ng3 c6 7.Be2 a6 8.Be3 h5 9.f3 b5 10.c5 dxc5 11.dxc5 Qc7 12.0-0 h4 13.Nh1 Nh5 14.Qd2 e5 15.Nf2 Nf8 16.a4 b4 17.Nd5! The first in a stunning sequence of sacrifices. 17...cxd5 18.exd5 f5 19.d6 Qc6 [better is 19...Qa5 20.Nd3 f4 21.Bf2 h3] 20.Bb5! axb5 21.axb5 Qxb5 [21...Qb7 22.c6 Qb8 23.Rxa8 Qxa8 leaves the position balanced between the avalanche of Whites pawns and the extra black pieces] 22.Rxa8 Qc6 23.Rfa1 f4 24.R1a7 [Also good is 24.Nd3 fxe3 25.Qxe3 Kf7 26.R1a7+ Kg8 27.Nxb4 Qb5 28.Rxc8 Qxb4 29.d7+-] 24...Nd7 only move 25.Rxc8+! Qxc8 26.Qd5! fxe3 27.Qe6+ Kf8 28.Rxd7 exf2+ 29.Kf1 [29.Kxf2?? throws it all away 29...Qxc5+ 30.Kf1 Qc1+ 31.Kf2 Qxb2+ 32.Kf1 Qc1+ 33.Kf2 Qd2+ 34.Kf1 Ng3+ 35.hxg3 Qd1+ 36.Kf2 hxg3+ 37.Ke3 (37.Kxg3 Qe1+ 38.Kg4 Qh4#) 37...Bh6+ 38.f4 Bxf4+ 39.Ke4 Qd4+ 40.Kf3 Qe3+ 41.Kg4 Qe2#] 29...Qe8 [Attempting to simplify with 29...Qa6+ 30.Kxf2 Qe2+ 31.Kxe2 Nf4+ 32.Kf1 Nxe6 33.c6 fails due to Whites pawns] 30.Rf7+ Qxf7 31.Qc8+! Qe8 32.d7 Kf7 33.dxe8Q+ Rxe8 34.Qb7+ Re7 35.c6 e4 36.c7 e3 37.Qd5+ [Obviously not 37.c8Q e2+ 38.Kxf2 e1Q#] 37...Kf6 38.Qd6+ Kf7 39.Qxe7+ Kxe7 White has sacrificed all his pieces! 40.c8Q In return White gets a new Queen. 40...Bh6 41.Qc5+ Ke8 42.Qb5+ Kd8 43.Qb6+ Ke7 44.Qxg6 Black only has tricks to play for. 44...e2+ 45.Kxf2 Be3+ 46.Ke1 1-0

Oceania Zonal Titles - The Final Word(?)

Given that there is still some debate about whether players really earned their titles at the 2007 Oceania Zonal, I contacted a couple of FIDE officials concerning the reading of the regulations in the FIDE Handbook.
In part my question was

Specifically the FIDE Handbook Section on titles states

1.2 Titles achieved from International Championships:
1.21 As indicated below, a player may gain a title from such an event or, gain a single title result (norm). The requirements in 1.42, 1.46, 1.47, 1.48 and 1.49 have to be applied.

As Sections 1.42,1.46,1.47,1.48 and 1.49 refer to the requirements for title norms, is it correct to say that this clause only applies to the earning of norms in zonals (ie 20 game IM norm for 2450+ result) and does not apply to titles awarded directly for Zonal placings and performance (ie IM title for 66%, FM title for 50% results)?

The response I received from Stewart Rueben was

When I rewrote the regulations I did not intend the titles awarded for zonal placings to be subject to the norm regulations. What is written is arguably ambiguous. Even if not, if it has caused confusion, it should be rewritten.

There is no doubt in my mind that the woman who came second and scored more than 2/3rds is entitled to the WIM title. That was the purpose of the regulation written long before my time and possibly written before there were ratings.

Hopefully this closes the argument on this matter.

Many thanks to Stewart Rueben for responding so quickly to this question, and to an almost identical query from ACF Vice President Bill Gletsos.

BulletTime

Here is an idea I've had kicking around in my head for a while about how to make televised chess interesting to the non-chessplayer.
The idea is BulletTime, and is a based on presenting Bullet (1 minute) chess in a way that anyone can follow. Instead of expecting the spectators to work out who is winning themselves, you incorporate that information into the visual presentation.
If you look at the diagram on the right you can see that apart from the chessboard, there are a couple of other pieces of information. The vertical bars down the sides indicate how much time each player has left. At the start of the game the bar would be entirely filled, and be represented by some "safe" colour, such as green. As the players times run down, the bar would empty, and the colour would change towards a more threatening red. When a player runs out of time the graphic would change to indicate this.
Across the bottom the horizontal bar indicates who is winning. If white is in front the light part of the bar would move to the right, if black is winning the dark part would move to the left. This information would be provided by a computer either doing real time analysis, or in post production.
In this way spectators would be able to see at a glance who was winning the game (without having to work it out themselves) and who had more time left.
The intention is to combine this with live action footage of Bullet chess, with the video appearing on the screen where the computer board is located in the diagram. In this way you could combine the fast paced anarchy of Bullet chess, with a way of allowing people to follow what is happening.

At this stage I've just toyed with the concept, playing around with some filming and computer software, but at some point I'd like to present a 'proof of concept' demo. When I am ready I'll let you all know.