2007 Commonwealth Championship

The 2007 Commonwealth Championship begins on 2nd December. After languishing for a number of years the tournament has taken on a new lease of life in the hands of the Indian Chess Federation. This years event includes junior and womens tournaments and at last count had attracted 280 players.
Australia is well represented with IM Aleks Wohl and IM David Smerdon in the Open and WFM Shannon Oliver playing in the Womens Championship. Other Australian players are Gareth Oliver (U20), Jamie Kenmure (U20), Alexandra Jule (U20G), Rebecca Harris (U18G), Benjamin Harris (U16), Harry Hughes (U8).
The website for the event is http://www.delhichess.com/

The Power of Checks and Captures

I was doing some group coaching last night at my chess club, and the first position up for discussion was the one shown on the right. It is Black to move and win.
This position comes from the game Fish-Abrahams, 1929, although my source was The Power Chess Program by GM Nigel Davies.
Now a problem like this is normally pretty easy to solve, but a position like this may not be. So let me explain.
If you are shown a position like this the act of it being shown to you is a big clue that some cleverness is afoot. And often knowing there is a solution is half the battle in problem solving. So armed with the knowledge that this is a "problem" trying anything and everything until you find the right move isn't a huge strain.
Now there are a couple of other interesting things about the solving process. My intention with this problem (and the others that followed) wasn't to see who could come up with the quickest or cleverest solution, but to aim for a systematic approach. In this case I impressed the need to look at all checks and captures. While most players know the importance of this rule, due to mental laziness we often look at "some" checks and captures. This is because we either dismiss some moves as "stupid" and don't even try them, or more commonly, we look at the first couple of checks or captures and then decide that the third capture (out of 6 or 7) "must" be the right move and proceed to ignore everything else.
Interestingly enough it was the more experienced players who fell into this trap, and it was a newer player who said "lets try 1... Qxf3", which turns out to be the correct move. Nonetheless this was also an exercise in calculation and while they found that 2.gxf3 Bh3+ 3.Kg1 was forced, they hit a wall at this point, mainly because they weren't allowed to move the pieces. After that restriction was lifted, they quickly found 3... Nxd4 4.Qd1, although it then took a little time to spot 4. ... Re1+ 5.Qxe1 Nf3#
As an exercise in Checks and Captures it was great, as every Black move is either a check or a capture. As an exercise in disciplined thinking it was also good, as the key move was a move that the casual observer may discard (although the experienced chess player might find simply because it is a chess problem).
But there is a small sting in the tail. While trying to impress on the players that Black won by choosing a "less obvious" move, we gave White no such leeway during the solving process. The trap that the group (including myself) fell into was assuming that 2.gxf3 was forced for White, when the non-capturing 2.Ne2 leaves 2 Black pieces still under attack. Of course Black can emerge with an advantage with 2... Nxd4 3.Nxd4 Q runs away, but it isn't the forced mate/win that the combination seems to be.

The Social Network

Until now I've avoided the whole social network phenomena, although this is more to do with my laziness than any other reason. But I got pinged today with an invite to join linkedin.com, which is a kind of social network, but aimed at the professional/job hunting market. So I accepted the invitation and filled in all the various details.
Now the whole idea of these networks is to put you in touch with people of similar skills/interests or in touch with people who are in touch with people etc etc etc This got me thinking about how such a network might help chess.
Lots of chessplayers have a social network of other chessplayers. And some chessplayers have a network of people who aren't chessplayers. But often these networks are quite distinct (and are kept disticnt), meaning that chess doesn't draw on the resources that the non chess community might bring in. But via a mechanism like linkedin or facebook there might be an opportunity for these groups to come into contact with each other, to the benefit of both.
So what I am interested in doing is building up a network of chessplayers, both as a conduit for the sharing of chess related ideas (especially in the areas of tournament organisation and marketing), and as a way of increasing the visibility of the chess community through the professional world. To do this I invite you to have a look at www.linkedin.com/in/shaunpress and decide if it is a worthwhile endeavour. I will be interested in seeing what contacts the chess community actually has with the outside world, and what help that can bring to the game.

Sox problems and solutions

If you are doing any audio processing work under Linux, then Sox is a very useful tool to have. The Sox homepage refers to it as "the swiss army knife of sound processing programs".
Unfortunately the new release (14.0.0) has a problem under certain Linux distros.
The problem appears when processing .wav files (and maybe others) and shows up with an error message "Could not find data chunk". This is caused by the use of the "fseek0" function call instead of the previous "fseek" function call.
The solution is a simple one. In the src/misc.c file change the fseek0 function call to fseek ,then recompile and run make install. Worked a treat for me.

Australians at the World Youth Championships

The World Youth Championships has 2 rounds to go and most Australian eyes are focused on the Under 12 Championship. Queensland FM Gene Nakauchi is in =2nd place with 7.5/9, half a point behind Ivan Bukashin of Russia.
Of the Canberra based players, Ethan Derwent is on 3.5 in the Under 8's while Emma Guo has scored 5 points in the Girls Under 12's.


Moussard,J (2261) - Nakauchi,G (2040) [D02]
WORLD YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIP 2007 (12) Limra Hotel - Kemer/Antalya (6.10), 22.11.2007

1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 c5 3.Bg2 Nc6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 e5 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.c4 Nf6 8.Nc3 e4 9.Bg5 Bb4 10.0-0 0-0 11.Bxf6 gxf6 12.Qa4 Bxc3 13.bxc3 Qc7 14.f3 f5 15.fxe4 fxe4 16.Rf6 Be6 17.Raf1 Qe5 18.Qc2 Rab8 19.Qd2 e3 20.Qc2 Rfd8 21.Bxd5 cxd5 22.Qa4 d4 23.cxd4 Rxd4 24.Qxa7 Rbd8 25.R1f3 R8d7 26.Qa8+ Kg7 27.Qe8 Qc5 28.h4 Rd2 29.h5 Qxh5 30.Rxe3 Qc5 0-1

Another well placed Australian is Sean Gu, whose current 6/9 in the Under 8's could turn into a top 10 finish if results go his way.

Zhao exits World Cup early

Oceania representative IM Zong Yuan Zhao was an early casualty from the 2007 FIDE World Cup. Zhao had the tough assignment of defeating Magnus Carlsen in the first round, and despite some solid resistance on both games was beaten 2-0.

Carlsen,M (2714) - Zhao Zong Yuan (2491) [E11]
World Cup Khanty-Mansiysk RUS (1.2), 25.11.2007

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.d4 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 Qe7 5.g3 Nc6 6.Nc3 Bxc3 7.Bxc3 Ne4 8.Qc2 Nxc3 9.Qxc3 0-0 10.Bg2 d6 11.d5 Nb8 12.0-0 e5 13.c5 Bg4 14.Rac1 a5 15.Rfe1 Na6 16.cxd6 cxd6 17.Nd2 b6 18.Qe3 Nc5 19.b3 Bd7 20.a3 Bb5 21.b4 axb4 22.axb4 Nd7 23.Ne4 Rfb8 24.Rc7 Qd8 (D) 25.Rc6 Bxc6 26.dxc6 d5 27.cxd7 dxe4 28.Bxe4 Ra4 29.Bc6 Rxb4 30.Qxe5 Qf8 31.Rd1 Rd8 32.Rd3 Rg4 33.Re3 Rg6 34.Qe7 Re6 35.Rxe6 fxe6 36.Qxe6+ 1-0

Another player making the early trip home was IM Robert Gwaze, who was defeated 2-0 by Alexi Shirov. Full coverage of the event is here.

Porridge for Kasparov

While the Australian voting public successfully changed the government yesterday, those opposed to Putin's rule in Russia are having a much harder time of it. Opposition figurehead Gary Kasparov was arrested at a protest march and has been sentenced to 5 days in jail. Apparently Kasparov's group had been given permission to hold a 'rally', but not a 'march' and this was the reason he was given time in jail.
This story is getting plenty of coverage in the print media (eg The New York Times) and SBS (Australia) News was even covering it this evening.
In other news concerning former World Champions, Chesstoday is reporting that Bobby Fischer has been hospitalised in Reykjavik, suffering from 'serious physical problems'.