It's not just the opening

Openings go in and out of fashion, often for no other reason than they are simply regarded as "unfashionable". When Kasparov revived the Scotch Game at the highest level as an alternative to the Ruy Lopez, I remembered a quote by Svetozar Gligoric in his book on the 1972 Fischer v Spassky World Championship Match

By his magic wand he [Fischer] transformed the Sicilian Defence into an endgame of the Scotch Opening! Spassky could not believe his eyes when he realised what trap he had fallen into, applying an opening he never intended, even in a dream.

When I first read this words in the early 80's I thought is was pretty harsh, given that Gligoric never explained why an ending from the Scotch was such a bad idea.
Of course these days Grandmasters are a little more pragmatic, realising that the openings themselves may not be bad, as long as they are in the right hands. For example, when Alexander Morozevich burst on to the international scene with his 9.5/10 at the 1994 Lloyds Bank tournament, his choice of openings caused much debate. Probably the one game that caused commentators to exclaim "Hey, you can't do that!" was his round 5 win over English GM Mark Hebden.

Morozevich,A (2575) - Hebden,M (2520) [C22]
Lloyds Bank op London (6), 1994

1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6 4.Qe3 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Bd2 0-0 7.0-0-0 Re8 8.Qg3 d6 9.f3 Ne5 10.h4 c6 11.h5 d5 12.Nge2 Nc4 13.h6 g6 14.Bg5 Qb6 15.Na4 Qa5 16.Bxf6 Qxa4 17.Nc3 Bxc3 18.Bxc3 Ne3 19.b3 Qxa2 20.Rd2 Qa3+ 21.Bb2 Qe7 22.Be2 dxe4 23.fxe4 Qxe4 24.Qg5 Nd5 (D)
25.Rxd5 Qxd5 26.Qf6 Kf8 27.Bc4 1-0

So clearly it wasn't just the opening that determined the outcome of the game, it was also the player choosing it.

2008 ANU Chess Festival

A heads up for the 2008 ANU Chess Festival. The main event, the 2008 ANU Open, will be on the the 26th & 27th of July at Fenner Hall, Northbourne Ave, Braddon ACT. The structure will be the same as last year (Open and U/1600), with no increase in entry fees either. The prize pool is still a generous $3000+ with $1000 first prize in the Open.
Last years event saw 1 GM, 4 IM's, 2 WIM's, and a couple of FM's in the 26 player Open, and I suspect this year's event will be at least as strong. Indeed given the fabulous time everyone had at this years Doeberl Cup, I suspect a lot of players are planning a return visit to the nations capital.
I will post a link to the brochure an entry forms when they become available.

(Disclaimer: I am an employee of the Australian National University)

Fun with Google Maps

Looking for another way of publicising your chess club? Google Maps allows you to enter new locations into their map system. So simply locate your chess club premises on the map, then choose the "Add a place to the map option". Fill in the required details (Name etc) and after about 10 minutes is should be searchable by the rest of the world. You can even add extra details in the "Review" section.
Already a number of Australian chess clubs and businesses are doing this. To see which ones, just go to Google Maps and search on "Chess Club". To see stuff that I've added recently, you can even search for "Street Chess".
This way prospective new members can find a local club quickly and easily.

ACT Womens Championship

Congratulations to Emma Guo, the winner of the 2008 ACT Women's and Girls Championship tournament. Emma scored 6.5/7, dropping the half point when she took a bye to play in a soccer game. Second place was last years champion Alana Chibnall (6/7). Jenny Mason was the best scoring non-junior player (4.5/7).
It was pleasing to see that the event attracted a sizable field (approx 30 players). The other thing that pleased me was that the information for this report came straight from the pages of The Canberra Times (and not the chess column either!). Well done to everyone involved in the organisation of the tournament.

The House(man) always Wins

Depending on the size of the event at my local club, I sometimes take on the role of the "houseman". The houseman is a fill in player when there are an odd number of players, meaning that no one misses a game. Of cause it often means I do not know whether I am playing in a round or not, and sometimes I even begin a couple of different games, abandoning them when a latecomer arrives a few minutes after they begin.
I had just such an experience this evening, and it turned into a very fortunate one for me. Having done a head count and draw at 7:45pm I was in the draw, and playing Mark Scully. The game was a Budapest Gambit, and I was very surprised by his 4th move. At first glance it just dropped a piece, but as I began to think about what was wrong with the obvious 5.Qd5 an extra player walked in. The game was stopped (as Mark was aware of the arrangement), but before I got up I asked him what would happen if I played 5.Qd5. "Ah" he said, "this". (I've added some analysis to the proposed line showing that it might not have been so clear cut, although whether I would have found it during the game is an unanswered question)

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ne4 4.a3 b6 (D)
5.Qd5 [ RR 5.Nf3 Bb7 6.Nbd2 Qe7 7.Qc2 Nxd2 8.Bxd2 Nc6 9.Bc3 0-0-0 10.0-0-0 Rg8 11.Qxh7 g6 12.Qh4 Qxh4 13.Nxh4 Re8 14.Nf3 Bg7 15.e3 Nxe5 16.Nxe5 Bxe5 17.Bxe5 Rxe5 18.h4 Rh8 19.Rh2 Reh5 Hillarp Persson,T-Romero Holmes,A/Benidorm ESP 2003/The Week in Chess 473/1-0 (55)] 5...Bb7 [ 5...Nc5 6.Qxa8N ( RR 6.e6 fxe6 7.Qxa8 Bb7 8.Bg5 Qc8 9.Qxa7 Nc6 10.Qxb7 Qxb7 11.Nd2 Nd4 12.0-0-0 Ncb3+ 13.Nxb3 Nxb3+ 14.Kc2 Na5 15.Rd4 h6 16.Bd2 c5 17.Rh4 Nc6 18.Nf3 Be7 19.Rg4 0-0 20.Bxh6 Bf6 firefly-Jat/Internet Chess Serve 1993/0-1 (55)) 6...Bb7 7.Qxa7 Nc6] 6.Qxb7 Nc6 7.Qa6 [ RR 7.b4 a6 8.f3 Ra7 9.Qxa7 Nxa7 10.fxe4 Qh4+ 11.Kd1 Qxe4 12.e3 Qxe5 13.Ra2 d5 14.Nf3 Qd6 15.Rd2 Qc6 16.cxd5 Qa4+ 17.Rc2 Bd6 18.Nc3 Qd7 19.e4 b5 20.e5 Be7 21.Rd2 0-0 Pavlovic,M-Trifunovic,D/Belgrade SCG 2005/The Week in Chess 554/1-0 (33);
7.Nc3 Nc5 8.Bg5!] 7...Nc5 8.Qb5 a6-+

"The shortest game I never won" was his final comment.

Nifty Neighbourhood Tool

While looking at one of the blogs I read daily I cam across a nifty site called Walkscore. Based on information from Google Maps, it calculates a "walkability" score for an address or location. This score is based upon walking distance to such services as grocery stores, cinemas, bars etc Simply type in your address and see how good your location is for walking to amenities.
If you live in Canberra (like me), you will quickly see that we are not a walking city (at least in the suburbs). My current home has a walkscore of 11 (out of 100), but at least that is an improvement on where I lived as a kid, which has a score of 6. Even where I work (which is pretty close to the centre of town) only manages a score of 56. Of course when looking at these scores be aware of the GIGO principle (ie Garbage in, Garbage out). The result is only as good as the data used to calculate it.
Although to add some perspective, the area where teams will be staying for the 2008 Chess Olympiad has a score of 54, while Bled, Slovenia scored 0 (although this is clearly due to incomplete information)

A better input method?

By now many of you would have seen the video of the US Women's Championship playoff (if not it is here). For the moment I want to go past the question of how to resign, or the suitability of the tie break method and focus on the mechanics of the game.
Clearly it got down who could play the fastest moves, rather than who could play the best moves. Now while this might be good for those looking for evidence that chess is a physical sport after all, it does move away from the previous position that chess is about ideas.
So two suggestions to bring reduce the reliance on physical dexterity, and return such playoffs to a battle of brains. Firstly, sleeveless tops, so the players aren't worried about cuffs getting the way. Secondly, and more importantly, dispense with the chessboard altogether.
Instead simply have a voice operated input system, where the players announce the moves which are then automatically played on a computer screen. This way it isn't the fastest mover who wins, although it may be the fastest talker. Also a player will have to wait until their opponent has completed a move before playing there's, rather than the 'move anticipation' visible in the video. Of course the players may have to separated so that player A doesn't shout out a blunder for player B, but that is why we have arbiters.
As for the technology to do this, it is pretty simple. Probably no more than a couple of hours of programming to put it into action.