Olimpbase

One of the most useful websites for fans of Olympiad chess is www.olimpbase.org It contains all the results from the chess olympiads, including individual player records, and even games (where available). It has just recently been updated to include the results from Dresden.
For a stat-head such as myself it is interesting to trawl through it looking for interesting records and statistics. For example Lajos Portisch has scored the most points in a career with 176.5 (from 20 Olympiads), while Bill Hook in 6th place (140 points) is the only non-GM in the top 20.
I clock in at =692nd place with 30 points, although I discovered that ties me with Lajos Steiner, although he only took 49 games to reach this mark (as opposed to my 61). And he played a higher level of opposition as well, as this game shows.

Fine,R - Steiner,L [B40]
Warsaw ol (Men) Warsaw, 1935

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.Nde2 0-0 8.0-0 Ne5 9.h3 a6 10.Bf4 Qc7 11.Kh1 d6 12.Bh2 Bd7 13.f4 Nxd3 14.Qxd3 Bc6 15.a3 Bc5 16.Ng3 Rfd8 17.Rad1 b5 18.Qe2 b4 19.axb4 Bxb4 20.Rd3 Qb7 21.e5 Ne8 22.f5 dxe5 23.fxe6 f6 24.Nf5 Rxd3 25.cxd3 Kh8 26.d4 g6 27.dxe5 gxf5(D)
28.exf6 Nxf6 29.Rxf5 Rg8 30.Rf2 Rg6 31.Be5 Be7 32.Qd2 Kg8 33.Kh2 Ne8 34.Qf4 Bf6 35.e7 Qxe7 36.Qc4+ Qf7 37.Qxc6 Bxe5+ 0-1

Another interesting scoring system

If you use Google News to look for up to date chess stories, then you will find plenty of coverage of the "Battle of GM's" chess tournament currently running in the Philippines. While most of the coverage focuses on Wesley So's march to victory, it also reveals the use of an interesting scoring system. Instead of the normal 1.0,0.5,0 system, the tournament is awarding 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. No surprises so far, except in the case of draw by stalemate. If this happens the stalemated player gets 0.5 points but the player forcing the stalemate (ie the player who played the last move) gets 1.5 points.
While this may seem odd, it opens up a some new endgame stratagems. While KNN v K is normally not worth playing out, under this system the stronger player can at least score 1.5 points by forcing a stalemate. And K+PvK endings can now be played to the end. Indeed at Dubbo if this system was being used Fritz Van Der Waal may have taken 3rd place outright as he could have stalemated Tony Weller in their tense final round draw.
The other interesting feature of this tournament is their treatment of the 'No agreed draws in under 30 moves' rule. So and Rogelio Antonio breached this rule by agreeing to a draw in 16 moves in their Round 6 game. The NCFP (National Chess Federation of the Philippines) simply ordered the players to play the game again, which they will do tomorrow.

Dubbo Weekender - Day 2

2nd seed David Castor is the 2009 Dubbo Open Champion, finishing the event with 5.5/6. After finishing Day 1 with 3/3 Castor scored a win in round 4 over top seed Raul Samar, after Samar suffered a 'mobile phone loss'. Castor then won a long rook and pawn ending against Emma Guo, before a 4 move draw against Angelito Camer rounded out the event.
Camer finished in second place on 5 points, with a 5 way tie for third. In this group on 4.5 were Tony Weller, Emma Guo, Alan Setiabudi, Fritz Van Der Waal, and myself. After my horrible start yesterday (0.5/2) I strung together 4 wins, although none of my opponents was rated above 1300, and I clearly had the worst tie-break of the third place getters.
Various Canberra players finished in the prizes including Alana Chibnall and Megan Setiabudi (Under 1600), Joshua Bishop and Glen Ingham (Under 1200), and Jo Mason (best Under 800) and Jamie-Lee Guo (2nd Under 800)

Dubbo Weekender - Day 1

An excellent field of 43 players turned up for the 2009 Dubbo Open. Top seed is Raul Samar, while tournament regular David Castor seeded second. The Canberra contingent is also there in force, with 20 players from the nation's capital making the 4 hour trip north.
In the second round there was an interesting, and amusing incident on board 3. Jamie Davidson (white) and Angelito Camer had reached the diagrammed position after 2 hours of play. Davidson had 2 and half minutes on the clock, while Camer had about 5 minutes. At this point Camer put out his hand, for what most assumed was a draw offer, and Davidson accepted. Of course this isn't the correct way of offering a draw, although I have seen it happen plenty of times, even at the highest levels. And it turned out that while Camer had assumed the draw had been agreed, Davidson believed his opponent was resigning. The mix up was only discovered when the draw for the third round was announced. The only solution was to resume the game from the last position reached, which both players were happy to do. After a few more moves, the game was drawn anyway!
After 3 rounds Samar, Castor and Emma Guo share the lead with 3/3. I started with a loss in round 1 (to Joshua Bishop), a draw in Round 2 (to Charles Bishop), before finally managing a win in round 3. My only hope of a decent finish is if the trend (0,0.5,1.0) continues and I score 1.5 in round 4.

An old fashioned beat down

The Melody Amber tournament finished yesterday, with Lev Aronian finishing outright first with 14/22. He did this by scoring 7/11 in both the blindfold and rapid sections. In the blindfold he shared top spot with Carlsen and Kramnik, while in the rapid he tied for first with Kamsky and Anand.
One of the more interesting games in the blindfold tournament occurred towards the end of the event, when Carlsen went up against Kramnik. Chessvibes suggested that Carlsen was "playing far below his normal level", but to me it was just a good old fashioned beat down.

Carlsen,M (2776) - Kramnik,V (2759) [E32]
18th Amber Blindfold Nice FRA (10), 25.03.2009

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 0-0 5.e4 d6 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.Nge2 Ba5 8.0-0 Bb6 9.d5 Nb4 10.Qd2 exd5 11.cxd5 Ng4 12.Bb1 Qh4(D)
13.Qf4 f5 14.exf5 Bxf5 15.h3 Bxf2+ 16.Kh1 Bd7 17.Qg5 Bc5 18.Rxf8+ Rxf8 19.Ng1 Rf1 20.Bxh7+ Kh8 0-1

The one and only move

A simple looking study by Hermann Mattison, but one that embodies a reasonable amount of endgame knowledge. White is trying to draw this position (a win is out of the question), and there is only 1 move that will do it. Which move would you choose and why?

Greatness denied

Gordon Crown was an English player who could have become one of the greats of post WW2 chess. In the 1947 Anglo-Russian Match he finished 1-1 with Alexander Kotov, with both players winning a game each. Tragically for Crown, and British chess, he died at the age of 18 years old.
Here is an example of his attacking skill, from a correspondence game he played in 1947.

Crown,G - Leeson [B02]
corr, 1947

1.e4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.e5 Nfd7 4.e6 fxe6 5.d4 c5 6.dxc5 Nc6 7.Nf3 Nxc5 8.Bb5 Qd6 9.g3 Nd7 10.0-0 g6 11.Re1 Bg7 12.Ng5 Bxc3 13.Rxe6 Qc5 14.Bxc6 bxc6 15.bxc3 h6 16.Qe2 Nf8 17.Be3 Qc4(D)
18.Rxe7+ Kd8 19.Nf7+ Kxe7 20.Bc5+ Kf6 21.Qe5+ Kxf7 22.Qe7+ Kg8 23.Qxf8+ Kh7 24.Qf7# 1-0