Every tempo counts

The following position was reached in the first round of the ACT Championships. It is Black's move and the first decision is whether to go into a king and pawn ending with Rg1+. To make the correct call, Black needs to be able to calculate whether the ending is winning/drawn/lost. In positions like this counting tempo correctly is crucial.
Black decided to play 43. ... Rg1+ and after the forced 44.Qxg1 Rxg1+ 45.Kxg1 Kxd5 46.Kf2 he then had to decide how to clean up the a and b pawns. Meanwhile the spectators (including me) had come to the conclusion that Black now wins by a tempo with 46. ... Kc4 47.Kf3 Kb3 48.Kf4 Kxb2 Turns out we were horribly wrong as White is winning by a tempo in this position. However Black was a little smarter than we were as he grabbed the a pawn with 48. ... Kxa4 (instead of 48. ... Kxb2) and after 49.Kxf5 Kb3 50.Kg5 Kxb2 51.Kxh5 a5 52.Kg6 a4 53.h5 a3 54.h6 a2 55.h7 a1(Q) 56.h8(Q)+ Kb1 57.Qxa1+ the game was drawn.
However, the post mortem revealed how tricky these endings really are, as White missed a win with 48.a5! forcing Black to take an extra move to capture the a pawn, and losing by a tempo. And if 48.a5! was good for White, it turned out that 46. ... a5! was just as good for Black, when Black ignores the queenside pawns and instead shepherds the f pawn up the board instead!

2010 ACT Championship - Day 1

A field of 30 players rolled up for the 2010 ACT Championship. This number is what was expected/hoped for, given the new tournament format. A couple of stronger players who were expected to take part were last minute withdrawals, in part to a stomach bug that seems to floating about Canberra at the moment.
This leaves top seed Junta Ikeda outrating the rest of the field by over 300 points. Clearly with this sort of advantage he is favourite to win the tournament, and at the end of the first day he is on 2/2. Also on a perfect score are Pete Morris, Milan Grcic and Adrian De Noskowski.
As for the tournament format (9 rounds over 2 weekends at 2 rounds a day), it was well received by those who turned up. The most common comment was that it felt like a real championship, rather than just a club event with a few visiting players.
The tournament crosstable and a pgn file of games can be found at Ian Rout's website. In fact Ian probably played the best game of round 1, with a sacrificial win over junior player Yijun Zhang. On move 19 Zhang tried an aggressive move in the centre, only to be met by a whole series of aggressive moves aimed at his king. Ian then finished the game off with a nice rook sacrifice.

Zhang,Yijun (1286) - Rout,Ian (1868) [C91]
2010 ACT Championship Canberra (1.4), 27.02.2010

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 d6 9.d4 Bg4 10.Qd3 Bxf3 11.gxf3 Nh5 12.Bd5 Qd7 13.Be3 exd4 14.Bxc6 Qxc6 15.cxd4 f5 16.Nc3 fxe4 17.fxe4 Qd7 18.Nd5 Qg4+ 19.Kf1 Bh4 20.Qb3 Kh8 21.Nxc7 Rac8 22.Ne6 Rf3 23.Qd5 Bxf2 24.Bxf2 (D)
24. ... Rxf2+ 25.Kxf2 Rc2+ 26.Re2 Rxe2+ 27.Kf1 Qg2# 0-1

ACT Primary Schools Girls Teams Championship

The ACT Junior Chess League kicks off the inter-school chess calendar with the Primary Schools Girls Team Championships. Today the North Canberra zone of the Championship, with 41 teams taking part. What was particularly good about this turn out (165 players btw), was that the event filled up within a day of entries being called for.
The event itself was played in excellent spirit, with the arbiters job a fairly light one. Of course there were the usual set of bizarre stalemates, but overall the quality of chess seemed higher than in previous years.
At the end of the day 2 teams shared first place, with the Turner Kingfishers edging out the North Ainslie Cockatoos on tiebreak. The Amaroo Amazers (from the school mentioned in yesterdays blog) finished in third place.

Chess in School

For 2010, Amaroo School (in Canberra, ACT) has added chess to the school curriculum. Each 3,4 and 5 grade classes (250+ kids in total) has 1 hour of chess per week one of its regular subjects. The classes are run in a specialised chess classroom, which is fitted out with sets, posters and will soon have a smart-board system installed. The classes are taught by one of the schools teachers, who has put together a chess course for the year.
The school is also running 2 lunchtime chess clubs (one for primary school and the other for high school) and are getting 60+ children to each session.
Of course the aim of the program isn't just to get more kids playing chess (although that is always a nice goal to achieve) but to also use chess as a tool to improve the educational outcomes of the school's students. At the school's Parent Information evening, the listed benefits of the program included improved concentration and problem solving skills, as well as better memory and strategic thinking.
Hopefully the program will produce masses of happy, smart, chess playing kids (including my daughter) and that its success will encourage other schools in Canberra to implement similar programs.

2010 ANU Chess Club Masters - GOTW

The 2010 ANU Chess Club Masters has reached round 3 and Adrian De Noskowski has taken a suprise lead. He has started the event with 3 straight wins, and holds a half point lead over top seed Andrey Bliznyuk and Emma Guo.
In his round 3 game he was able to keep Ian Rout's king in the centre long enough to bring his rooks into play. The after opening the lines in the centre he was able to launch an unstoppable attack.

De Noskowski,Adrian (1937) - Rout,Ian (1984)
2010 ANU Masters (3), 24.02.2010

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 Bg4 5.Qb3 Qb6 6.Ne5 Bh5 7.Nc3 e6 8.Bd3 Nfd7 9.0-0 Nxe5 10.dxe5 Nd7 11.f4 Nc5 12.Qxb6 axb6 13.Bc2 dxc4 14.h3 Bg6 15.e4 f5 16.exf6 gxf6 17.f5 exf5 18.exf5 Bf7 19.Re1+ Kd7 20.Bf4 Re8 21.Red1+ Kc8 22.b4 Nd3 23.Bxd3 cxd3 24.Na4 Bxb4 25.Nxb6+ Kd8 26.Rxd3+ Bd5 27.Nxd5 cxd5 28.Rxd5+ Ke7 29.Rb1 Ba3 30.Rxb7+ Kf8 31.Bh6+ Kg8 32.Rd3 1-0

When are you expected to see everything?

The round 8 game between Topalov and Aronian from the current Linares tournament is provoking some interesting discussions on the various chess forums around the world. In the diagrammed position Topalov played 34.Bb3 and the game was eventually drawn. Instead Topalov could have played 34.Rxe4 which leads to a winning position after 34. ... Qxe4 35.Qc3+ Kg8 36.Qc7!
Topalov's missed win has been described in a number of different ways. Commentators on ICC described it as a 'blunder', while young GM Anish Giri thought that a 2800 player should have found 34. Rxe4 in a couple of seconds.
On the other hand GM Mikhail Golubov in ChessToday was far more diplomatic. "Missing a really nice win" was his comment to White's 34th move.
Personally I prefer Golubov's take on the situation rather than the "OMG, he didn't see everything" crowd. In part because I feel the commentators are holding Topalov to a standard of perfection that none of us will ever achieve, and also because it is easier to find moves like 34.Rxe4 from a 'standing start' rather than as part of the thread of a 3 or 4 hour game.

More useful studies

Using studies as a training tool is (a) quite effective and (b) not that popular. As with other chess problems (in the classical sense) chess players tend to shy away from 'unreal' positions. But it is only looking at 'normal' positions, and 'normal' moves that can cause the biggest blunders.
The diagrammed position is from a game played at Street Chess last week. It was one of the last games to finish for the round, the crowd had gathered round, and White was running short of time. No problems. With the study like 1.Qa4 (resisting the usual urge in Queen endings to check like a maniac) White set up a mate in 1, and iced the game.