Skylanders Chess

I've never played Skylanders, and I suspect the whole idea was just a little late on the scene to interest my children, but I have seen it in toy stores and advertised on TV. Now I have very little idea about what you do with them, but I do like this idea in turning them into a sort of chess. Using the hardware that comes with Skylanders the authors children developed a new form of chess that in part relies on their special features. Particularly interesting is the idea of hiding the portal (which makes pieces above it light up) uder a chess board, and granting invulnerability to pieces that are illuminated.

2013 ANU Masters - Week 3

IM Andrew Brown continues to lead the 2013 ANU Masters after winning his 3rd round game against Justin Chow. Chow tried the slightly offbeat Veresov Opening, but was soon on the back foot. An attempt at a kingside attack was unsuccessful and Brown soon had Chow's king caught in a mating net.
FM Junta Ikeda is half a point behind after beating Adrian de Noskowski in a rook and pawn ending. de Noskowski was worse for a lot of the game but managed to find a path to a drawn rook and pawn ending. However Ikeda continued to try and convert the position and was rewarded when de Noskowski chose the wrong move.
Yijun Zhang and Steven Sengstock drew an up and down game where Zhang gave up a piece for 4 pawns, but the walked into a tactic which allowed Sengstock to clean most of them up. Sengstock then swapped into an ending he thought was winning, only to discover it was not. Micheal Wei scored is second win in a row, beating Kishore Sretharan in a rook and pawn ending. At one point Wei gave up a couple of pawns to get his passed pawn moving, and eventually Sreetharan had to surrender his rook for it. A couple of accurate moves was then enough to secure the victory.


Chow,Justin - Brown,Andrew (2295)
2013 ANU Masters Canberra, Australia AUS (3), 27.02.2013

The tolerance for draws

I've often wondered whether Australian's (and the English) have a higher tolerance for draws in chess than people from other countries (obviously excluding the other Test playing nations). Given the importance of Cricket in our shared sporting culture, the fact that a game can go for 4 or more hours and still end 1/2-1/2, probably does not surprise us. While the same argument might be made for football cultures, the shorter period that football takes to play might not create the same attitude.
The Zurich Chess Challenge currently being played between Anand, Kramnik, Caruana and Gelfand has provoked a degree of comment on this issue. At the halfway point all the players are tied on 1.5/3 with all games being drawn. The games themselves have been hard fought (and any games drawn before move 40 are to be followed by another exhibition game), but the result has still been 0.5-0.5.
Gelfand defended the results at one of the post match press conferences stating "The game is interesting. The result is just statistics". In a weird way this does remind me of old-school Rugby (The perfect game ends 3-0 to England), but ultimately people are after results. Even Gelfand hinted at this when he said "But a lot of people in the chess world only look at the results and think chess is boring". While I am not advocating a chess '20-20' to liven things up, it is worth recognising that the point of competition is to find out who is the best player.
However with 3 rounds to play I'm predicting that at least one game will end decisively, and that Kramnik will be the player to win the tournament!

2013 ACT Championship wrap

Just a short follow up to last weeks ACT Championship. 4 years ago the format was changed to a 9 round double weekender. The numbers have hovered around 30 players for each of the tournament, which is about halfway between 'scraping by' and 'fantastic'. Of course there were twice as many ACT players who could have played than actually did play, but this has always been the way. As with previous years IM Andrew Brown and FM Junta Ikeda (the strongest active players in the ACT) supported the event, even in the absence of the players closest to them in rating.
Of the players who did play, there were three particularly notable performances. Aelfric Gardiner-Garden scored 5/9, playing on the top boards for most of the tournament. Despite a rating of 1311, he drew with top seed Junta Ikeda, beat a number of higher rated opponents, and was a few moves away from finishing in third place in his final round game. Joe Lee came into the tournament as an unrated/unknown and also scored 5/9. He had played tournament chess around 30 years ago, but to do so well in one of his first tournaments back was a real achievement. Erick McPherson was another lower rated player who seemed to be on or around the top boards for most of the event. Although he ended up on 4.5, he did so the hard way.
The tournament itself ran very smoothly. This year I was assisted in my arbiting duties by Lee Forace who did an excellent job thought. There were no significant incidents to speak off, although players handwriting could always be improved. In one of the games the score sheets seem to indicate that on move 3 Black played a6, then much much later played a5 in response White's b5. As White then played bxa6 in reply, there must have been a clerical error!

2013 ACT Championship - Final Day

The 2013 ACT Championship came to a somewhat surprising end, when overnight leader FM Junta Ikeda was held to 2 draws on the final day, allowing IM Andrew Brown to take a share of first place. In the morning round Ikeda found it difficult to get any advantage against a determined Aelfric Gardiner-Garden, and the game was drawn after a Queen and Knight ending was reached. Meanwhile IM Andrew Brown played an adventurous exchange sacrifice against Ian Rout, seemingly for insufficient compensation. However in trying to strengthen his attack, Rout overlooked a tactical refutation and lost shortly after.
Theses results left Ikeda half a point in front going into the final round. Brown increased the pressure on Ikeda with a quick win over Adrian de Noskowski, while Ikeda still had to beat Allan Setiabudi. Setiabudi defended well, but with a draw in sight played a move that gave Ikeda the chance he need. However short of time Ikeda failed to to find the correct follow up (37.Qh4+) resulting in an equal position. However Ikeda made one more attempt at winning, but when he realised this might backfire on him, bailed out with a draw and a share of the title.
Harry Press and Victor Braguine finished in third place, after last round wins. Braguine also picked up the best Under 1800 prize, while Aelfric Gardiner-Garden and Bazli Karattyattil  were the best Under 1400 players. Joe Lee picked up the prize for best Under 1200/Unrated with an impressive 5/9.
Full results from this event can be found here, while games from the tournament can be downloaded here.

Ikeda,Junta (2362) - Setiabudi,Allen (1946)
2013 ACT Championship Canberra, Australia (9.1), 24.02.2013

2013 ACT Championship - Day 4

FM Junta Ikeda continues to lead the 2013 ACT Championship after 7 rounds. Despite a couple of tough games against Harry Press and Steven Sengstock, he won both games to maintain a perfect 7/7. IM Andrew Brown is in second place with 6/7, and while there are 2 rounds to play, his chances of catching Ikeda are quite slim. Former ACT Champion Ian Rout is in outright third with 5/7, but faces Brown in tomorrow mornings round. Ikeda is up against Aelfric Gardiner-Garden, who started the tournament seed 17th (out of 28 players), but is currently tied for 4th place on 4.5.
Results of the tournament can be found here, while games can be downloaded here.


Sidiqi,Wais - Brown,Andrew (2295)
2013 ACT Championship Canberra, Australia (7.2), 23.02.2013

Knighty Night

Courtesy of Richard James (co-author of  "The Complete Chess Addict") comes the following remarkable game played recently in the Czech Republic. As he says "The real fun starts at move 53", after white under-promotes, resulting in a 3Nv3P ending.  Even then Black has a couple of stalemate tricks, which White manages to avoid.


Granovskiy, A. - Grochocinska, U.
Marianske Lazne Open 2013 (1.8), 2013.01.19