The queen versus bits

This mornings (Canberra time) round of the Sinquefield Cup saw a number of interesting games, with Aronian taking a full point lead after beating Nakamura, and Carlsen losing to Grischuk. At the bottom end of the table the Anand v So game was also interesting, with Anand giving up his queen for rook and piece. Despite materialistic chess engines thinking this was a bad deal for Anand, he did have plenty of weak pawns to target and the game ended in a draw.
Of ten the decision to make a trade like this depends on two factors. Either you hope to co-ordinate your remaining pieces, or you hope to target the weaknesses in your opponents position. If you can do both then the end result may be in your favour, but if you have one but not the other, a draw may instead be the outcome.
In the following classic game Richard Reti plays a Queen for Rook and Minor exchange, banking on his connected rooks and active minor pieces to provide him with play. He even gets some threats against the White King, but with Rubinstein is able to cover any weak points,the game eventually ends in a draw, as Black is clearly taking a repetition.


Rubinstein,Akiba - Reti,Richard [E68]
London BCF Congress London (1), 1922

Andras who?

GM Simon Williams is a very witty and entertaining writer, as well as producing a large number of videos of his chess exploits. Often he will take on challengers on chess.com, recording both the games, and his running commentary. He seems to be a good sport about this, as playing and talking can often be quite difficult to do at the same time.
In one recent video however, he met his when paired against IM sendmeyourbestgames. At first Williams had no idea who he was playing, but even when he did find out, he still didn't know who he was up against. What he was unaware of, was the IM sendmeyourbestgames was in fact Canberra IM Andras Toth. That he was up against quite a strong player slowly dawned on Williams as he went down to two quick defeats. Even in the third game he was on the back foot for most of it, until Toth blundered into a mate, allowing Williams to at least finish with some dignity.
The video is quite fun to watch, and Williams was very gracious in his defeats. Apart from the comedy vale, they also contains a number of good tips on playing certain openings (The Dutch, not the Kings Indian, and the Dragon), and what to do, and not to do, when you are going down in flame.
There are a whole series of these clips btw and after you watch this one (embedded below) who might want to check out the clip of Williams playing the Bongcloud opening on a dare!

Your morning hack

From last nights Sinquefield Cup


So,Wesley (2779) - Nakamura,Hikaru (2814) [E99]
3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015 Saint Louis USA (6.4), 29.08.2015

Library Chess

A number of years ago Melbourne chess entrepreneur  David Cordover suggested that it should be a goal in Australia for every local library to have its own chess club. While undoubtedly a good idea, it hasn't really come to fruition, probably because Australia doesn't have the chess playing population to make it work. Of course this is kind of chicken and egg reasoning, as you need the players to support the club, and you need the club to support the players.
But every now and then there is the opportunity to draw on Library resources to have some chess activity. Kippax Library in Canberra is celebrating its 10th anniversary tomorrow (29 August), and they are running some chess activities as part of the celebrations.  If you are in the area (West Belconnen) feel free to drop in between 12 and 2 to play some chess, or witness a little bit of bullet between myself and all comers. Junior players are especially welcome, as the library is keen to organise a regular junior club, and tomorrow will help them gauge how much interest there is.

Aronian back in form

The last 12 months have been pretty lean for Lev Aronian, with a drop in form seeing him slide down the world rankings. However he has started the 2015 Sinquefield Cup strongly, and currently shares the lead with Veselin Topalov.
In the 4th round he played a smashing attack attack against Wesley So to record the only win of the round. The game is already being described as a classic, with Aronian finding play on both sides of the board. With So's king trapped in the centre, Aronian was even able to sacrifice a piece with no harm to his winning chances.
Just as it wasn't clear why Aronian was struggling in the last 12 months, it probably isn't clear why his form has returned. If *I* had to give a reason, it may be because I have stopped giving him the kiss of death by predicting him as a likely tournament winner.


So,Wesley (2779) - Aronian,Levon (2765) [E20]
3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015 Saint Louis USA (4.3), 26.08.2015

Street chess players rubbing shoulders with the gliterati

A cute story popped up in my newsfeed this morning, and it concerned one of the regular guests at Street Chess. Baldev Bedi is a regular visitor to Street Chess in Canberra, although he does not play in the actual events, preferring to play blitz while kibitizing the competition games.
In winter months he occasionally decamps to warmer climes, including Coffs Harbour on the NSW North Coast. And it was at Coffs Harbour he was spotted playing chess with a legend of Australian cinema, Jack Thompson. For Australian move goers some of his memorable roles include "The Club" and "Breaker Morant", while for overseas viewers, he was Anakin Skywalker's Step-father in Star Wars:Attack of the Clones.
The article from the Coffs Coast Advocate show the two playing a friendly game at the Coff's Bollywood Markets. The accompanying pictures shows the game in the early stages, although the article does say the Thompson was likely to be checkmated!

Quality versus excitment

Chess as sport or chess as art? Those that favour shorter time controls line up in the first camp, while others (including me btw) think that quality games are produced with slower time controls.
An interesting data point in this debate occurred in the second round of the 2015 Sinquefield Cup. Caruana v Carlsen saw both players starting with 0/1, and so a loss for either of them would almost doom their tournament. For most of the game Caruana held an advantage, but at the cost of most of his time. It is important to note that for the events of the Grand Chess Tour, the first time control is simply 40 moves in 2 hours, with an additional hour added after that, along with a 30s per move increment (from move 41). So with Caruana running short of time, salvation would only happen once he played move 40.
It turned out that Caruana did get to move 40, but only by playing a 1 move blunder which lost on the spot. By all reports the finish of this game was very exciting for the spectators, but as a distant observer it just looked like Carlsen got very very lucky. I am not knocking Carlsen's win by the way, as he took advantage of the situation before him (and his play contributed to Caruana's shortage of time). It is more that the trend of chess has been to move away from these 'sudden death' types of games (with the introduction of clocks with increments), and to see it become part of top level chess again is a little jarring (at least to me).


Caruana,Fabiano (2808) - Carlsen,Magnus (2853) [C78]
3rd Sinquefield Cup 2015 Saint Louis USA (2.4), 24.08.2015