Chess rule of the day

9.2 - Threefold repetition (of position)

How good is your chess trivia

I've stumbled across a fun little chess trivia game that you can spend 5 or so minutes playing. It is from the Sporcle website, which I assume has a whole lot of these little trivia games, covering a number of different categories.
But rather than just be a straight forward "how many can you answer" type quiz, the goal is to make your way from a8 to h1 on the chess board. Starting at the the top left, every time you correctly answer a question it reveals questions on adjacent, but no-diagonal squares. The goal is to reveal, and answer, the question on h1 in as short a time as possible.
My first attempt took around 2:30 but taking advantage of the fact the the questions do not change my second attempt took 44 seconds. If you want to have a go then just visit http://www.sporcle.com/games/survivor/easier-than-beating-kasparov and see how much you know.

2015 Vikings Weekender

The Tuggeranong Chess Club and the ACT Chess Association are pleased to announce that the 2015 Vikings Weekender will be held on the 14th & 15th November 2015, at the Tuggeranong Vikings Rugby Union Club, Wanniassa.
This long running event is the third of Canberra's 3 weekend events and has seen a growing popularity in the last few years. The tournament will be run in 2 sections, with first prize in the Open of $1000, while the first prize in the Under 1600 event (sponsored by O2C) is $500.
You can enter the tournament online at http://vesus.org/festivals/2015-vikings-weekender/ and download a tournament brochure at the same link.

2015 George Trundle Masters

The Auckland Chess Centre is once again hosting the George Trundle Masters, which provides opportunities for both New Zealand and Australian players to earn title norms. This years event sees a field of 4 Australian's, 5 Kiwi's and 1 Frenchman taking part. Top seed is Australian GM Darryl Johansen, with the rest of the field pretty evenly matched in the 2260-2360 range.
The first round saw 4 of the 5 games ending decisively, with 3 of the 4 wins going to Australian players. Darryl Johansen played a nice game against FM Bob Smith, while FM Karl Zelesco's win over FM Tim Reilly gives a good start to his chase for an IM norm.
Results of the event (and the Challengers) can be found here. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a live broadcast of games, but games should be available at some point.
(Thanks to FA Alana Chibnall for providing me with the game scores from round 1)


Smith,Robert W (2233) - Johansen,Darryl (2419) [B23]
George Trundle NZ Masters 2015 (1.3), 26.09.2015

2015 Malaysian Open Update

Just had a quick look at the latest results from the 2015 Malaysian Open and Australian IM's Moulthun Ly and Anon Smirnov are well placed after 7 rounds. Ly is tied for third on 5.5/7, while Smirnov is in the next group of players on 5. While both also have TPR's of over 2500, unfortunately even a 2/2 finish for wither player won't result in a GM norm, as neither of them can play the 3 GM's required for a valid norm. Smirnov has played 1 so far (but has a non gm in round 8), while Ly has not played any of the 8 GM's in the 141 player field.
Further back are IM's Junta Ikeda, Brodie McClymont and Max Illingworth (who are all on 4.5/7).  Despite the distance they all travelled, McClymont plays Ikeda in round 8, having played Illingworth a few rounds earlier!

Eljanov marches on

One of the criticisms of the World Cup format is that the matches (2 games) are too short to be a fair reflection on the strength of the respective players. A first game loss in a match between players of near equal strength is almost always fatal, while the safe option of draw-draw results in the lottery of rapid chess.
While this is true for most matches, one player is simply winning his matches and moving on to the next round. Pavel Eljanov started the event with 2-0,2-0,2-0 before easing up with in round 4, tying 1-1 with Jakovenko. However he won the first set of rapid matches 1.5-0.5, and then eliminated Nakamura 1.5-0.5 is round 5. He is +7 in the classical games (7 wins, 3 draws) , which is 4 points better than the remaining players!
Here is the first game of his match against Nakamura, where he gave up 2 pieces for R+2 pawns. To borrow from computer chess R+P v 2 minors generally favours the minors by half a pawn, but R+2P is around half a pawn better for the R. This seemed to be confirmed in this game, where Eljanov looked better after the swap, but still had to work to finally convert.


Eljanov,Pavel (2717) - Nakamura,Hikaru (2814) [E06]
FIDE World Cup 2015 Baku AZE (5.1), 23.09.2015

Easy does it

The diagrammed position came from a tournament game I played the other night. My position had been better for quite a while, but I spent a lot of time shuffling about, trying to find a way to crack my opponents defensive set up. His last move was 29. ... Rc6.
I spent some time choosing between two main alternatives, which probably lead to two quite different types of game. As an exercise for the reader, can you guess which option I chose, and how the game finished up? (Hint: I did win!)