Nepo wins GP

Ian Nepomniachtchi is the winner of the first FIDE GP ebent for 2019. He defeated Alexander Grischuk in the final 2.5-15, winning the second Rapid game after their standard games were both drawn.
Looking through the crosstable, I'm not sure the knockout format helped in terms of generating decisive results. Over 60% of the games were drawn, with only 11 wins in standard games (from a total of 30 games).
Of course in making this suggestion, I am aware that these figures aren't necessarily different from other formats that have been tried. On the other hand, the benefit of a KO is that there is a definite winner, rather than having multiple players tied for first.


Nepomniachtchi,Ian (2773) - Grischuk,Alexander (2772) [C50]
Moscow FIDE Grand Prix Moscow RUS (4.1), 29.05.2019

The big centre

Having pawns on e4 and d4 is considered advantageous, especially when they aren't being directly challenged. But eventually you do have to do something with them. The following miniature is an example of White using the pawns to gain space, and then material, when Black chooses the wrong move.

Stefansson,Vignir Vatnar (2291) - Leosson,Atli Johann (1790) [D10]
Icelandic Open 2019 Akureyri ISL (1.10), 25.05.2019

Plus 1, minus 1

Magnus Carlsen has won the Lindores Abbey Stars Rapid event, with a very minimal 3.5/6. He did this by beating Viswanathan Anand, and drawing the rest of his games. The loss by Anand consigned him to last place on 2.5/6, with Sergey Karjakin and Ding Liren tied for 2nd on 3/6. The bottm 3 players all won a single game against each other, but it was the extra loss by Anand that decided the event.


Carlsen,Magnus - Anand,Viswanathan [E48]
Lindores Abbey Stars, 25.05.2019

No draw blitz

I am looking at putting together a small blitz event, as a way of promoting chess in Canberra. The idea is to have 2 x 4 player round robins, with the winners of each group qualifying for a single game final. To make the whole thing work withing a specific time frame, I'm looking at making the following changes ...

Tie break for the RR pools: In case of a tie fir 1st, the lower rated player qualifies

Rules for the final game: No draw offers, no immediate repetitions (like the Ko rule in Go), stalemate is a loss, and bare king is a loss.

The rules for the final are so the whole thing must be decided in a single game. When mentioning to people at Street Chess on Saturday, the 'bare king' rule evoked the most comment, as a position like K+R v K+R is either to be decided on the clock, or the first player to play RxR will win (even if KxR is the legal response)

A roll of the dice

Every now and then you can try and pull off an early swindle, by playing an offbeat opening move. Against a highly rated opponent this may not work, but against other players, "rolling the dice" may pay off.
For example, the line 1.e4 e4 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.Nxe5?! Qd4 is known to be fine for Black, but if White wishes to gamble, then 6.Qh5!?! could prove a surprise for White. The most common reply is 6...Qxe4+ and while Black gets an edge in this line, they have to tread carefully after 7.Kd1. The better choice is 6...g6 when White can look at playing 7.Qg5 and after 7...Qxe4+ 8.Qe3 hope that Black is so scared of discovered checks that they avoid Qxg2!
Objectively this whole line is unsound, but if you are looking at mixing it up at faster time controls, then there may be something here for the adventurous.

Pick a player, almost any player

I enjoy reading game collections of great players, especially if the player themselves is the author. I usually pick a new player every couple of months, and play through the games from books that cover their career. Currently I am looking at a couple of books on Bent Larsen, who was one of the leading players of the 1960's and 70's.
Larsen was one of these players with a 'universal' style, in a similar way to Spassky or Keres. He was also a fan of slightly off beat openings, and famously avoided easy draws with 'chancy' moves, figuring that 2 wins and a loss was always better than 3 drawn games.
He was a 'sharp' player, but his attacks were usually built on solid positional foundations. He played many brilliant games in his career (and was on the other side of a few brilliancies as well), but the one I've chosen to feature is his win over Gligoric from the 1967 Capablanca Memorial.


Gligoric,Svetozar - Larsen,Bent [E43]
Capablanca Memorial Havana (12), 1967

Complexity

The other day I saw an interesting description of games like chess, in terms of complexity levels. (Apologies as I do not have the link to hand). The author said one of the appealing aspects of chess is that the game starts off at a low complexity level, becomes quite complicated in the middle, but most importantly, returns to low complexity levels by the end.
By this he means that the starting position is well known, as what needs to be done is basically understood by serious players, but the middle game leads to a myriad of differing positions, most of which are unique. By the end though, the goal is to reduce the complexity back to known winning (or drawing positions).
This is a new concept for me, but the author sees this a good thing, not just for chess, but for other board games. Without having vast experience with other board games, I'd guess this may be a goal in designing other games. "Analysis Paralysis" is certainly an issue in some games I have played, which does make them less attractive to me. On the other hand, the attraction of multi-player games is that everyone has a chance of winning (or influencing the result) for far longer than chess (drop a queen and its over!).