2025 ACT Interschool Year

The ACT Junior Chess League has had another successful year of Interschool Chess. The first event was held at the start of April and the last events (ASTC playoffs) finished on the weekend of the 25th and 26th of October

In terms of numbers we had 527 players in our Primary School events and 334 players in our Secondary events. The largest primary event had 115 players (Tuggeranong) and the largest secondary event had 101 players (North Canberra).

The winning school in each event was

Primary Zones

Central Canberra Zone: Ainslie Primary

Belconnen Zone: Kaleen Primary

Tuggeranong Zone: Trinity Christian School

Gungahlin Zone: Brindabella Christian College

Primary Final: Brindabella Christian College

Girls Primary Final: Canberra Girls Grammar 

Secondary Zones

South Canberra Zone: Canberra Grammar School

North Canberra Zone: Lyneham High

Secondary Final: Lyneham High School

ASTC Playoff Primary: Majura Primary

ASTC Playoff Secondary: Marist College

Next years interschool will start in Term 1 (Girls Primary and Secondary), with the Open Primary and Secondary Zones in Term 2 

The ironing is delicious

One of the more borderline cases in 'sudden death' chess is K+R v K+R Normally sensible players would agree to a draw one the last pawn cam off the board (and their were no immediate mates or tricks) but some players insist they can play one. 

I had such a case in a junior rapid I was running today, where the aforementioned position occurred. I was alerted to it by an illegal move claim, and I dutifully gave an extra minute to the player making the claim. This left him with 9 minutes and his opponent 8 minutes. The opponent then offered a draw, but the player with the extra minute insisted on playing on. Maybe he was hoping for a 2nd illegal move (which would have been a poor way to win), or maybe he was hoping to flag his opponent. But in avoiding any repetitions etc he managed to get his pushed to the edge of the board, where all he need to do was check the opponents king to avoid mate. But did he do so? Of course not! He moved his rook and then seemed shocked when his opponent mated him. 

So my usual speech about poor sportsmanship was replaced with a speech about karma instead.

Better OCR with AI

 I've been avoiding the whole AI revolution (ChatGPT etc) if only because I have seen earlier attempts fail (going bake into the 1980's). But I deided to see if it could solve one issue for me, and it seems to have done so.

Converting old chessbooks (out of copyright of course) into text has been a challenge in the past. The formats and notations left traditional OCR software struggling, and the unusual fonts also lead to trouble. But I threw the first page of an old pdf I have titled "Chess Sparks" into it, and after 15 seconds it came back with 

"CHESS SPARKS.

1.

This game affords the earliest instance on record of a kind of mate,

of which many examples will be found in the following pages.

It was played by M. de Kermur, Sire de Légal, who was born in 1702, and at the age of 85 was still the best Chess player in France, after his pupil Philidor.

White gives Q Rook.

M. de Légal.

1 P–K4         P–K4

2 B–B4         P–Q3

3 Kt–KB3       Kt–QB3

4 Kt–B3        B–Kt5

5 Kt×P         B×Q

6 B×P ch       K–K2

7 Kt mates

2.

Played at the Castle of Montmorenci in 1760.

Giuoco Piano.

J.J. Rousseau.        Prince de Conti.

1 P–K4         P–K4

2 Kt–KB3       Kt–QB3

3 B–B4         B–B4

4 P–B3         Q–K2

5 Castles       P–Q3

6 P–Q4         B–Kt3

7 B–KKt5       P–B3

8 B–R4         P–Kt4

9 Kt×KtP       P×Kt

10 Q–R5 ch     K–B sq

11 B×P         Q–Kt2

12 P–B4        P×QP

13 P–B5        P×P ch

14 K–R sq      P×P

15 B×Kt        P×R (queens)

16 P–B6        and Black resigns.

3.

Played between 1780–1795.

Philidor gives Count Bruhl the QKt in exchange for Pawn and move.

Philidor.         Bruhl.

1 P–K4         P–Q4

2 P–K5         B–B4

3 P–KKt4       B–Kt3

4 P–KR4        P–KR4

5 Kt–KR3       Q–Q2

6 Kt–B4        B–B2

7 P–Kt5        Q–B4

8 P–Q4         Q–K5 ch

9 Q–K2         Q×R

10 P–Kt6       P–K3

11 Q–Kt5 ch    Kt–Q2

12 P×B ch      K–Q sq

13 P×Kt (queens) R×Q

14 Kt×P ch     K–B sq

15 B–K3        Q×RP

16 Q×QP        B–K2

17 B–QR6       R–QKt sq

See Diagram on next page.

18 Q–B6        B–Q sq

19 B–KKt5      and wins."

which appears to be an accurate translation of the moves, and the notes.

Assuming that the level of accuracy holds up, then I look forward to resurrecting some of the more ancient works in a quick and easy manner. 

2025 ACT Junior Chess Championship

 Congratulations to Sanat Hegde for winning the 2025 ACT Junior Chess Championship. He scored an amazing 8.5/9, with ACT Girls Junior Champion Sahasra Selva the only player to take a half point off him. Amazingly, Hegde was eligible for the Under 8 section (having turned 8 this year). He won the ACT Under 10 Championship last weekend (it was a combined Under 8/10 event), but curiously, was runner up in the Under 12 Championship. 

Masaki Horikawa finished 2nd in the championship (winning the Under 16 title), with Nivin Vinothkumar 3rd and Owen MacMullin 4th. There were a number of interesting games, including the following one, which decided the final placings in the event.

Hegde,Sanat - Horikawa,Masaki [B10]
2025 ACT Junior (4)

Street Justice

 A long time ago I was playing in an event when my opponent had a tricky choice. He was better but I hoped he wouldn't see the strongest move in the position (which I had spotted). His task was made considerably easier when a spectator simply told him to play that move, which he then did. Complaints to the arbiter were met with a 'What can I do?' response, especially as my opponent claimed he was just about to play that exact move anyway.

I had a similar (but not identical) issue today. It was in a non-rated blitz event, and in this case the spectator was a player who had already finished his game in that round. Removing the interfering player from the event was an easy decision. But how to deal with the board situation was not. In the end I borrowed a ruling from Contract Bridge, where I forbade the 'lucky' player from playing the move in question, but allowing them to play any other move. They went on to win the game, so I guess no harm was done.

The other thought I had was to walk back 2 half moves, and allow the 'sinned against' player to change their previous move. I don't know if that helps, especially if the choice was forced, but it may be a way of penalise either side for the actions of a third.

Book fair Baby!

 Another Spring, another Lifeline Bookfair. This years event was very good, with lots of excellent books on various topics of interest. For the chess books, the number was small, but the quality was high. I grabbed 6 or 7 books, some for myself and some for others. There were even some recent opening books on offer, but based on the topic (QGD) I assume someone is rethinking their current opening choices.

Another topic of interest is programming books. There were more than a few up-to-date books (ie published in the last 3 years) as well as a nice section of what might be termed 'vintage' IT (eg "Programming the Z80")

If you are planning to attend (it runs tomorrow and  Sunday at EPIC, Canberra) their may be no chess books left. However if you are a poker player, or enjoy Contract Bridge, there are many many books to choose from.

It has been a long time

 While taking part in the 2025 Cairns Open, I began to wonder how long it had been since I played in an Australian weekend event. As the answer did not spring instantly to mind, it must have been quite a while. It turns out the last one I played was the 2018 ANU Open (a poor 2.5/6) , while the last event outside of Canberra was in 2016. 

At least for this event I didn't play too badly. Some poor decisions in time trouble aside, I generally played the right moves, ot at least followed the right plan. probably the best of my games was a nice attacking win with Black, using the Marshall Gambit.

Hariprakesh,Rahul - Press,Shaun [C89]
Cairns Open, 06.09.2025