Bob Meyer

Professor Bob Meyer, a former ACT Chess Association President, passed away yesterday (6th May 2009) after a long battle with cancer. Bob had been a regular fixture on the ACT club scene since the mid 1970's and had been an early member of a number of fledgling ACT clubs. He was a participant in a number of ACT Championships over the last 4 decades.
Away from chess he was long time faculty member at the Australian National University, specialising in Logic. Although he officially retired almost 10 years ago, he maintained his connection to the university as a Visiting Fellow, and was still at his desk up until a few months ago.

Meyer,B - Reading,J [B06]
ACT ch Belconnen (8.15), 12.10.2001

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nf3 d6 4.Bc4 Nc6 5.0-0 e6 6.Bg5 Nge7 7.Nc3 0-0 8.Qd2 e5 9.Nd5 a6 10.dxe5 h6 11.Nf6+ Bxf6 12.Bxf6 Kh7 (D)
13.Ng5+ Kg8 14.Nxf7 Rxf7 15.Qxh6 1-0

4NCL Wrap

The 4 Nations Chess League had an exciting finish with Wood Green Hilsmark Kingfisher (try fitting that onto your scoresheet), drawing with their closest rivals, Guilford-A&DC 1, in the final round keep their two point lead, and win the 4NCL title. In third place was Guilford-A&DC 2, while in 4th place was White Rose, managed by my PNG team mate, Rupert Jones.
White Rose had double cause for celebration as their 2nd team earned promotion from 3rd division to 2nd division, again after a 4th place finish. Full results can be found at the 4NCL website.

Books to make you a Grandmaster

Of course there is no book (or books) that will guarantee you becoming a grandmaster. However I've read a couple of interviews where certain books helped future GM's get started on the path to the title. But it wasn't a case of just reading these books, as much as devouring them, in a sense.
John Nunn apparently solved all 1001 positions in Reinfeld's "1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate" when he was a junior, while Michael Adams worked his way through the 300 positions in Irving Chernev's "Practical Chess Endings", early in his career.
I guess one of the reasons why I never made it that far was I'm the kind of person who flicks to the back of any puzzle book to look at the answers, rather than work too hard on the questions. If you're that sort of person as well, then you will appreciate the following position which is problem No. 300 in "Practical Chess Endings". As it isn't too taxing a problem I will leave the answer for another day. White to play and win.

When is a trap not a trap?

In the 1968 Chess Olympiad Efim Geller picked up two easy points when his opponents played identical blunders in a line of the Kings Indian Defence. At least that was how it was reported in the British Chess Magazines Quotes & Queries from November 1984. And while the reporting was accurate (Geller indeed did win both games), it looks as though it wasn't due to a trap, as much as two opponents misassessing the resulting position. After White's 11th move it looks as though Black wins a pawn by capturing on e4 but after a series of exchanges, the d6 pawn falls to White's queen, leaving a material equal position. Black may lay claim to a positional edge, but as far as I can see that's about it.

Adamski,J - Geller,E [E94]
Lugano ol (Men) Lugano, 1968

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 0-0 6.Bg5 Nbd7 7.Qd2 e5 8.Nf3 c6 9.0-0 exd4 10.Nxd4 Nc5 11.f3 Nfxe4 (D)
Two rounds after this game was played, Geller reached this position against Holm (Denmark) and after the capture on e4, he simply resigned. 12.Nxe4 Nxe4 13.fxe4 Bxd4+ 14.Qxd4 Qxg5 15.Qxd6 Qe3+ 16.Rf2 Be6 17.Qf4 Qxf4 18.Rxf4 Rad8 19.Bf1 Rd4 20.Rc1 Rfd8 21.Rf2 Rxe4 22.b4 Red4 23.a4 Rd1 24.Rfc2 R8d2 25.a5 Kf8 26.b5 c5 27.Rxd2 Rxc1 28.Kf2 Ke7 0-1

Blog Mailbox

Occasionally I will get interesting items sent to my email account(s) (I have 3 or 4 email addresses that reach me, for various historical reasons). Today I received 2 emails, both containing items you may find interesting.
The first was from Paul Ma, who is a CC International Master, as well as being active in Queensland chess circles at some point in the past (if not the present). He has a blog, which while mainly dealing with Mountain Climbing, does have some chess content as well. So if you like chess and mountains visit http://mntviews.blogspot.com/ To find the chess content, just click on the chess tag on the right.
The second was from Elliott Renzies, who is both a popular figure on the weekend chess circuit, as well as a burgeoning chess interviewer. His latest interview is with the the winner of the 2009 O2C Doeberl Cup Minor, Alana Chibnall. Click here http://www.chesschat.org/showthread.php?t=5069 to read this interview, and interviews with other Australian chess personalities.

What chess isn't like

"Football is like chess" says Sir Alex Ferguson in a recent interview. "Boxing is like chess with violence", "croquet is like chess on grass" etc etc
Modern media is full of references to things that are like chess, even if they aren't really. But I've found a wonderful quote about what chess isn't like, although most chess players would regard the subject matter closer to chess than most other activities.

Mathematics is a field in which one's blunders tend to show very clearly and can be corrected or erased with a stroke of a pencil. It is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst. A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician's reputation - Norbert Wiener

The Traxler Refuted (again!)

I received an email today titled "The Possible Refutation of Traxler Counter-Attack". Over the years I've seen plenty of magazine articles with either this title, or a variant on it, but this is the first time I've been contacted directly with the claim. At least the author is covering his bases, in not claiming a definite refutation of the Traxler.
As it arrived late this evening, I've only had a cursory glance at the analysis. What I've looked at seems sound, but makes the common mistake of being too narrow in the choice of lines. There are a number of places where Black can vary, and while some of my own investigations show that White is better in some of those lines, it isn't the case that White is better in all the lines.
As for publishing the analysis, I'll hold off until I have further discussions with the author of the email.