Paddy Connell

Paddy Connell, one of the great characters of the Canberra chess scene in the 1990's passed away early last week. Although he hadn't been involved in chess for the past decade (having found religion), he was still fondly remembered by those who knew him.
As a player he was a fan of the off-beat opening, and even once played the Irish Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nxe5??!) against me. His approach to analysis was simply to let the opponent do it for him ie he would play the move that struck his fancy, and leave it up to the opponent to prove whether it was sound or unsound.
Patrick (as he was christened) was also a hard working chess organiser, running Street Chess every Saturday in Canberra for nearly a decade. It was here he showed a passing familiarity with the english language when he introduced a rule which read 'non-aspersive adversarial banter is permitted between consenting equals' (which should simply read 'sledging is allowed').
For those in Canberra who wish to attend the funeral service it is at 10:00 am Monday 16th November at William Cole Funerals, Belconnen.

Connell,Patrick - Green,Robert [D11]
ACT-ch Canberra, 1993

1.Nf3 c6 2.d4 d5 3.c4 Bg4 4.Ne5 Bh5 5.g4 Bg6 6.Nxg6 fxg6 7.Nc3 e6 8.Bf4 Nd7 9.Bh3 g5 10.Bg3 Ngf6 11.c5 Be7 12.0-0 0-0 13.f4 gxf4 14.Bxf4 Nxc5 15.dxc5 Bxc5+ 16.e3 d4 17.Na4 Be7 18.g5 Ne8 19.Bxe6+ Kh8 20.Qh5 Bd6 21.g6 Nf6 22.Qh3 Bxf4 23.Rxf4 h6 24.Rh4 Qe7 25.Rf1 Rae8 (D)
26.Rxf6 1-0

Endings you have to know

There are all endings we "have to know" ie ones guaranteed to bring home the point (or save the half point). The Lucena Position and the Philidor Position are 2 such examples, and of course there are many more. However I suspect the list of endings I "have to know" might not be as extensive as the endings a 2400 rated player has to know. And once you get into the 2700+ range the list might be both long and increasingly obscure.
Of course one of the reasons why club players don't collect as many positions as stronger players is that we aren't forced into as many endings, either due to our games being decided by "the last blunder" or that out opponents play inferior moves in these endings, making our task easier.
Such knowledge, and its application, was quite apparent in the round 6 game from the Tal Memorial between Kramnik and Ponomariov. In a R+P v B+P ending, Ponomariov's bishop was defending his pawn and White had to force a zugzwang position to win the pawn. According to the Chessvibes site this was a similar ending to the 1979 Timman v Velimirovic ending from the 1979 zonal, and while I have no reason to dispute the additional claim that every Dutch chessplayer now knows how to play this ending, I wonder how many other chess players (apart from Kramnik) are familiar with it as well.
The diagram position is not from this game but from a much older game between Euwe and Hromadka. A similar kind of ending (although White does not have a pawn), there is a right way and a wrong way to play it. In "Training for the Tournament Player" Dvoretsky says "you either know it or you don't"

Zeitnot

Didn't quite get yesterdays blog post done in time as I was wrestling with malware on a couple of home computers. So treat this as yesterdays post, and today's will arrive at its usual time.

Petrosian's Butt Monkey

The late Eduard Gufeld was quite a figure on the international chess circuit. Even before the fall of the USSR he travelled quite widely to many western tournaments including the 1988 Doeberl Cup (which he tied for 1st in). It was rumoured however that part of the reason for this travel was as a 'messenger' for the KGB, in that in visiting overseas Russian communities he reminded them of who was watching from within the USSR.
The other odd thing about Gufeld is that he seemed to be on the receiving end of a couple of cruel barbs from Tigran Petrosian. In Dvoretsky and Yusopov's book 'Positional Chess' Dvoretsky describes a joint analysis session between the two. After being constantly outplayed by Petrosian Gufeld asked 'How is it that my position isn't better?'. 'Because my head is better' explained Petrosian.
Petrosian delivered an even crueller put down soon after Gufeld became a Grandmaster. Gufeld, not an immodest man I must say, walked up to Petrosian at a tournament and said 'Tigran, now we are equals'. At that moment a journeyman GM walked by (possibly Matulovic) at whom Petrosian pointed and said, 'No. Now you are his equal'.

btw Click for a definition of Butt Monkey

Isle of Lewis Chessmen

The Isle of Lewis Chessmen is a popular news item, and another article concerning them has appeared on the BBC website. This article reports that there are doubts about the origin of the pieces.
Now the problem I've always had with the Lewis Chessmen is that they seem to predate the widespread popularity of chess in Western Europe. They were apparently manufactured during the 12th Century, a time where very little evidence of chess being played has been discovered. Of course far smarter people than me have done far better research on this topic, but I've always suspected that they were more likely to be figurines rather than part of a chess set. Of course, as the article says, they may have been used in another game called Hnefatafl, but the Lewis Hnefatafl-men isn't quite as catchy.

Transfer Tournament

Most Transfer Chess (or Bughouse if you insist) is played online, with the Free Internet Chess Server the place to play. Face to face tournaments are much rarer, although I did organise one such tournament about 15 years ago at the Doeberl Cup.
However there is still one big transfer tournament held every year in Canberra, and that is the ACT Junior Chess League Transfer Festival. It is on this coming Sunday (15th November) at the ACT Junior Chess Centre, Campbell High School, Treloar Cres Campbell (next to the War Memorial). It starts at 12:45 pm and finished at 5pm. Entry is $10 per player ($20 per team) and the entry fee includes free pizza at the prize giving. Although it is organised by the ACT Junior Chess League it is open to players of all ages. There will be trophies for the winners plus plenty of other prizes including oldest team, youngest team, best parent& child etc
Now while the organisers are content to just think of it as a local Canberra event, until I hear otherwise I would like to make two claims. Firstly, it is the biggest open transfer tournament in Australia, and secondly, the winners could make a valid claim to being the Australian OTB Transfer Champions!

GM Weekend

The ACT Junior Chess League runs an annual Grandmaster Coaching Weekend, which is usually the culmination of the ACTJCL's Development Squad program for the year. For this year, GM Ian Rogers coached 3 groups of leading ACT juniors, alongside local coaches IM Andras Toth, and FM Endre Ambrus.
After lunch on the second day, Ian then played a 30 board simul against both the kids he coached, and all the other juniors who took part in the other coaching programs. At the end of 3 hours Ian had managed to score 28 wins, 1 draw (against Michael Kethro) and 1 loss (against Yijun Zhang).
Of course the fate of the simul giver is not to be remembered by any of their victories, but only by their losses, so here is the win by Yijun Zhang over Ian Rogers.

Zhang,Yijun - Rogers,Ian [C64]
ACT Dev Squad Simul, 08.11.2009

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.0-0 Qf6 5.c3 Nge7 6.d3 h6 7.Re1 0-0 8.d4 Bb6 9.Be3 d6 10.d5 Nb8 11.Nbd2 Bg4 12.Qa4 Ng6 13.Bxb6 cxb6 14.h3 Bc8 15.Nc4 Na6 16.Bxa6 bxa6 17.Qc6 Bxh3 18.gxh3 Qxf3 19.Re3 Qh5 20.Nxd6 Nf4 21.Kh2 g6 22.Rg1 Kh7 23.Qb7 Qh4 24.Nxf7 Kg8 25.Reg3 Rxf7 (D)
26.Rxg6+ Nxg6 27.Rxg6+ Kh8 28.Qxa8+ 1-0