Creating something useful

One of the most visited pages on this blog is my 2007 review of the Cheeky Dream USB Chess Board. Basically I panned the product, deciding it was both junk, and expensive junk. However someone decided it might be a useful tool after all, and decided to make something out of it. Bryan Whitby has used the USB board and turned into a reasonably cheap DGT board. He has documented the entire process, which you can look at on the USB Chess Board webpage.
Also worth noting is that the popularity of my review has attracted a lot of spam comments to that particular blog page. So if you do visit the original article, be warned.

Chess in New Caledonia

The Oceania Chess Confederation (of which I am the Treasurer) has been pretty busy lately, organising a number of activities in the South Pacific. The current event is a FIDE rated Round Robin in New Caledonia which, like previous events in Palau and the Solomon Islands, is designed to allow local players to achieve FIDE ratings. Three Australian players have made the trip to Noumea, Lee Jones, Tony Weller and event organiser, Gary Bekker. A couple of the local players already have FIDE ratings (via the French Chess Federation) and hopefully they will be joined by a few more. Early results from the event are here, and full results should be available in a day or two.
There is also a tournament coming up in the Solomon Islands, while on the organisational side the OCC will be organising another arbiters seminar, in Queenstown in 2012. Importantly, the OCC have been able to attract financial support for these events from both the Asian Chess Confederation and FIDE. There are also plans to hold some larger events, like the Asian Seniors Championship in the next year, with a number of member countries being considered as likely hosts.

Jones,Lee (2114) - Weller,Tony (1895) [A52]
Nouvelle Calédonie Nouméa (2), 03.09.2011

When asking the arbiter doesn't help

I was going to do a big post about the Moiseenko Navara incident from the third round of the World Cup. For those not familiar with it, Navara made contact with two of his own pieces while playing a move, and Moiseenko claimed he had to move the King, which was a blunder. Navara instead moved the piece he had always intended to, but the issue played on his mind so much, that when he had a forced mate, he instead offered a draw. The post I'd intended would have ended with the suggestion that asking the arbiter for a ruling would have been the more sensible solution.
However, it turns out that Navara did ask the arbiter for a ruling, and the arbiter informed in he could play the move he intended. Based on the information that has come to light after the game (including video evidence) was the correct ruling (as Navara only bumped his king while picking up the bishop). So while it is clear that Navara did know the rules, whether Moiseenko did is not so clear. Immediately after the game some commentators were praising the good sportsmanship of both players, but for me this is either a case of Moiseenko being ignorant of the rules, or indeed engaging in 'sharp practice'.
What would have been good sportsmanship, given that arbiter made the correct ruling, was for Moiseenko to accept that his incorrect claim affected the outcome of the game (and match), and offer to resign the match. As it turns out Navara did win the playoff section 3-1, so at least the right result was arrived at.

Anand wins Botvinnik Memorial

Sure it was only a rapid tournament, but it was still very strong, and Viswanathan Anand can be pleased with finishing 1.5 points ahead of Karmnik and Aronian. Anand score, who 4.5/6 while Kramnik and Aronion were on 50%. As for the 4th player, nothing went right for Magnus Carlsen finished on 1.5/6, losing all 3 games on the second day.
In the Womens Rapid Viktorija Cmilyte finished in 1st with 4/6, while Anand and Koneru teamed up to win the novelty tandem blitz event.

In Game Commentary

The Botvinnik Memorial, which is currently being held in Moscow, is trialling a new feature. At various stages of the game, the clocks are stopped and one player takes to the microphone to explain what is going on. While this is happening, the opponent enters the 'cone of silence' (actually a set of ear muffs), so they cannot hear their opponents plan.
While this is interesting, to me it seems a trifle clumsy. If the organisers are interested in broadcasting the players thoughts, then an alternative would be to have them permanently wired for sound. Then the players could chat away to their hearts content, explaining ideas as they go. The trade off would be that the players would have to play in separate areas, using computers to transmit their moves to their opponents. The other requirement might be a '3 second' delay on the commentary, to allow the producer to bleep out any "WTF?" reactions from the players!

Things I did not know

I discovered the following fact in a book by Reuben Fine, which I picked up at a second hand bookshop. Edward Lasker invented an improved version of the Breast Pump. This invention made Lasker a great deal of money, but the downside was that friends began to refer to him as "the chest player".

Up, down and all around

While my regular chess club (at the Australian National University) currently has somewhat cramped accommodation, it does also have a big screen TV, which I can hook my computer up to. This comes in handy to either display the draw before a round, or to show live coverage from a tournament such as the current World Cup. Last night I had a look at a couple of games before deciding on Fier v Morozevich (which Morozevich eventually won). I figured that there was a high probability that any game involving Morozevich would look good on the TV, and it turned out to be so. As we were packing up after the round, one of the club members wondered why Morozevich was on a low-ish board. The simple explanation was that while Morozevich has been one of the top players in the World, on the back of some dominant tournament wins, there have also been the not so good results. As a consequence his rating tends to move up and down, and as of yesterday was in the down cycle. A day later however, and Morozevich is back on the up cycle. He gained 43 rating points in the last rating period, and moved from 48th place up to 17th (on the September FIDE rating list). Given the sometimes glacial nature of the FIDE ratings system (especially at the top), this is a pretty significant change, and would have shifted him up a substantial number of boards if his new rating was used to seed the World Cup.
Here is the second Morozevich v Fier game from the second round of the World Cup. Fier's impetuous 11. ... e5 turned out to be the losing move, as after 13.Qa4+ the obvious 13. ... Bd7 gets hit with 14.Rxd7! Nxd7 15.Nd5 and White has an overwhelming attack.


Morozevich, Alexander v Fier, Alexandr
2011 FIDE World Cup

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be3 a6 7.Qd2 Nf6 8.0-0-0 Be7 9.f4 d6 10.Be2 Nxd4 11.Qxd4 e5 12.fxe5 dxe5 (D)
13.Qa4+ Kf8 14.Rhf1 Bd7 15.Qb3 Rc8 16.Kb1 Be6 17.Nd5 Nxe4 18.Bg4 Qc6 19.Bxe6 Qxe6 20.Qxb7 Nd6 21.Qxa6 f6 22.Nxe7 Kxe7 23.Bc5 Rxc5 24.Qa7+ Nb7 25.Qxb7+ Ke8 26.Rd2 1-0