Mos Ali

Canberra chess player Mos Ali has unexpectedly passed away, at the very young age of 40 years old. Mos, a school teacher by profession, died of a suspected heart attack on Tuesday 6th December 2011. While Mos was a typical 1700-1800 club player, he played an enormous amount of chess, frequently featuring on the ACF's Most Active Players list when new ratings were released.
While Mos and I had our differences (over both personal and chess issues), his passing is a loss for the Canberra chess community, and to his wife and young family.

(*Edit: Apologies for the wrong date in this initial post)

A widely travelled player

The USCF website has noted the passing of Robert Feldstein. While he may not be that well known (at least outside the US) he was one of the more widely travelled players, something he himself was quite proud of. Apart from playing tournament games in every state of the United States he also attempted to play rated games in as many countries in the world.
This was how our paths crossed, as he turned up at the offices of the Canberra Times in 2001, explaining to them that he was a travelling chess player trying to set a record for playing chess in the most number of countries. The only problem was that he did not have an opponent, at lest until the Canberra Times rang me up and asked if I could come over to play. We played one USCF rated game and a couple of blitz games. I'm pretty sure the time limit was G/20, which was slow enough to make the chess look sensible, but fast enough to cause both players to miss many far stronger moves than were played. In the end I missed a few absolute crushers, and went down in the ending.

Press,Shaun - Feldstein,Robert [B03]
CT Challenge, 2001

The visual appeal

Here is a nice mate in 2 which took me a little while to solve. I like this, not because of the difficulty (you should be able to find the answer in under 5 minutes), but just because of the nice layout of the pieces. (Composed by F. Schrufer)

The wisdom of twitter

While there is an argument that the combined intelligence of a crowd can exceed the individual parts, I'm not sure the same can be said for twitter. As lead in to the London Chess Classic, a match between the players in the classic, and the rest of the world was played.  The moves from the rest of the world were submitted by twitter with the GM team replying on the tournament website.
The GM team won without too much difficulty, and even afforded the ROW a positional head start by playing the North Sea Defence (which Carlsen lost to Adams at the 2010 Olympiad with).

The World on Twitter - London Chess Classic [B06]
London Classic Twitter Game London ENG (1), 02.12.2011

Choose your children's school carefully

A news story in the Sydney Morning Herald has the potential to leave a number of people with red faces. It concerns the Willathgamuwa brothers, Rowan and Kevin, who represented Australia at the recent World Youth Championships in Brazil. As a consequence of their absence from school, Sydney Grammar, they have been asked to look elsewhere for their education next year.
Although I have directed a number of tournaments that the Willathgamua brothers have played in, I have no real knowledge of the issues involved in this decision. At best I can compare what appears to be the case with the attitude my children's school has towards their chessplayers.
In my case, my son Harry is off to Adelaide to play in the Australian Junior Masters next week. As this involved him missing 3 days of school I made sure I asked his teacher before he was able to accept his invitation. Not only was the teacher OK with him missing the 3 days, he congratulated Harry on being invited to the tournament. Of course the school my kids go to 'walks the walk' where chess is concerned, as they have chess on the curriculum for 3rd, 4th and 4th grades, as well as offering it as an elective for years 6 & 7.
But the best bit about this, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that my kids did not have to go on long waiting lists, or go through a testing or interview process to get into this school. That it is because it is the local government school, less than 300 metres from my house. So at least for my family, the local school was the 'right' school for us, not only for chess, but also for the overall quality of education. .

ACT Rapidplay Championship

2011 ACT Rapidplay Championships

Where: City Walk, Canberra City (outside Chicken Gourmet where Street Chess meets)
When: Saturday 17 December 2011
What time: 11:00 am star - register from 10:30am
Format: 7 round swiss
Time control: G/15m
Entry Fees: $10 ($5 for juniors)
Prizes: First prize minimum $100, other prizes based on total entries

All change for London

Half the field from the Tal Memorial is now off to London, to join up with 4 English players in the 2011 London Chess Classic. While a 9 player field might seem unusual, the organisers see 2 benefits. Firstly, the spare player for each round is being roped in to do onsite commentary. And secondly, each player will have an even split of whites and blacks.
The field is Carlsen, Anand, Aronian, Kramnik, Nakamura, Adams, Short, McShane and Howell. Alongside the main tournament, a huge number of side events are also being organised. There is a Women's invitational round robin, a FIDE rated swiss, junior events, weekenders and rapidplays.
The whole thing kicks off on Saturday night (Canberra time), with live coverage from the tournament website. As for tournament predictions I'll play it safe and tip Carlsen for the win, Anand to draw almost every game and McShane to play the most moves of anyone in the tournament.