At least they'll have enough Bishops

From various sources comes and interesting story out of New Zealand. GM Murray Chandler is looking to by a church, and turn it into a chess centre. St Pauls Presbyterian Church in Devonport (North Auckland) went on the market last year, after dwindling numbers resulted in its closure. Chandler, a Devonport resident has now put in a bid for the property, although it seems the idea of selling the church has met with some community resistance.
Full(ish) details of this story can be found here.

The Great Wall

While commenting on the weird games in round 4 of the London Chess Classic, I missed the funniest position of all. It was the final position of Anand v Kramnik, where an impenetrable wall of pawns had been set up across the boards. When I saw it, it reminded me of how my brother and I used to play chess when I was 7 (and he was 5). At that time 1.e4 e5 2.c4 c5 3.a4 a5 4.g4 g5 5.d3 d6 6.b3 b6 7.f3 f6 8.h3 h6 was an acceptable opening variation, although I can't remember what happened next. I'm pretty sure that Anand and Kramnik weren't aware of Press v Press 1974, but their game does seem somewhat familiar.

Wild times

Round 4 of the 2012 London Chess Classic saw two pretty wild games. Aronian v McShane saw some bizarre material imbalances, with Aronian having 2 queens(!) v Rook and 2 knights (one of which was as a result of an underpromotion). Eventually Aronian was able to break the coordination between McShane's pieces and win. In Carlsen v Jones, Jones sacrificed his queen for 2 pieces and a lot of board control, but a shortage of time meant he was not able to find the absolute best moves, and eventually Carlsen made the material advantage count.
However I am not going to show either of those games. Instead I'm going to dig into the archives and present   a similarly wild game from 1904. It was from the Cambridge Spring tournament, and was played between Lasker and Napier. In one of my early chess books, this was given as an example of creative, and yet, slightly unsound chess. Lasker took more than a few liberties in the opening, while Napier missed a couple of opportunities  to finish him off. Apparently after the game Lasker described it as "Napier's brilliancy, which I happened to win"


Lasker,Emanuel - Napier,William Ewart [B34]
Cambridge Springs Cambridge Springs (3), 1904

"Little" tactics

While discussing the current state of chess with my son on the way home from the club, he remarked on the absence of grand kingside attacks at the very top. He said he saw lots of queenside attacks, but not so many kingside ones.
In answer, I thought one of the main reasons is that the modern style is a return the the Steinitz idea of the "accumulation of advantages". Of course being a modern implementation of an older idea, how it is done now is far different from Steinitz's methods. In fact it probably owes more the the Capablanca approach of 'little combinations', married with the practicality of Lasker's play. In essence, the modern game involves moving your position from 0.05 to 0.20 (according to the computer in your head), often via an accurately calculated tactical sequence. Once you get to 0.20, you then aim for 0.50, constantly improving as you go.
The concept of a chess game as a series of tactical sorties struck me while playing through the Gawain Jones v Hikaru Nakamura game from the London Chess Classic. Especially around the move 20 mark, where Jones gave up the exchange, only for Nakamura to return it a few moves later. Once the tension in the position was resolved, what was left was BvN ending, which was eventually drawn after a significant amount of play. Ultimately, while the tactics were necessary, the end result was a position where technique counted for more than creativity.


Jones,Gawain C (2644) - Nakamura,Hikaru (2760) [D97]
4th London Chess Classic London ENG (3.3), 03.12.2012

How quickly things change

On Friday I gave a talk to the Year 7 Chess class at Amaroo School in Canberra. Chess is part of the curriculum at the school, and part of course involves the history of the game. My talk was on the more modern aspects of chess, with an emphasis on the top players since 1972. Apart from various players whose names started with K, one player I featured was of course, Carlsen. In the talk I featured a couple of facts on Carlsen, firstly that it was his 22nd birthday on the day of the talk, and secondly, that he had the second highest rating ever.
Move ahead 4 days, and both those facts are out of date. Birthdays of course come and go, and in this case, so do rating records. By winning his first round game against Luke McShane in the London Chess Classic, Carlsen gained enough point to equal Kasparovs record, at least on the 'live' list. By beating Lev Aronian in the second round, he has now jumped clear of Kasparov, by around 5 points. The win by Carlsen had another effect in terms of the tournament, by relegating Aronian to the bottom of the field with 2 straight losses. This has also increased the gap between Carlsen and Aronian on the rating list, with Vladimir Kramnik closing in on Aronian. Of course there is still some chess to be played, so what we see in terms of ratings now, may not be reflected when a new lest is published in the New Year.
Carlsen,Magnus (2848) - Aronian,Levon (2815) [C77]
4th London Chess Classic London ENG (2.1), 02.12.2012

2012 Australian Schools Teams Championship - Final

The second day of the 2012 Australian Schools Teams Championship saw some teams extend their tournament leads, while others have a real battle for the National titles.
In the Open Secondary Section, the colourfully dressed Scotch College from Melbourne ended up winning by a 5 point margin, over James Ruse (NSW) and Brisbane Grammar. A possible upset might have been on the cards after they were held 2-2 by Grammar in round 4, but a 3-1 victory over Lyneham High (ACT) in the 5th round allowed the defending champions to take the trophy back to Melbourne once more.
The Girls Secondary Section was a lot closer, with Sommerville House (QLD) holding a half point lead over St George Girls High (NSW) with one round to play. However a 3-1 win for Sommerville over Radford (ACT), combined with a 2-2 result for St George against Alfred Deakin (ACT) padded the margin of victory.
Greythorn Primary (VIC) scored a last round 4-0 win over Highgate (WA) to overtake Prince Alfred (SA) in the Primary Open Section, after Prince Alfred could only score 2 points against Summer Hill (NSW). This left Greythorn the winners by a narrow 0.5 margin.
The Girls Primary Section was equally dramatic as Curtin Primary (ACT) emerged as surprise winners after beating Abbotsleigh (NSW) 3-1, and watching fellow ACT team Turner Primary take 2 points from previous leaders Somerset College, to eke out a half point win.
Full results from all the events (including individual results) can be found at the ACTJCL website.

2012 Australian Schools Teams Chess Championship

Today saw the first 3 rounds of the 2012 Australian Schools Teams Chess Championship, at Hawker Primary School in Canberra. The event is run in 4 sections (Secondary Open & Primary, Girls Open & Primary), with 6 teams in each section. Senator Gary Humphries gave an opening speech, which was well received by the audience.
As is traditional with a number of Australian Junior events, the temperature in the playing hall was very warm, as there was no air-conditioning on offer. However the provision of a number of fans dotted around the playing hall at least kept the temperature manageable.
As each event is run as a round robin, determining a likely winner after 3 rounds is not that straightforward. Certainly Scotch College from Melbourne (11/12) seems to have inside track in the Open Secondary, but they still have a tough match against Brisbane Grammar to come. The other sections are a lot closer, with every point being crucial.
Of the chess that I managed to watch, there was some quite entertaining games. With a time limit of 60m+10s a move, a number of games ended with time scrambles, providing the opportunity for some clever escapes and swindles. One example was the diagrammed position in the Girls Primary section (NB This is not the exact position, but is as much as I can remember). White pushed the b pawn to b7 aiming to promote, only to walk into Kc2, when mate is unavoidable.
The tournament finishes tomorrow, with the final 2 rounds. Results for the event be found on the ACTJCL website.