The 2014 World Junior Championship has started in Pune, India. It has attracted a large and strong field, with 18 GM's in the 137 player field. The Girls event has 78 players, with 4 WGM's in the field.
Surprisingly Australia has no representatives in either event, although this may be due to the proximity to the World Youth Championships, which were recently held in South Africa. Indeed for a lot of countries, the World Youth seems to have supplanted the World Junior as tournament to play in, although I am not entirely sure why. I would think that the idea of getting your best junior player to the World Junior would still be a goal for most federations, although this may be dependant upon funding.
The second round of the tournament was played today, and live games can be found on the official website. I did notice on curiosity on the top board, with the Ider - Wei game lasting only 4 moves. At first I thought it may have been a mobile phone loss, but rechecking the game showed an additional 8 moves had been played. I'm now assuming there may be some issues with the dgt board, and that eventually the whole game will be revealed.
Tuesday, 7 October 2014
Monday, 6 October 2014
Millionaire Chess
The much vaunted Millionaire Chess tournament in Las Vegas is just a couple of days away. When launched the major question would be whether the big prize money would attract players to pay the sizeable entry fee. As an experienced tournament organiser it always seems that there is never quite enough players entering any event to cover the prize fund, and I think this is the case for this event. At the time of writing this there were 525 entries across all the events, which seems to leave the organisers a little short of covering the full $1,000,000 prize pool. However the event is still taking entries at $1500 a pop ($2000 on the day), and players can restart events with a $400 re-entry fee, so their is a chance that the shortfall will be reduced.
The other point of interest is how such a big cash event is going to operate in practice. It is fair to say that USCF have some unique features and I suspect the organisers may have their hands full. The temptation to try and gain an extra advantage (through various means) is certainly a large one, and the arbiting team clearly needs to be extra vigilant.
The whole thing begins on Thursday 9 October, and more information can be found at the tournament website. I probably keep a weather eye on the tournament (for a couple of reasons), and it will be interesting to see if it proves successful enough to make this an ongoing thing.
The other point of interest is how such a big cash event is going to operate in practice. It is fair to say that USCF have some unique features and I suspect the organisers may have their hands full. The temptation to try and gain an extra advantage (through various means) is certainly a large one, and the arbiting team clearly needs to be extra vigilant.
The whole thing begins on Thursday 9 October, and more information can be found at the tournament website. I probably keep a weather eye on the tournament (for a couple of reasons), and it will be interesting to see if it proves successful enough to make this an ongoing thing.
Sunday, 5 October 2014
Simple chess
I fear I have become obsessed with playing 'perfect' chess. Even when I win I still worry that this due to my opponents mistakes, rather than because of my own good moves. The two main causes of this are (a) the advent of computer analysis, where every move is judged in terms of centi-pawns and (b) studying classic games where the winning plan seems to run for 30 moves and is executed flawlessly.
Of course reason (a) tends to strike a blow not to just my games, but a lot of games covered by reason (b). However we tend to me more forgiving of the mistakes of other, than of our own (at least privately).
Nonetheless I've decided to feature a 'classic' game, where Aaron Nimzowitsch seems to win without too much effort. Reinfeld and Chernev labelled it a 'positional masterpiece', but Fritz just thinks Black blundered on move 7. But you can only play the position your opponent gives you, and it is still quite instructive to see Nimzowitsh take control of the position all the way to the end of the game.
Nimzowitsch,Aaron - Mieses,Jacques [A84]
Baden-Baden Baden-Baden (13), 02.05.1925
Of course reason (a) tends to strike a blow not to just my games, but a lot of games covered by reason (b). However we tend to me more forgiving of the mistakes of other, than of our own (at least privately).
Nonetheless I've decided to feature a 'classic' game, where Aaron Nimzowitsch seems to win without too much effort. Reinfeld and Chernev labelled it a 'positional masterpiece', but Fritz just thinks Black blundered on move 7. But you can only play the position your opponent gives you, and it is still quite instructive to see Nimzowitsh take control of the position all the way to the end of the game.
Nimzowitsch,Aaron - Mieses,Jacques [A84]
Baden-Baden Baden-Baden (13), 02.05.1925
Saturday, 4 October 2014
The Knight Tour
Most, if not all, chess players are aware of the Knight Tour. For non chessplayers, it is a challenge where you have to visit every square on the chessboard once and only once with a knight (moving legally of course). The first solutions to this problem probably date back the the 9th century, and since then various approaches to solving the problem have been developed.
Obviously one trick is to simply memorise the sequence of squares for a re-entrant tour (where the finish square is a knights move away from the start square) as you can then start on any square on the board and still have a solution. However if you want to solve it for yourself, Warnsdorff's algorithm might be helpful Basically you move the knight to a square with the fewest squares to move to (although when I tried this I trapped the knight!).
There is a substantial amount of mathematical research on this topic, dating back to Euler. It is also related to various mathematical 'colouring' problems, as the knight must always move to a square of the opposite colour it stands on (a fact which leads to a quick answer to the question of the maximum number of knghts on a chess board where they don't attack each other).
Wikipedia has a page devoted to the Knights Tour, including information on tours of non 8x8 boards. I also came across a discussion of the Knights Tour in the book "Mathematical Conversations" where is has a number of problems associated with it. Here are two simple ones which I think can be solved with a little bit of thought, and the information in this blog.
(A) Take away the h file and the 8th rank from a normal chess board, leaving a 7x7 board. Why can't a knight perform a knights tour on this board, if it starts on a white square?
(B) Using the same board, can a knight end its tour on square adjacent to it starting square (orthogonal, not diagonal)?
Obviously one trick is to simply memorise the sequence of squares for a re-entrant tour (where the finish square is a knights move away from the start square) as you can then start on any square on the board and still have a solution. However if you want to solve it for yourself, Warnsdorff's algorithm might be helpful Basically you move the knight to a square with the fewest squares to move to (although when I tried this I trapped the knight!).
There is a substantial amount of mathematical research on this topic, dating back to Euler. It is also related to various mathematical 'colouring' problems, as the knight must always move to a square of the opposite colour it stands on (a fact which leads to a quick answer to the question of the maximum number of knghts on a chess board where they don't attack each other).
Wikipedia has a page devoted to the Knights Tour, including information on tours of non 8x8 boards. I also came across a discussion of the Knights Tour in the book "Mathematical Conversations" where is has a number of problems associated with it. Here are two simple ones which I think can be solved with a little bit of thought, and the information in this blog.
(A) Take away the h file and the 8th rank from a normal chess board, leaving a 7x7 board. Why can't a knight perform a knights tour on this board, if it starts on a white square?
(B) Using the same board, can a knight end its tour on square adjacent to it starting square (orthogonal, not diagonal)?
2014 ICCF Congress
While the world of Correspondence Chess (CC) is a bit arcane for most of the younger generation it still forms an important part of the overall chess fabric. CC is a particularly important part of Australian chess history, as the 1st CC World Champion was CJS Purdy, one of this countries most significant chess personalities.
As part of the celebrations of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Correspondence Chess League of Australia, the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) is holding its 2014 Congress in Parramatta in a weeks time. The congress runs from the 11th -18th of October, at the Parramatta Park Royal. At this stage around 30 delegates from across the world will be attending, and while it is smaller than the recent FIDE Congress in Norway, I am sure it will be both less fractious, and better run.
If you are interested in finding out more about the event you can visit the Congress website. As part of the congress there will be a couple of chess events (OTB!) with a blitz tournament on the 15th, and a match between the ICCF and Sydney on the 16th. Spectators to these events are more than welcome.
If you are interested in finding out about the Australia CC scene, you can visit the CCLA website. These days most CC is played by webserver, and the CCLA has just announced various championship events for 2015. New, or resurrected events for next year include a Women's Championship and a Junior (Under 21) Championship.
As part of the celebrations of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Correspondence Chess League of Australia, the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) is holding its 2014 Congress in Parramatta in a weeks time. The congress runs from the 11th -18th of October, at the Parramatta Park Royal. At this stage around 30 delegates from across the world will be attending, and while it is smaller than the recent FIDE Congress in Norway, I am sure it will be both less fractious, and better run.
If you are interested in finding out more about the event you can visit the Congress website. As part of the congress there will be a couple of chess events (OTB!) with a blitz tournament on the 15th, and a match between the ICCF and Sydney on the 16th. Spectators to these events are more than welcome.
If you are interested in finding out about the Australia CC scene, you can visit the CCLA website. These days most CC is played by webserver, and the CCLA has just announced various championship events for 2015. New, or resurrected events for next year include a Women's Championship and a Junior (Under 21) Championship.
Thursday, 2 October 2014
Who is in the firing line?
If you were a chess piece, and wanted to maximise your chances of survival (ie remaining on the board throughout the game), which piece would you be? The obvious choice is to be a King, as they never get captured, but could you live with the fact that everyone was out to get you. Otherwise, which piece (or pawn) would you be?
It turns out Oliver Brennan has already answered that question, with some programming and a big database of games. It turns out you should choose to be the h2 pawn (White's King's Rook Pawn) as you survive 73.9% of all games played. Of the big pieces, the rook and h1 escapes 55.6% of the time, but any rook is almost as good,as they all survive more than 54% of the games.
What you want to avoid is being picked for the role of White's d pawn. You get in the neck 75% of the time, although any of the knights have a similar mortality rate.
If you want to see the results for all the pieces, including a pretty diagram of the data then check out Oliver's answer to this question on Quora.
It turns out Oliver Brennan has already answered that question, with some programming and a big database of games. It turns out you should choose to be the h2 pawn (White's King's Rook Pawn) as you survive 73.9% of all games played. Of the big pieces, the rook and h1 escapes 55.6% of the time, but any rook is almost as good,as they all survive more than 54% of the games.
What you want to avoid is being picked for the role of White's d pawn. You get in the neck 75% of the time, although any of the knights have a similar mortality rate.
If you want to see the results for all the pieces, including a pretty diagram of the data then check out Oliver's answer to this question on Quora.
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Grand Prix time
Despite concerns it would not be happening, the 2014-15 FIDE Grand Prix is almost up and running. The first event of the 4 tournament series begins today in Baku, Azerbaijan, with play in the 12 player round robin beginning tomorrow. The field is headed World No 2 Fabiano Caruana, with Grischuk, Karjakin and Nakamura some of the other big names. The tournament runs until the 15th of October, and is the first in a series that includes events in Tehran, Tashkent and Khanty-Mansisyk.
The tournament web site is here, and games start at the rather pleasant time (for Canberra) of 8pm in the evening.
The tournament web site is here, and games start at the rather pleasant time (for Canberra) of 8pm in the evening.
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