A decade of sameness

Apparently posting something from 10 years ago is currently a thing at the moment, but as with most things, I'm not sure why. So instead of finding an old picture of myself (more hair, no glasses), I instead have dug through the archives for an old game.
It isn't quite 10 years old, but it is the closest one I could find. I played it at the ANU Chess Club in 2009, and definitely shows that over the past 10 years my chess hasn't really changed. Basically I got an advantage from the opening, miscalculated a tactic in a good position, simplified into a better ending, and then managed to draw.


Press,Shaun - Palma,Mario [A00]
ANU Summer Swiss, 18.02.2009

The Wyers Attack

Richard Rapport has one of the weirdest opening repertoire of any top level player. The fact that his rating stays so high, despite his opening choices, makes many people wonder if he could be a top 10 player, if only he decided to be less "experimental".
In round 4 of Tata Steel he played an opening that for a long time I knew as "The Wyers Attack". I'm pretty sure this isn't the real name (if it even has one), but as it was often used by chess player brothers Ben and Marcus Wyers  when I was a junior, that is the name I am giving it. The idea was to break most of the rules in the opening, hoping that Black will miss the threat on c7. It is a little annoying to face, as White at least forces to put your pieces on odd squares, but Giri demonstrates what happens once you have protected everything.


Rapport,Richard (2731) - Giri,Anish (2783) [D00]
81st Tata Steel GpA Wijk aan Zee NED (4.2), 15.01.2019

2019 ACT Lightning Championship

The  traditional season opener, the ACT Lightning Championship is on tomorrow evening (16 January) at the Canberra Chess Club. It is a 9 round swiss with a time limit of G/5m. Entry fee is $10 ($5 juniors) with prizes based upon entries.
The Canberra Chess Club meets at the Hellenic Club in the City (Moore St, Canberra City), and  registrations open from 6:45pm (for a 7:00pm start). It is open to all ACT Chess Association members ($25 per year, $15 juniors).

Ivan Swapoff

When I was much younger, there was a bit of a running gag in my chess club about players who tried to draw as many games as possible. "Who did you play?" when one of the top seeds could only draw. "Ivan Swapoff" would come the dispirited reply.
Eventually we learned how to deal with such players, by making sure that our remaining pieces were better placed than the opponents remaining pieces.
Here is a recent game that demonstrates this policy quite well. Whether Black consciously exchanged as many pieces as possible against his much stronger opponent isn't clear, but what did happen was that White's position got better and better. As a result White was able to play a 'petite combination', winning a pawn, and Black surrendered when it looked like another pawn was going.


Xu,Xiangyu (2567) - Devallee,J (2278) [A43]
15th Vandoeuvre Open 2019 Vandoeuvre les Nancy FRA (2.3), 02.01.2019

Anand starts strongly

The 2019 Tata Steel event saw a lot of draws in the first round. One player who started with the full point was Viswanathan Anand, who scored a pretty direct win over Jorden Van Forrest. With both players attacking on opposite wings, Van Forrest lost control of some crucial squares on the kingside, and Anand successfully invaded with rooks and knights. 20.f3 was a small mistake, but 21.Ne5 was the big one. After Anand pushed the f pawn to f4, it was just a question of how Anand was going to finish the game off.


Van Foreest,Jorden (2612) - Anand,V (2773) [B13]
81st Tata Steel GpA Wijk aan Zee NED (1), 12.01.2019

Small push x 2

I really need to get back to my 1 post a day routine, as I fear I am slipping in keeping this blog relevant. To help me do this, I've decided to look through games from current and recently finished events, looking to find interesting or quirky games. 

The one I have found for today's post is probably in the quirky category, as black does something I'm not sure I have seen that often. On two separate occasions he pushes a pawn one square (instead of 2) but then completes the two square push on the following move. The first pawn he does this with is the e pawn, and he then repeats the idea with the h pawn. The apparent loss of tempo doesn't seem to hurt, as it is another push of the h pawn that brings the game to a sudden finish.

Golikov,Daniil (2278) - Gorshtein,Ido (2384) [A18]
48th Rilton Cup 2018-19 Stockholm SWE (8.26), 04.01.2019

Tata Steel 2019

The first big event of 2019 kicks off tomorrow night in Wijk aan Zee. The 2019 Tata Steel event has attracted a very strong field once again, with World Champion Magnus Carlsen returning for the 15th time. He will of course have some tough competition, with Mamedyarov, Liren and Giri the young (ish) challengers, with Kramnik and Anand representing the old guard. But unlike a lot of the other Super GM events, Tata Steel also invites players outside the top 20, so players like Richard Rapport and Sam Shankland will help add excitement to the tournament.
There is a a challengers event alongside (with Anton Korobov as the top seed), while the popular side events (9 round and 3 round tournaments) are expected to attract over 1000 players.
The tournament website is at https://www.tatasteelchess.com/ Games are scheduled to start at 13:30 pm local time, which is 11:30 pm Canberra Time.