2020 ACT Championship - Day 2

The 2020 ACT Championship sees three players tied on 3 points after 3 rounds. IM Junta Ikeda and FM Michael Kethro have been joined by tournament surprise packet Ruofan Xu at the top of the leader board.
Ikeda dispatched both  Sankeertan Badrinarayan and Dillon Hathiramani with some nice tactics, while Kethro was made to work harder in his round 3 win over Harry Press. Xu defeated 10th seed Victor Braguine in a strange Kings Indian, where Braguine (as White) launched a kingside attack, and then defeated 5th seed Wenlin Yin in the afternoon round.
Tomorrow mornings round has Ikeda up against Xu while Kethro is playing Glenn Ingham. CM Hui Li plays Claudio Mariani and with both players on 2.5/3, a result in this game should move the winner onto the top boards.


Braguine,Victor (1899) - Xu,Ruofan (1467) [E73]
2020 ACT Chess Championship, 07.03.2020

2020 ACT Chess Championship - Day 1

The 2020 ACT Chess Championship has started, with a good field of 36 players. While there is a big gap between top seed IM Junta Ikeda and second seed FM Michael Kethro (a little over 300 points), the gap between the 2nd and 10th seeds is a lot closer.
The first round saw most of the top seeds get through unscathed, although Victor Braguine was forced to work very hard against Nomon Vos before finding the winning tactical trick. The only game that did not end in a win for the higher rated player was between Paul Dunn and Luka Choi which finished in a draw.
The ACT Championship runs for the next 3 days, with 2 rounds per day. There is live coverage of the top boards as well as pairings and results at http://tournaments.streetchess.net/actchampionship2020/ Rounds are at 10am and 2:30pm Canberra time.

Police Blotter

I don't know much about Taunton, Massachusetts, but on the 27th February 2020 this happened

Neighbor dispute on Centre Street: At 8 p.m. police responded to a call about a man who attacked his neighbor after the pair played a game of chess. Police rendered assistance.

I am assuming the assistance was of a law enforcement nature, and not illegal interference in a game still in progress (pssst Bxh7+ works here)

When do you know you are winning?

One of the difficulties I face when playing Correspondence Chess is knowing if I am really winning or not. I may think I have a better position, but I don't always know if it is a won position.
This also occurs when I am facing players rated a lot higher than may. Time and again I have chosen a line that wins me a pawn, or gives me a strong looking attack, only to find I have failed to assess the position correctly. Why this is sometimes an issue is that your decisions can be different depending on whether you are pushing for a win, or saving an inferior position.
In the following game from the 4NCL , Australian player Chris Skulte scored a big upset over Guillaume Lamard. Outrated by 300 points, Skulte chose an aggressive line against the Sicilian, and went into the middle game with a playable position. His sensible play paid off on move 29 when it looks as though his opponent miscalculated a tactic and dropped a pawn. (29 ... Nxf4 30.Qf3 avoids losing the exchange) After that White was clearly better, but in such situations (against a stronger opponent), it is often a choice between trying to win, and being happy with a draw. Fortunately for Chris, there were enough obvious good moves on the board to play (46.g4!) that his opponent went from losing to lost, allowing Chris to pick up the full point.


Skulte,Christopher (2177) - Lamard,Guillaume (2472) [B50]
4NCL Division 1a Daventry, ENG (1.16), 29.02.2020

Don't panic

Apparently the end of the world involves running out of toilet paper, if the empty shelves in supermarkets can be believed. I am of course referring to the steps people are taking to prepare for the potential Covid-19 outbreak in Australian (and elsewhere).
While there is still a great degree of uncertainty surrounding Covid-19, it is already having an effect on some chess activities. The Chinese players in the upcoming Candidates tournament in Russia have been allowed into the country, but are required to spend 14 days in quarantine. More significantly, the 2020 Dubai Open has been cancelled. This tournament was very popular, and last year attracted 31 GM's in the 160 player field.
There is also talk of health precautions at tournaments that are going ahead. The most obvious one is to relax the 'hand shake rule', and instead allow a nod or even a bow before the game begins. And while this seems sensible, the health outcomes may be undone by the first capture of the game, when you come in contact with one of your opponents pieces.
As for local Australian events (including the Doeberl Cup and SIO), there doesn't seem to be any issues with them going ahead. Travel by overseas players may be affected, but at this stage, there is no thought of cancelling any such events.

Straight up the chimney

The phenomenon of beginners moving their rook pawns in the opening is pretty well known. The Ian Rout theory of left handers moving the pawn on that side of the board has been observed on a number of occasions, by me, but h4 is often followed up with a4 as well.
The following game is both an example, and a warning. In all honesty it isn't the type of game I normally put on my blog, but it did have one other point of interest. After I had won a couople of pieces, I wasn't really surprised when my opponent played Ke2. Of course Bd2 is the right move, but when you are first taught chess, "you have to get out of check" is often heard as "you have to move your king out of check". And once the king went to e2, it had to go to e3, then e4 before getting mated on e5.


Junior - Press,Shaun [A00]
Casual, 02.03.2020

March is bad blitz month

I fear March is going to be the month of bad blitz for me. It did not get off to an auspicious start, when I blundered a number of games at the monthly Beer and Blitz, held in Canberra. I suspect the cause was not finding the right balance between the beer and the blitz, although slowing reflexes may also be to blame.
The real wake up call came in my first game, where I was playing a much younger opponent. The usual strategy in these cases is to play a simple opening, get an advantage in the middlegame, and then swap into a better ending. However I ignored the cardinal rule of blitz endings, which is "Always have a knight". In trying to defend against various tricks, I walked into a knight fork and dropped a piece.
After that it was always a struggle, and eventually I finished mid field, scoring around 50%