2023 ACT Women's and Girls Chess Championship

 2023 ACT Women's and Girls' Chess Championship - 10 September

7 rounds, 15m+ 5s per game. Rated by the Australian Chess Federation (Quickplay List)

Schedule: Sunday 11th September - Check-in 9.30am Round 1 10am Round 2 10:45am Round 3 11:30am Round 4 12:15am

Lunch Break 1pm-1:30pm

Round 5 1:30pm Round 6 2:15 pm Round 7 3pm Prize Giving 3:45pm

Prizes - 1st $250 2nd $125 3rd $75 Trophies for 1st, 2nd, 3rd + Medals for U14, U12, and U10

Max. two half-point byes available for Rounds 1-4.

Entry fee $20 Adults, $10 Junior. WGM, WIM, WFM and WCM Free.

+ Novices event for unrated players - Free entry with medals for 1st, 2nd and 3rd (Same schedule as Championship)

Entries close Saturday 5pm 9 Sept.

Register at https://www.trybooking.com/CKNDB

Back to 50%

 The much anticipated Press v Press clash in the LFG Invitational ended in a victory for youth. I didn't help my cause by blundering a pawn in the opening, although I received enough compensation for it that it could have been described as a pawn sacrifice. Where I really went wrong was not connecting a couple of separate plans together, to form one cohesive strategy. I looked at ideas around winning the c5 pawn with Rc1 and attacking the king with moves like d6. It turns out that if I played 16.d6! Black can only stop Plan B by allowing me to execute Plan A. Instead I just focussed on Plan B (which fails on its own) and eventually gave away most of my pieces!

Press,Shaun - Press,Harry [E10]
LFG --- (2), 04.08.2023

2023 World Cup

 The 2023 World Cup is underway in Baku. Australia started with 4 representatives (2 from the Oceania Zonal and 2 qualifying from the Olympiad), although that number dropped to 2 after Round 1. GM Bobby Cheng drew his round 1 match 1-1, but lost the playoff, while WGM Jillin Zhang went out in regulation. GM Temur Kuybokarov won his round 1 match, but is already down 1 game against Yu Yangi. He needs to win the 2nd game to send the match into overtime, but as I type this, he stands slightly worse going into the ending. Julia Ryjanova is holding her own in her round 2 match against higher rated Zhongyi Tan, having drawn the first game, and looking OK in a sharp position in the 2nd game.

Of course the big interest is in former World Champion Magnus Carlsen's participation. Having given up his title, a win in this event would provide an interesting dilemma. Would he see it as a sign that he retired too soon, or simply as proof that he does not need a title to demonstrate how good he is. of course there are a number of other players trying to stop him from winning this event, including Nakamura, Caruana and Nepomniachtchi. 

Plenty of online coverage (eg Youtube) but you can get the results and games from the official site https://worldcup2023.fide.com/

Playing e4 and d4

 Conventional opening wisdom has White playing e4 and d4 in tandem. i.e. If you start with e4 then d4 is a desirable move to play, while if you start with 1.d4 then e4 becomes a goal. Of course how long between one and the other is open to debate. But once you have played it then d5-e5, and d6-e6 might even improve your position further!

Junta Ikeda - Terrence Tang [E16]
Round 2: Junta Ikeda - Terrence Tang https://lichess.org/study/HkHW, 29.07.2023

2023 ANU Open - Ikeda wins

 IM Junta Ikeda has added yet another title to his large collection, winning the 2023 ANU Open. Starting the day on 4/4 he defeated Fred Litchfield in round 5, before playing a 95 move draw against the rapidly improving Harvey Zhu. Harry Press (4.5) tied for second with CM Lalit Prasad, after Prasad scored an upset win over FM Fred Litchfield. Harvey Zhu and Terrance Tang shared the 1600-2000 rating prize, while Leiming Yu capped a fantastic tournament by winning the Under 1600 prize.

Matthew Dwyer scored 6 ins from 6 games to finish first in the Minor event. However he had to be content with the Best Unrated prize as he does not currently have a ACF/FIDE rating. This left Larry Cheng and Olamide Fasakin sharing the first place prize money, finishing on 5/6.

The tournament attracted a good field of 68 players, which was a substantial increase over last years turnout. The new venue at ANU was ideal for the tournament and hopefully it can be used for next years event. The event was strongly supported by the ANU Chess Society, with a number of members taking part in the tournament. There is even talk of returning to the days of a full blown chess festival, with simuls, computer chess and other activities being organised. 

2023 ANU Open Days 2

 IM Junta Ikeda has taken the outright lead in the 2023 ANU Open. He scored another 3 wins today, including an important Round4 victory over third seed Harry Press. He is half a point ahead of 2nd seed FM Fred Litchfield, after Litchfield took a bye for the evening round. As Litchfield is the only player on 3.5, he faces Ikeda in the morning round. 

In third place are Press, Terrence Tang, Harvey Zhu and Leiming Yu. Yu has been the real surprise of this event, scoring 3/4 against players rated 500 points ahead of him. He faces Tang in round 5, and based on current form, has good chances to go into the final round on 4/5.

In the Minor (Under 1600), it is the unrated players setting the pace. Matthew Dwyer is on 4/4, half a point ahead of Andrew Blakers on 3.5. Also sharing 2nd are junior players Eshaan Extross and Leon Sostaric. Blakers, who won the ACT Junior Championship in 1973(!) is making a competitive comeback after 50 years, having been one of Australia's leading researchers in Solar energy systems. 

Tomorrow mornings round starts at 10am, with the final round at 2pm. Live coverage of the top 4 boards can be found at the results link, which is http://tournaments.streetchess.net/ANU2023/

2023 ANU Open - Round 1

 The 2023 ANU Open and Minor (Under 1600) tournaments began today, with a total of 67 players. The Open section has 31 players, with IM Junta Ikeda as the top seed. While the top 5 seeds all scored wins against their lower rated opponents, there were a few upsets further down. Leiming Yu, Jonah Gear and Dev Raichura all score upset wins, while Masaki Horikawa held his higher rated opponent to a draw.

The Minor (Under 1600) had 36 players, and once again almost all games went according to rating. Paul Dunn lost to unrated Matthew Dwyer, while experienced junior player Eshaan Extross escaped with a draw against debutant Andrew Blakers. 

The return to the Australian National University was welcomed by all, and the tournament saw a number of current and former ANU staff and students take part. The playing room is spacious and well lit, and quite close to coffee shops, bars and take aways. The only thing missing was live coverage of the top boards, but this will start tomorrow (round 2 @ 10 am)

All the results can be found at http://tournaments.streetchess.net/ANU2023/ which also has a link to the live coverage