2011 ANU Open - Day 2

GM Zong Yuan Zhao completed a pretty smooth victory in the 2011 ANU Open, scoring 2/3 on the second day to finish on 6/7. The key game was his 5th round against IM Andras Toth. After both players bashed out 15 or 16 moves in less than 3 minutes, Toth had a long think in the position, but was unable to find an answer to Zhao's constant pressure. This pressure built up for the rest of the game, until Toth ran short of time and resigned, more from dissatisfaction with his position, rather than any immediate loss.
Zhao then drew with 'almost' IM Vladimir Smirnov, before securing victory with a quick last round draw against Blair Mandla. Mandla was one of three players tied for second, having beaten IM Andras Toth in round 6, before his last round draw against Zhao. He was joined by Vladimir Smirnov (who beat Justin Tan) and IM George Xie, who beat Paul Broekhuyse in the last round.
In the Minor (Under 1600) tournament, Fred Litchfield was streeting the field with 6 wins from the first 6 rounds, before Ethan Derwent stooped him the final round. The win by Derwent allowed him to catch Litchfield on 6/7, and the two shared first place. Tournament newcomer Curtis Perry finished in outright third on 5.5/7.
The organisers (Shun Ikeda, Paul Dunn, Charles Zworestine etc) judged the tournament a success, with a sight increase in numbers over last year, and no problems or major incidents. In terms of odd happenings (apart from world no 3 Lev Aronian being the highest rated spectator the tournament has ever had),the 5th round pairing between Casey Baines and Curtis Perry may have set some sort of Australian record, with Perry's 193cm fame (6ft 5in) being slightly overshadowed by Baines topping out at 198cm (6ft 7in).

2011 ANU Open - Day 1

After the first day, GM Zong Yuan Zhao and IM Andras Toth lead the 2011 ANU Open with 4 wins from 4 games. Zhao's tally included wins over Benjamin Harris and Arthur Huynh, while defending champion Toth beat IM George Xie in an important 4th round game. The two leaders meet in the 5th round, which will go a long way to determining the tournament winner.
In the Minor (Under 1600) tournament, local players Fred Litchfield and Matt Radisich are also on 4/4, and just as in the Open, play in tomorrows 5th round.
Results from the tournament can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/chessatanu/home/current-tournaments
The top board clash between Zhao and Toth can be seen at http://www.apex.net.au/~shaun.press/livegames/tfd.htm from 9:30am Canberra time.

Arthur Huynh - GM Zong Yuan Zhao
2011 ANU Open, 30.07.2011

2011 ANU University Co-Op Bookshop Simul

IM Andras Toth proved a hard man to beat in the 2011 ANU University Co-op Bookshop Simul, winning all his games against a fairly tough field. The simul, held at King O'Malley's pub in the centre of Canberra, attracted a group of players in the 1200-1800 range (plus one 2000 ringer), each aiming to score a prize for winning or drawing. While there were a couple of games that could have gone either way, according to Andras, he managed to hang on and take the point. "He didn't miss any tactics" was one comment heard after the game. His score on +15=0-0 was achieved after 2 hours of play.
The annual Co-op Bookshop simul is the first event in the 2011 ANU Chess Festival. The Festival continues tomorrow with the first day of the 2011 ANU Open.

John Mackie - RIP

Canberra chess identity John Mackie passed away earlier this week. He was active as an over the board player in the 1960's and 70's, before concentrating on correspondence chess from the 1980's onward. He was the Director of Play for the Doeberl Cup in its early years, and was the editor of International Chess Forum, which was the spiritual predecessor of Australian Chess Forum. His chess involvement declined over the last few years due to health issues, but he still had a number of friends in the Canberra chess community, who will mourn his passing.

Armenian Team Work

The Armenian Team has won the 2011 World Teams Championship, proving once again that they are masters of teams chess. Although ranked 4th by seeding, they finished with 14/18 (match points scoring), winning 5 matches and drawing 4. This put them 1 point ahead of the host country China, who won 6 matches, but lost 2. Ukraine finished 3rd, with top seeds Russia once again coming up short in a teams event by finishing in a 3 way tie for 4th.
Unlike the Olympiad, this event is an all play all, so there is nowhere to rest after a bad result. Armenia used a similar strategy to their 2 Olympiad winning teams by playing their top 4 for almost all their games (Aronian rested once to give their board 5 his only game). Most other teams rotated players, although the majority of board 1 players played all 9 games.
Apart from Russia, Israel's 9th place was also a surprise, as they normally do well at Olympiads. Less of a surprise was Egypt finishing 10th, as they were rated 100 points below the next team.

Openings that aren't Openings

I've faced a number of weird openings in my time, some so weird I'm not sure they even qualify as openings. I'm pretty sure they're designed to skip the opening phase altogether, and start the middlegame as soon as possible.
For example I faced 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Bc5 this evening, and after taking on e5, I spent the next few moves making sure I didn't have to return the pawn, going so far as to miss a strong tactical shot around move 6. (I did win the game btw).
Of course this isn't as bad as the Irish Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nxe5) which I have played against at least twice in serious games, but coughing up a pawn for little compensation makes little sense to me, even as some kind of psychological ploy.
But having said that there are over 250 games with 2. ... Bc5 in my database, so giving up a pawn this way must appeal to some folks.

Bullet - Rolling dice

Having not played a lot of Bullet Chess (G/1m) over the years, I'm not quite up with the nuances of the game. So much so that of the recent games I have played, it seems like the results I score are the complete opposite of what is actually on the board. When I am winning on the board I lose on time, and when I am losing on the board, it is my opponent who gets flagged.
This leads me to one conclusion: You can play bad moves faster than good ones.
So for avid bullet players here is the question: Is playing good moves a bad strategy?