2012 London Chess Classic

The last 'Big' tournament of 2012, the London Chess Classic starts tomorrow (1st December). Like last year it is a 9 player round robin, with the 'Bye' player roped in to commentary duties for their 'rest day'. One change from last year is the reduction in home (English) players from 4 to 3, with GM Nigel Short moving into the commentators seat on a full time basis.
As with previous editions of the tournament the field is a very strong won. Magnus Carlsen and Lev Aronian top the field, with last years winner Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand adding World Champion class. Judit Polgar and Hikaru Nakamura complete the overseas contingent, with Michael Adams, Luke McShane and Gawain Jones turning out for the host country.
In terms of the winner, I am going to make my usual, safe prediction, and go for Carlsen. As an added omen, today is his 22nd birthday, so hopefully this will put him in a good frame of mind. Luke for McShane to play the maximum number of moves, with Aronian playing the most interesting chess. However I sense one thing will change this year, and we might see a reinvigorated Anand, eschewing his usual quota of draws. (NB I am basing this on nothing but gut feeling).
Along side the Classic are a number of side events, including a big Open tournament. Looking at the field I have spotted a few young Australian players including Justin Tan, Ari Dale and WIM Emma Guo. At one stage Guo was slated to play in the Women's Invitational, but she was 2 rating points short of the level needed to allow the tournament to offer norms.
The official tournament website is http://www.londonchessclassic.com/ with all the usual tournament goodies. However the start time for the rounds is 1400 GMT which translates into 1am Canberra time. So I suspect the only live coverage I'm likely to see are the tail end of games involving Luke McShane.

Google Glass

I was listening to an interview on the radio this evening concerning Google Glasses, a project I have been interested in for a while. During the interview, the Google spokesman mentioned that one potential use is to look at sudoku puzzle, and then be given the option to retrieve the solution.
Clearly if the project can do this, then applying the same technology to chess games should not be far behind. A quick glance at the position on the board, and the best move gets whispered in you ear moments later! No need to hide a phone in your pocket, or make a suspicious number of trips to the toilet.
Of course such a cheating strategy is not as easy as it sounds. Having seen a few prototypes on the web, the design is a bit of a give away. The tiny camera used to record the scene in front of you is not tiny enough, so it should be pretty clear if someone is wearing them. Also you might be able to see random bits of text scrolling across the glasses, and the hand gestures used as part of the control interface run the risk of knocking the pieces off the board.
But as an exercise I would still be interested in seeing chess applications on the finished product. Quite possibly a Google sponsored 'Centaur' (Human+Computer) tournament would be a good PR stunt.

Presented without comment

Press,Shaun - Hosking,Ian [A42]
Swiss Festive Fun, 27.11.2012

An opening for big hitters

I've been looking at the games from the FIDE Grand Prix in Tashkent, and found the following one quite interesting. Watching it in real time I was impressed by the cut and thrust nature of it, as both sides seems happy to take some big swings at each other. When I went over it later, there was another interesting feature to it. After 10 ... Qh4 the game seems to be the exclusive preserve of the 2400+ brigade. While there have only been 5 games to reach this position (in my database anyway), 4 of them were 2600+ v 2600+ match ups. Given the sharp nature of the play that result from this variation, it is probably no surprise. Just as 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 is the preserve of the beginner set (Nakamura notwithstanding), there should be some openings that require an advanced drivers licence just to play.


Leko,Peter (2732) - Dominguez Perez,Leinier (2726) [E32]
FIDE GP Tashkent Tashkent UZB (4.2), 25.11.2012

Pika, Pika, Pikachu

The 2012 ACT Transfer Championship was won by a team called "Mmm! Pokemon". They were actually the brother and sister team of Allen and Megan Setiabudi, who even went as far as dressing up as Ash Catchem, and Pikachu (with tail and all). This may have intimidated the opposition, as they scored a perfect 11/11 to finish 2 points clear of second placed "Uncle Michael". At the prize giving Allen "Pikachu" Setiabudi's speech consisted of 'Pika, Pika, Pikachu'.
While the games were interesting and hard fought, a number of teams have a way to go before mastering Transfer. On the lower boards, playing too much like 'normal' chess was the big sin, while at the top, and obsession with clock watching crippled some of the teams. I can understand 'stalling' when ahead by 60 seconds on the clock, but telling your partner not to move when the time difference is under 5 seconds is dicing with death.
But as with anything, the more you play, the more you should understand. As I explained at the start of the tournament, if today's chess doesn't go your way, there is still another 50 years of transfer to look forward to.

Going off too soon

Street Chess saw a couple of games today, where one player was guilty of 'going off too soon' (also known as 'celebrating too early'). The diagram shows a final round game between Wenlin Yin and Yijun Zhang, after 8 moves of a Pirc. Zhang thought he saw a tactical trick and uncorked the TN 8. ... Nxe4? What made this move extra special was he pre-announced it with "Check this out" and followed it up with "Bang!" as he took the pawn. The early celebration turned to dismay when his opponent played 9.Qb5+, forcing off queens and breaking the pin of the knight. No matter how Black defended, losing a piece was going to be the end result.
(For reference the game started with 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 c5 6.dxc5 Qa5 7.Qd4 dxc5 8.Qc4 Nxe4?? 9.Qb5+ Qxb5 10.Bxb5+ Bd7 11.Bxd7 Nxd7 12.Nxe4 and White won from here).
The other game was between Ian Hosking and Victor Braguine. Braguine (Black) had been attacking, but the position reduced to Q+B v Q+N and various pawns. Braguine grabbed a pawn, allowing his knight to be captured, and after giving a spite check, met by a king move, extended his hand. His opponent assumed it was a resignation (as I did I while watching the game). Suddenly Braguine picked up his Queen and gave another check, pushing the clock. When Ian asked him what he was doing he said "Sorry, I thought I had mated you". The game continued, and despite being down a piece, Braguine pulled off a later swindle to win the game.
(NB Hosking did not complain or ask for a ruling during or after the game. Clearly Braguine did not intend to resign, or even 'declare he resigned', so I would not have changed the result if asked).

White to play and lose

From the 2nd round of the 2012 Commonwealth Championship. FM Junta Ikeda has just played Kh7 in this (lost) position. So how did White manage to lose from here?