Putt for dough

Better to win the ending than to win the opening. Such is the nature of chess that 40 good moves can get destroyed by playing one bad move. Especially if this one bad move is when there are very few moves to choose from.
Magnus Carlsen had a fortunate win over Hou Yifan at the Tata Steel event, when his opponent swapped into a king and pawn ending, and immediately moved the wrong pawn. Instead of 45 ... a5, which held the draw, she player 45 ... h5 and Magnus pounced with 46.Kb4. With the king invading via a5 and b6, Yifan had to retreat her king, but this allowed Carlsen to swap the queenside pawns, and Yifan resigned as her other pawns were about to fall.


Carlsen,Magnus (2844) - Hou,Yifan (2673) [C42]
78th Tata Steel GpA Wijk aan Zee NED (11.1), 29.01.2016

London System is falling down?

The London System (1.d4 2.Bf4 or 2.Nf3 3.Bf4) is another off-beat opening that is starting to appear more and more at top level chess. It's use may be more of a surprise weapon than an attempt to build it into a fully effective opening system, but the fact that Carlsen used it to beat Tomashevsky at Tata Steel does give it a stamp of approval.
However just because it is a surprise, doesn't mean it is going to work every time. Following Carlsen's lead, Karjakin used it against Michael Adams in round 10 of the same event, only to end up on the wrong side of the win/loss column. To be fair to the opening, after move 20 things seemed to fine for White, and optically White's attack looks stronger than Black's. Where it really goes wrong for White is at move 25 where Karjakin's plan to run his king to safety on the kingside ironically makes it less safe, as the queenside needed an extra defender to hold it together, that being the White king itself.

Karjakin,Sergey (2769) - Adams,Michael (2744) [A45]
78th Tata Steel GpA Wijk aan Zee NED (10.5), 27.01.2016

Go gets a little harder (for humans)

Compared to chess, Go has been a far more difficult game for computer engines to master. The larger search space (up to 381 possible moves per ply to search) has meant that brute force techniques haven't been that useful. At first this problem lead to researcher only looking a smaller boards (9x9) but then a modified Monte Carlo method provided  the next leap in strength.
Now researches at Google have developed a program strong enough to beat the European Go champion. Using neural nets the researchers were able to train the program to recognise positions and moves that were likely to lead to a favourable position, and from there the program's strength grew. As mentioned in this report, at first the program was very week, but after examining 30 million moves, and playing against itself, it twigged to what was needed to be a strong player. Having conquered Go in Europe, the big challenge would be for the program to take on the best players in Asia. I am not sure whether this will happen (although I do not think Man v Machine matches in Go are banned, as they are in Shogi) as the researchers are talking about moving their research in other directions.

The traditional first round draw

It now seems to be an established tradition that World Champions (present and former)  who return to play in Open swiss's (after a gap of a number of years) are destined to draw their first round. Kramnik and Carslen have done this at the Qatar Masters, while Anand has joined this group, with a first round draw in the 2016 Gibraltar Open. His (non-overawed) opponent was IM Szidonia Lazarne Vajda, who did not seem to mind the 400 rating point gap.


Anand,Viswanathan (2784) - Lazarne Vajda,Szidonia (2359) [A00]
Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2016 Gibraltar (1.3), 26.01.2016

Chess for the next two months

If you are local to Canberra (or the surrounding region) then the next two months is going to be pretty busy in regards to your chess calendar. There are a number of upcoming events, not just locally, which you might want to have a go at. Most of these are also FIDE rated events, so if you are looking at getting an international rating as quickly as possible, here is your chance.

• ANU Chess Club Masters and Challengers begins on February 3. The top section is an 8 player RR, while the challengers is a FIDE rated swiss, open to all
• 2016 ACT Championship is on the 12,13,14,20,21 of February. This is a 9 round FIDE Rated Open, played over 2 weekends (with a Friday night start). Details at ACT Chess Association Website
• 2016 Dubbo Open 12/13 March, Dubbo NSW. This is a 6 round weekend with a time limit of G60m+10s (ACF Rated)
• 2016 Ballarat Begonia Open, 12,13,14 March, Ballarat Victoria. The number 1 weekender in Victoria is celebrating its 50th edition. 7 round FIDE rated Open Swiss
• 2016 O2C Doeberl Cup, 24-28 March. Australia's biggest weekend event. Top 3 sections are FIDE rated, with title norms on offer in the Premier. Full details at O2C Doeberl Cup homepage

And for those that can't get away on weekends, there is still plenty of weeknight chess in Canberra. Click on the ACTCA link for details of all the clubs.

Gibraltar 2016

Gibraltar 2016 is starting tonight with the usual GM heavy field. Although there is a clash with Tata Steel, the highly regarded open still has plenty of grunt at the top. Hikaru Nakamura is the top seed, and the top 10 players are all rated 2700 or above.
Unlike the Qatar Masters (and other type events), this is truly an Open, with players rated as low as 1600 in the field. While not quite rated that low, two young Australian IM's, Moulthun Ly and Justin Tan are also playing. Gibraltar  has been a happy tournament for Ly previously, as he scored one of his IM norms there a number of years back.
The first round begins this evening (or early morning Australian time), although you can pick up earlier coverage of the Challengers event, which starts in the morning their time. All the details and results are on the tournament web site.

Perfect scores at Australian Juniors

The Australian Junior Chess Championships finished today, and both the Open winner and Girls winner scored a perfect 9/9. IM Ari Dale took out the title of 2016 Australian Junior Champion, finishing two points ahead of 2nd place Tom Maguire. Dale also won the Australian Junior Lightning with 10.5/11, so over 20 games of chess he dropped a single half point.
In the Girls Championship Zhi Lin Guo also scored 9/9, 2 points ahead of Alanna Chew Lee.  The lower age groups were more closely contested, with a number of dramatic final round games, at least based on the score tables.
The numbers for the event were comparable to last years tournament in Canberra, and I'm assuming that the organisers were happy with how it went. I'm not sure where next years event is scheduled to be held, but wherever it is I expect another large and enthusiastic turn out.