Dealing with wing attacks

I had a chance to follow up my post about the Steinitz Principle with a practical example from a game I played today. My opponent launched a kingside pawn storm but did so before his centre was secure. As a result I was able to push back in the centre, stalling his attack, and eventually winning a pawn. Although I did not play the subsequent rook ending as well as I should, I still manged to score a win, ironically with one of my own kingside pawns promoting.


White - Black
Street Chess, 30.06.2019

2019 ANU Open - 27th and 28th July 2019

The 2019 ANU Open is being held across the weekend of the 27th and 28th July 2019, at the ANU Schools of Art and Design, Childers St, Canberra. Now in it's 27th year, the event offers over $3000 in prizes, including a top prize of $1000.
Online entries can be made at http://vesus.org/festivals/2019-anu-open/ and a tournament brochure containing all the event details can be downloaded from there.

The Steinitz Principle

One of Steinitz's revolutionary ideas (for his time), was that a successful kingside attack required a solid centre as a precondition. As with most general rules this doesn't always hold, but it is a piece of advice that club players would do well to pay more attention to.
I'm guessing that this game from the first round of the GCT even in Croatia owes something to this idea, but I'm not actually sure how much. The early g5 thrust idea by Nepomniatchi has become much more common in recent top level games, although Anand then turned the tables by keeping his king in the centre, and launching his own kingisde attack instead. Fortunately for Black, White couldn't do much with the open h file, and in the end the weak central squares were occupied by Black, leading to victory.
While the classicist's of the 20th century may not have approved of play by either side, I'm sure Steinitz would have found this game quite logical from his point of view.

Anand,Viswanathan (2767) - Nepomniachtchi,Ian (2775) [C55]
Croatia GCT 2019 Zagreb CRO (1.5), 26.06.2019

DIY Chess Sets

I was having a discussion about giant sets sets (like the ones used in Hyde Park Sydney, or Garema Place Canberra) and the topic of replacement pieces came up. Single pieces are often hard to source, and a full replacement set is a little expensive. One suggestion was to simply use traffic cones with a picture of the piece taped to it as a temporary fix. While a practical solution, it probably lacks the aesthetic charm required for such a set.
One solution is to use a 3D printer to make a replacement. For example, someone has used such a device to print a giant rook. This could be used to replace one that has gone missing, and if you click on the link, you will find that inside the rook, is in fact an entire chess set that could be used to play a smaller game!

Getting a little better

Despite attempts to make at least one blog post per day, I am once again falling short. Surprisingly the cause of this is that I am quite busy with of all things, chess! It is the middle of the Canberra Interschool season, and some of my days are taken up running events.
One thing I'm pleased to report on is that the understanding of the game has improved among Canberra school students in recent years. Previously I have more than my share of bizarre rule interpretations, but they seemed to have disappeared recently.
One example was in a game today when a player said his opponents fingers bumped his king, but he then moved another piece. When I explained 'touch move' applied when a player touched a piece 'intending to move it' he was happy to tell me that his opponent didn't touch his piece on purpose. Of course there were a few illegal moves played, but even then they were corrected without much stress. Probably the greatest surprise for the 60 odd players who took part was that in competition chess, you don't have to say "check"!

Queen for piece

There has been a lot of recent excitement about Queen sacrifices, especially where a player gives up the queen for long term attacking chances, rather than for a more direct mate. The recent game between Alireza Firouzja and Murali Karthikeyan saw Karthikeyan sac his queen for two pieces on move 9, but go onto win in 53 moves. Comparisons were made to Nezhmetdinovs classic queen sacrifice from 1962, but there have been other similar examples.
Here is a game from 1975 where Kavalek (as Black) gives up his queen for a single piece. He was certainly under pressure when he did so, and even after the sacrifice Portisch was still winning. But Kavalek kept pushing and pushing, and eventually found enough in the position to escape with a draw.

Portisch,Lajos (2635) - Kavalek,Lubomir (2555) [E80]
Hoogovens Wijk aan Zee (11), 27.01.1975

Following on

Following on from yesterdays post, here is a recent example of playing poorly, and yet winning. My opening play was so dodgy that at least one later opponent in the tournament repeated the line, hoping I would play just as badly. I was struggling until  I played 21...c5, which turned the tide so completely that my opponent collapsed in the space of a few moves.


Camer,Angelito - Press,Shaun [D24]
2019 Oceania Zonal (5.4), 20.02.2019