Not quite the finish intended

 As I type this, Magnus Carlsen is enjoying another victory at the Tata Steel tournament, aided in part by a last round walkover win against Daniil Dubov. This was due to fact that Dubov had to leave the tournament early, having tested positive to Covid 3 rounds before the end. While this could be considered a bit of bad luck for Dubov, it should be noted that he also defaulted his game against Giri after being required to wear a mask due to a positive test of a close contact.

In the end Carlsen finished on 9.5/13 (+6=7-0) including wins against players who finished just behind him in the standings. There had been talk of Carlsen breaking the 2900 rating mark before the event began, and if he continues to play like this, he may well do so before the end of this year.

Survival of the Smartest?

 Chess in Canberra has received some fantastic media coverage of the last few years, due in no small part  to James Buckley. He is a sports writer for the Canberra Times, as well as being a more than handy chess player. As a result, a lot of chess coverage ends up being featured in the sports section (alongside cricket or rugby), rather than being relegated to the 'lifestyle' section.

Towards the end of February, James is taking part in a 'Special Forces Challenge' to raise money for the Terry Campese Foundation. Along with a number of other Canberra sporting and business identities, James is spending 30 hours being put through the wringer by a 'bunch of ex-army types'. While most of the challenges are physical in nature, there is a psychological component as well.

As it is for a good cause, and to support a good bloke, it would be great if the Canberra (and wider) chess community jumped on board. You can see the details at https://www.specialforceschallenge.com.au/ and help James get to his $5000 target, buy clicking on his picture to make a donation. 

Battle of the Sexes

 Once again the Gibraltar Open has been affected by Covid meaning the big open event isn't being held. In its place is the Match between Team PIA (consisting of strong female players) and Team SABINO (consisting of strong male players). It is being played as a 10 round Scheveningen (ie all players on  a team play all the players on the other team), and after 4 rounds, team PIA leads by 20.5-19.5. Team PIA got out to a good start winning the first two rounds, but Team Sabino has narrowed the gap in rounds 3 and 4. 

Turning out for Team SABINO is Australian GM Bobby Cheng, while Team PIA contains a player very familiar to Australian chess fans, IM Irine Sukandar. Sukandar was one of the reasons why Team PIA took an early lead, beating the captain of Team SABINO, GM Sabino Brunello in the first round.

Sukandar,Irine Kharisma (2407) - Brunello,Sabino (2503) [C93]
Battle of the Sexes 2022 Gibraltar ENG (1.5), 24.01.2022

Novelty blitz format?

 At the Dubbo Open each year, the organisers run a novelty blitz event on the Saturday Night. It is a time handicap event, where the difference in rating determines the time difference between the 2 players. However, based in part on an idea by IM Jovan Petronic, there may be another format.

Petronic's initial suggestion concerned Swiss Pairings. He wondered if anyone had tried a format where the lowest ranked player in a scoregroup could choose their next opponent (from that group), instead of having the pairing assigned by the computer. Of course there would be issues with floaters and colour allocations, but in looking to deal with those, I came up with a modified format.

NB This would only work in a blitz or rapid event of sufficient rounds. In the first round it is simply top half v bottom half with 5 minutes each. However, for each round after that, the lowest ranked player would choose their next opponent from the remaining players, with the caveat that they had not played before, and the choice would not break the absolute colour history (3 in a row or 3 more than the other colour). If there is an odd number of players, then the lowest ranked player (who hadn't had a bye) would get the bye. However, the extra sauce would be that the difference in points would also be the difference in time on the clock. So if a player on 2 points chose an opponent on 4 points, the lower ranked player would start with 6 minutes versus 4 (in blitz). For a rapid, this difference could be 2 minutes per point difference.

At first I suspect the lower ranked players would choose other lower ranked players, but this means a win would push them up the rankings, and they would get to choose later (or be chosen by stronger players ranked below them). There also might be a situation where a mid ranked player decides to take out the leader, hoping the time difference helps them sufficiently.

I' mot sure something like this has been tried before, and so I may decide to give it a go at an upcoming event. The only draw back is that under most Federations rating rules, an event like this is so far out that it could not be rated.

A little bit of learning

 At the risk of sounding like a cranky old man, it is all youtubes and engine this and engine that, where chess learning is concerned (*not really). In the good old days (*not that good, really) learning from books was the go. So when I coach, I still use books, including books on the middlegame written by Max Euwe. 

Having shown one of my students a couple of games where a nice kingside attack was executed, I was pleased to see him put that knowledge into practice less than 24 hours later.

Lcheng (1787) - Connor5566 (1858) [D06]
Summer Bootcamp Lightning https://lichess.org/WpWIR21U, 24.01.2022

Superficial chess?

 While I think 15 minutes chess hits the sweet spot between the thud and blunder of blitz, and the longer thinking of classical chess, it can let players get away from bad positions a little easily. If you can keep up the threats (even material down), your opponent may run short of time (or rush to avoid this), increasing the chance of a blunder.

Todays example comes from Street Chess, where White walked into a fairly well known trap, but then put Black under so much pressure that they cracked.

Chibnall,Alana - Radisich,Matt [A51]
Street Chess 22.01.2022

2022 ACT Blitz Championship

 The local ACT Chess Clubs are starting up again after the holiday break. Both the Tuggeranong and Canberra clubs started this week, while the Gungahlin Eastlakes Chess Club starts their year with the 2022 ACT Lightning Championship.  The will be a 9 round event with a time limit of all moves in 5 minutes. The venue is the Gungahlin Eastlake Football Club, Hinder St, Gungahlin. The date is Tuesday 1st February. Start time is 7:00pm and entry fee is $10 ($5 Under 18). It is open to all ACT Chess Association Members.