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Chess can get you into Parliament
Some very lucky girls from the Patterson Lakes Primary “Cyber Girls” were given an exclusive tour of Parliament House and morning tea with Donna Bauer MLA! Chess is much more than just a game, it has taken so many people to so many different places. Great to see such recognition given to this outstanding team! Thanks Donna for recognising the efforts that these girls have made.
Jammo’s Chess Puzzle #111
Short v Anand
There is a very big chess tournament in progress at the moment – the London Chess Classic 2011 which features four players rated in the 2800s (plus 5 others), namely Carlsen 2826, Anand 2811, Aronian 2802 and Kramnik 2800. Anand is the World Chess Champion and Kramnik is a former World Champion. You can follow the games live on the internet but unfortunately they don’t start until about midnight Melbourne time. One commentator called it the strongest chess tournament ever held in Britain. I’m not so sure.
In rating terms it may well be the highest rated ever but everyone knows that ratings have inflated over time and there have been a few strong tournaments in Britain before. Hastings 1895 apparently wasn’t too bad, but it was a bit before my time. My choice would be Nottingham 1936 which featured Botvinnik, Capablanca, Lasker, Alekhine and Euwe (plus others) who between them held the world title between 1894 and 1957 inclusive! I think that I’d pick them in a match against the current mob.
There has however been some very interesting chess being played in the current tournament. Nakamura v Howell in round 5 was a nice tactical skirmish which I may well publish in “On the Move.” Meanwhile for today’s puzzle place yourself in the shoes of the current World Champion, Anand, as Black to play in the diagram against Short. He can play 1…Qf4+ to swap off queens but that gives him isolated and doubled pawns. Would his extra pawn then be enough to win? You decide.
8/5p2/5qk1/6p1/1Q5p/7P/6PK/8 b – - 0 1Should Black play 1...Qf4+?
Does school support your chess?
I know some parents find it difficult to get support for chess at their schools. But take a look at this and think how lucky you are – at least your kids aren’t expelled for playing chess!
Jammo’s Chess Puzzle #110
Allen Yu v Luke Li in the final round
I’ve just come back from an exciting three days of chess at the Campaspe Downs Resort (near Kyneton) including the final of the RJ Shield for 2011 and the National Schools Open featuring teams from all over Australia and New Zealand.
Auckland Grammar brought across a very strong team of players over 2000 rating and ran out easy winners but Glen Waverley Secondary also did well to finish second and be the top Australian Team. The full scores are available on the tornelo website.
At the other end of the room, on the bottom boards of the Primary Competition, play was not quite at the same level. I watched one game (which I then included in my lecture on blunders) where, in 13 moves (for White and Black) White missed capture of a rook, a stalemate chance and allowed mate in one. Black in turn blundered his rook, allowed a stalemate chance, missed mate in one then stalemated his opponent when a rook and pawn ahead. It’s hard playing chess when you don’t look even one move ahead!
There was some good chess played on the top boards however. My favourite game was Kingsley Chung v Allen Yu which will be published with Allen’s notes in the next issue of “Knight Times”. I glanced at the game whilst walking past and ended up standing there for five minutes trying to work out all the complications. Allen played like Mikhail Tal (fondly dubbed the “Magician from Riga”) to finish on top in the complications. Here is a position from the game with Black to play. He is ahead on material but the position is still a bit messy. What is his next “killer” move that wraps up the game.
1k1r3r/ppp2ppp/2P5/7B/1b2p1Q1/2P1B2P/PP3PPq/2R1K3 b – - 1 17Black to play
Jammo’s Chess Puzzle #109
Have you ever considered what part memory plays in chess skill. The public certainly think that chess players must have a good memory to “remember all those moves” however this is not necessarily the case. Perhaps chess players just have a good memory for chess positions.
I did an interesting memory test last Sunday when I was giving a lesson the Bobby Cheng and Laurence Matheson. I showed them a chess position, with all 32 pieces on the board, and gave them 10 seconds to try to memorise as many pieces as possible in their correct positions. The results were terrible! Bobby got 4 or 5 pieces correct and Laurence got hardly any. How is this possible you ask? The position was not a “proper” chess position but one where the pieces were placed randomly – hence they had no patterns to recognise. By contrast I gave them 2 seconds to memorise another position with all 32 pieces on the board and they got it 100% correct. The position was the starting position of the Sicilian defence which every chess player would instantly recognise. It just proves that pattern recognition is a big part of chess skill.
Pattern recognition also comes in handy when trying to solve chess puzzles “if you’ve seen one knight fork you have seen them all.” Today however I have a position for you that is probably not in your mental “database.” It’s from the game Karjakin v Svidler at the recent Tal memorial tournament in Moscow. Black is two pieces ahead but his king is in danger either of checkmate or perpetual check. The puzzle is to find White’s best move and Black’s best reply, then tell me the result.
r2q1r2/1p1n1p2/p2p4/2bbpP1k/8/2P3Q1/PPB2PPP/R4RK1 w – - 6 22White to play - what result?
Jammo’s Chess Puzzle #108
We have an exciting couple of weeks coming up with the RJ Shield and the National Interschool Open being held near Kyneton from 27 Nov – 29 Nov. Playing at a country resort instead of Monash University will be a bit of a change, but New Zealand are sending over four strong teams to challenge Australia’s best teams so it should be a great competition.
Meanwhile, over in Brazil the World Youth Championships start today. The Australian team includes Victorians Justin Tan (in the U14) and Karl Zelesco (in the U/12) whose results I will follow with great interest. Karl in particular is very good for his age and must have a chance for a high placing. I watched his games at the State Finals recently and he played like a master for most of the time.
To compete successfully at that level you have to have a keen eye for tactics. The basic advice that I give students is to “examine all checks and captures” but at a higher level that is not enough. Some combinations are based on themes such as “overloaded piece” which do not involve either check or captures and so are much harder to spot. Let’s see how you cope with this harder sort of problem in today’s puzzle.
2k5/2p5/1p1rn1p1/5p2/q2b4/6P1/P2RQPB1/3R2K1 w – - 0 1White to play
