Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Blog

2011 Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club — Rapid Championship_Rounds 1-3

2012-02-07T22:11:00.002+11:00

It is February and the first comp has begun in Ryde-Eastwood Chess Club. I am kicking myself for missing it this year but things did not happen last Wednesday and I could not get away.

If, like me, you wish to play chess, please remember that Rapid will go on for another two weeks and then it is the Club Championships Preliminaries.

Round 1

Huynh - Dibley 1-0
Margan - Christensen 0-1`
Mallari - Edwards 1-0
Mlinaric Liu 0-1
Gletsos - Mikolajczyk 1-0
Marton - Escalante 0-1
Watson - Irmler 1-0
Chiara - Burgess 0-1
Tan - Kirillov 1-0
Valenzulea - Kuru 0-1
Cardenas - Mere 1-0
Bredin - Mitrovic 0-1
Gluvchinsky - Pacey 0-1

Round 2

Burgess - Huynh 0-1
Christensen - Watson 0-1
Kuru - Mallari 0-1
Liu - Tan 1-0
Mitrovic - Gletsos 0-1
Escalante - Cardenas 1-0
Pacey - Margan 1-0
Irmler - Gluvchinsky 0-1
Dibley - Chiara 0.5-0.5
Edwards - Valenzuela 1-0
Kirillov - Mlinaric 1-0
Mikolajczyk - Bredin 1-0
Mere - Marton 0-1

Round 3

Huynh - Escalante 1-0
Mallari - Pacey 1-0
Gletsos - Liu 0.5-0.5
Watson - Burgess 0-1
Gluvchinsky - Christensen 0.5-0.5
Tan - Edwards 1-0
Mikolajczyk - Kuru 0-1
Cardenas - Kirillov 1-0
Marton - Mitrovic 1-0
Mlinaric - Dibley 0-1
Chiara - Irmler 1-0
Margn - Mere 1-0
Valenzuela - Bredin 1-0

The first competition for the year begins tomorrow .....

2012-01-31T22:02:00.001+11:00

Message from our President:

Hi chess players,
Our rapid play competition starts tomorrow night, if you want to compete be at the Club before 7.30. The competition has a spamming time limit and there are 3 games played each Wednesday night over the next 3 week.
Hope to see you there.

Les Mikolajczyk

2011 Ryde Eastwood Classic Results Rounds 5-7

2012-01-31T21:59:00.001+11:00

Round 5

Selim - Grbin 0.5-0.5
Cardenas - Hickey 1-0
Pacey - Edwards 1-0
Kuru - Mikolajczyk 1-0
Kirillov = Chiara 1-0
Mirovic - Mlinaric 0.5-0.5
Valenzuela - Marton 1-0
Shoa - Irmler 0-1
Bredin - Bye 0-0

Round 6

Grbin - Cardenas 0-1
Kirillov - Pacey 0-1
Hickey - Mlinaric 1-0
Chiara - Edwards 0-1
Valenzuela - Mitrovic 0-1
Irmler - Mikolajczyk 0-1
Shoa - Marton 0-1

Round 7

Pacey - Grbin 1-0
Edwartds - Cardenas 0-1
Hickey - Chiara 0-1
Marton - Kirillov 0-1
Mikolajczyk - Valenzuela 1-0
Mitrovic - Shoa 1-0
Mlinaric - Irmler 0.5-0.5

Winners
=1st Egon Cardenas & Frank Pacey
Division 2
=1st KArl Kirillov & Les Mikolajczyk

Congratulations!!!

Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club 2012 AGM

2012-01-24T17:38:00.002+11:00

The Chess Club AGM is on this Wednesday, 25th January 2012, starting at 7:30 pm. Come and have your say or volunteer your services.

The agenda and related documents can be viewed here.

Club Championship 2011

2011-11-29T11:04:00.003+11:00

Congratulations to Donato Mallari, the Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club 2011 Club Champion. In the Round-Robin Finals, Donato defeated everyone, only dropping one game to Rob Watson. The results can be seen here.

Here are the results for the Club Championships Preliminaries.

PRESENTATION & END OF YEAR DINNER 2011

2011-11-29T10:58:00.003+11:00

RYDE-EASTWOOD LEAGUES CLUB CHESS CLUB
PRESENTATION & END OF YEAR DINNER 2011

Dear Chess Club Member,

I invite you and your partner to our annual presentation and dinner evening on Wednesday 7th December. The presentation will start at 7.30pm in our chess club room, followed by dinner in the Hawk’s Nest Restaurant (see attached menus).

If you would like to attend dinner the cost will be:

For a Chess Club Member--------$20
For their Partner--------------------$35
For a Child that is a member of the chess club and orders from the children’s menu---$0

Could you let me know if you will be attending the dinner by the 30th November so I can inform the restaurant.

Please pay Greig before the 7th December or you can direct deposit the amount into the Chess Club’s bank account, details are:

Commonwealth Bank West Ryde
BSB No. 062 271
Account No. 1009 5836

If you direct deposit please inform Greig, his email is g.edwards@brownbear.com.au
Hope to see you there.

Les Mikolajczyk
Here is the Dinner Menu.

2011 Ryde Eastwood Classic Results Rounds 1-4

2011-11-09T13:50:00.001+11:00

Round 1

Kuru - Mlinaric 1-0
Mikolajczyk - Galwey 0-1
Mitrovic - Chiara 0-1
Kirillov - Edwards 1-0
Hickey - Irmler 1-0
Valenzuela - Grbin 0-1
Marton - Pacey 0-1
Shoa - Salim 0-1
Bredin - Bye 1-0
Cardenas - Bye 1- 0

Round 2

Salim - Kuru 1-0
Galwey - Kirillov 1-0
Chiara - Cardenas 1- 0
Pacey - Hickey 1-0
Grbin - Bredin 1F - 0F
Mikolajczyk - Mitrovic 0.5-0.5
Edwards - Valenzuela 1-0
Irmler - Marton 1-0
Mlinaric - Shoa 1-0

Round 3

Grbin - Galwey 0.5-0.5
Cardenas - Pacey 0-1
Kuru - Chiara 1-0
Hickey - Bredin 1-0
Kirillov - Mlinaric 0-1
Mitrovic - Irmler 1-0
Marton - Mikolajczyk 0-1
Valenzuela - Shoa 1-0
Edwards - Bye 0.5-0.5
Salim - Bye 0.5-0.5

Round 4

Pacey - Salim 0-1
Grbin - Kuru 1-0
Mlinaric - Cardenas 0-1
Mikolajczyk - Hickey 0.5-0.5
Edwards - Mitrovic 1-0
Chiara - Valenzuela 1-0
Irmler - Kirillov 0-1
Bredin - Shoa 1-0
Marton - Bye 1-0

2011 Ryde-Eastwood Chess Club Bobby Fischer Cup_Results for Rounds 13-17 (updated with Final Crosstable)

2011-10-11T21:43:00.000+11:00

Here is the link to a spreadsheet containing the Final Crosstable (prepared by Rob Watson): crosstable.

Congratulations to Arthur Huynh for coming first and undefeated with 16.5/17 and Joshua Christensen (15.5/17) who was also undefeated and came second.

The rest of the results:

Round 13

Burgess - Grbin 1-0
Brown, N - Irmler 1-0
Chiara - Mitrovic 0-1
Cardenas -Hickey 1-0
Brown, J - Muller 1-0
Escalante - Marton 1-0
Christensen Edwards 1-0
Kirillov - Huynh 0-1
Watson - Salim 0-1

Round 14

Grbin - Salim 0-1
Huynh - Watson 1-0
Edwards - Kirillov 0-1
Marton - Christensen 0-1
Muller - Escalante 1-0
Hickey - Brown, J 1-0
Mitrovic - Cardenas 1-0
Irmler - Chiara 1-0
Burgess - Brown, N 0-1

Round 15

Brown, N - Grbin 1-0
Chiara - Burgess 0-1
Cardenas - Irmler 1-0
Brown, J - Mitrovic 1-0
Escalante - Hickey 0.5-0.5
Christensen - Muller 1-0
Kirillov - Marton 0-1
Watson -Edwards 1-0
Salim - Huynh 0-1

Round 16

Grbin - Huynh 0-1
Edwards - Salim 0-1
MArton - Watson 0-1
Muller - Kirillov 1-0
Hickey - Christensen 0-1
Mitrovic - Escalante 0-1
Irmler - Brown, J 1-0
Burgess - Cardenas 0-1
Brown, N - Chiara 1-0

Round 17

Chiara - Grbin 1-0
Cardenas - Brown, N 0-1
Brown, J - Burgess 0-1
Escalante - Irmler 1-0
Christensen - Mitrovic 1-0
Kirillov - Hickey 0-1
Watson - Muller 0-1
Salim - Marton 1-0
Huynh - Edwards 1-0

Ryde-Eastwood Classic 2011

2011-10-10T14:45:00.000+11:00

Message from President of Chess Club:

Hi,

Our regular Ryde-Eastwood Classic Competition starts on Wednesday, Members who have not made the Club Championship finals can enter the competition. If you would like to compete be at the Club on Wednesday before 7.30pm or send me an email before 5.00pm on Wednesday.

Regards,
LES MIKOLAJCZYK

The High School Chess Coach (or Parent or Chess Fanatic) ......

2011-10-10T12:38:00.000+11:00

Thanks to GM Kevin Spraggett, please enjoy this Saturday Night Live skit (parody) of the life of a high school chess coach. (the last scene: dinner at home — ask yourself whether you are a chess tragic if you have a black and white chess board table cloth and the salt and pepper shakers must be on certain squares ......)

2011 Ryde-Eastwood Chess Club Bobby Fischer Cup_Results (corrected and crosstable added)

2011-09-27T21:34:00.004+10:00

I have received the results for the 2011 Bobby Fischer Cup and if someones can create a crosstable in word or excel format, I can link it via Google docs.
[Thanks to Rob Watson, here is the crosstable in spreadsheet format: click here]

Round 1

Edwards - Grbin 0-1
Marton - Huynh 0-1
Muller - Salim 1-0
Hickey - Watson 0-1
Mitrovic - Kirillov 1-0
Irmler - Christensen 0-1
Burgess - Escalante 1-0
Brown, N - Brown, J 1-0
Chiara - Cardenas 0-1

Round 2

Grbin - Cardenas 0-1
Brown, J - Chiara 0-1
Escalante - Brown, N 0-1
Christensen - Burgess 1-0
Kirillov - Irmler 0-1
Watson - Mitrovic 0.5-0.5
Salim - hickey 1-0
Huynh - Muller 1-0
Edwards - Marton 1-0

Round 3

Marton - Grbin 0-1
Muller - Edwards 1-0
Hickey - Huynh 0-1
Mitrovic - Salim 0-1
Irmler - Watson 0-1
Burgess - Kirillov 1-0
Brown, N - Christensen 0.5-0.5
Chiara - Escalante 0-1
Cardenas - Brown, J 1-0

Round 4

Grbin - Brown, J 1-0
Escalante - Cardenas 1-0
Christensen - Chiara 1-0
Kirillov - Brown, N 1-0
Watson - Burgess 0-1
Salim - Irmler 1-0
Huynh - Mitrovic 1-0
Edwards - Hickey 0-1
Marton - Muller 1-0

Round 5

Muller - Grbin 1-0
Hickey - Marton 1-0
Mitrovic - Edwards 0.5-0.5
Irmler - Huynh 0-1
Burgess - Salim 0-1
Brown, N - Watson 1-0
Chiara - Kirillov 1-0
Cardenas - Christensen 0-1
Brown, J - Escalante 0-1

Round 6

Grbin - Escalante 0.5-0.5
Christensen - Brown, J 1-0
Kirillov - Cardenas 0-1
Watson - Chiara 1-0
Salim - Brown, N 0-1
Huynh - Burgess 1-0
Edwards - Irmler 1-0
Marton - Mitrovic 0-1
Muller - Hickey 0-1

Round 7

Hickey - Grbin 0-1
Mitrovic - Muller 0.5-0.5
Irmler - Marton 1-0
Burgess - Edwards 1-0
Brown, N - Huynh 0-1
Chiara - Salim 1-0
Cardenas - Watson 0-1
Brown, J - Kirillov 1-0
Escalante - Christensen 0-1

Round 8

Grbin - Christensen 0.5-0.5
Kirillov - Escalante 0.5-0.5
Watson - Brown, J 1-0
Salim - Cardenas 0-1
Huynh - Chiara 0-1
Edwards - Brown, N 0-1
Marton - Burgess 1-0
Muller - Irmler 0-1
Hickey - Mitrovic 0-1

Round 9

Mitrovic - Grbin 1-0
Irmler - Hickey 0-1
Burgess - Muller 1-0
Brown, N - Marton 1-0
Chiara - Edwards 0-1
Cardenas - Huynh 0-1
Brown, J - Salim 0-1
Escalante - Watson 0-1
Christensen - Kirillov 1-0

Round 10

Grbin - Kirillov 1-0
Watson - Christensen 0-1
Salim - Escalante 1-0
Huynh - Brown, J 1-0
Edwards - Cardenas 0.5-0.5
Marton - Chiara 0-1
Muller - Brown, N 0-1
Hickey - Burgess 0.5-0.5
Mitrovic - Irmler 1-0

Round 11

Irmler - Grbin 1-0
Burgess - Mitrovic 1-0
Brown, N - Hickey 1-0
Chiara - Muller 1-0
Cardenas - Marton 1-0
Brown, J - Edwards 0-1
Escalante - Huynh 0-1
Christensen - Salim 1-0
Kirillov - Watson 1-0

Round 12

Grbin - Watson 0-1
Salim - Kirillov 1-0
Huynh - Christensen 0.5-0.5
Edwards - Escalante 0-1
MArton - Brown, J 0-1
Muller - Cardenas 1-0
Hickey - Chiara 1-0
Mitrovic - Brown, N 0-1
Irmler - Burgess 0-1

2011 Ryde-Eastwood Chess Club Bobby Fischer Cup

2011-08-15T18:16:00.001+10:00

Message from President, Les Mikolajczyk:

Hi,

The Bobby Fischer Cup starts on Wednesday, 24th August 2011. If you want to compete, be there by 7.30 pm.

It is a rapid play tournament and there will 3 games each Wednesday.

RELCCC Lightning Competition

2011-07-31T15:54:00.001+10:00

Message from President Les:

Dear Chess Club Members,
The Lightning Competition starts on Wednesday 10th of August. If you want to compete let me know or turn up before 7.30pm on the night.
Also note that the remainder of our program for the year has been set back by 1 week due to the NSWCA Grade Match Competition finishing a week later than expected, however events such as our presentation night and the NSWCA presentation night will remain as shown on the program.

2011 Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club — Club Championship Preliminary_Results

2011-05-14T19:35:00.003+10:00

Round 8

Group A

Escalante - Bredin 1-0
Watson - Calixto 0-1
Burgess - Edwards 1-0
Cardenas - Mlinaric 0-1
Mitrovic - Martin 1-0

Group B

Hill - Batuwatte 1-0
Christensen - Mallari 0-1
Gluvchinsky - Mere 1-0
Hale - Chiara 1-0
Aspin - Mikolajczyk 1-0

Group C

Galwey - Valenzuela 1-0
Kirillov - Kuru 0.5 - 0.5
Grbin - Patterson 0-1
Hickey - Gletsos 0-1
Irmler - Bye 1-0

Round 9

Group A

Bredin - Mitrovic 0-1
Marton - Cardenas 1-0
Mlinaric - Burgess 1-0
Edwards - Watson 0-1
Calixto - Escalante 0-1

Group B

Batuwatte - Aspin 1-0
Mikolajczyk - Hale 0-1
Chiara - Gluvchinsky 1-0
Mere - Christensen 0-1
Mallari - Hill 1-0

Group C

Valenzuela - Grbin 0-1
Hickey - Kirillov 0.5-0.5
Irmler - Galwey 0.5-0.5
Bye - Kuru 0-1
Gletsos - Patterson 0-1

Postponed Games as of 11/5/2011

Group B

Christensen - Gluvchinsky 1-0
Hale - Mallari 0-1

Group C

Kirillov - Gletsos 0.5-0.5
Grbin- Hickey 0.5-0.5
Kuru - Gletsos 0.5-0.5

Rob Watson has created cross-tables for all three groups which include all the latest results. I believe there are only two results outstanding which will not affect the players who progress to the next round. Bill and Argo will have to have a playoff to see who progress to the Finals.

Click here to access the cross-table or here.

Chess Me Out - talk on board by nulli versi

2011-05-07T23:45:00.000+10:00

Chess Me Out - talk on board from nulli versi on Vimeo.

Chess Heaven on Earth???

2011-05-07T23:04:00.001+10:00

Le Café Pi
by Candice Vallantin

Le Café Pi from Candice Vallantin on Vimeo.

This is a mini-documentary about Café Pi, the only chess café in Quebec and maybe Canada. It's owned and run by Arpad Kiss and his daughter Vanessa. This July, 2011, the café is celebrating it's 10th anniversary.

I worked here part-time for a couple months and I grew quite fond of all the regulars and everyone I worked with. I thought it would make a great subject for my first shot at making movies.

I hope you like it!

Cheers,

Candice
candicevallantin.com

Written, shot and edited by Candice Vallantin
Associate Producer: Kofi Carson, Handlebar Media
Music: "I feel like a child" by Devendra Banhart"

2011 Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club — Club Championship Preliminary_Results

2011-04-19T04:08:00.002+10:00

Round 6

Group A

Watson - Bredin 1-0
Burgess - Escalante 0-1
Cardenas - Calixto 0-1
Mitrovic - Edwards 0-1
Marton - Mlinaric 0-1

Group B

Christensen - Batuwatte 1-0
Gluvchinsky - Hill 0-1
Hale - Mallari 1-0
Aspin - Mere 1-0
Mikolajczyk - Chiara 0-1

Group C

Kuru - Valenzuela 1-0
Galwey - Patterson 0-1
Kirillov - Gletsos postponed
Grbin - Bye 1-0
Hickey - Irmler 1-0

Round 7

Group A

Bredin - Marton 0-1
Mlinaric - Mitrovic 1-0
Edwards - Cardenas 0-1
Calixto - Burgess 1-0
Escalante - Watson 0-1

Group B

Batuwatte - Mikolajczyk 1-0
Chiara - Aspin 0-1
Mere - Hale 0-1
Mallari - Gluvchinsky 1-0
Hill - Christensen 0-1

Group C

Valenzuela - Hickey 0-1
Irmler - Grbin 0-1
Bye - Kirillov 0-1
Gletsos - Galwey 1-0
Patterson - Kuru 1-0

BTW, if there is any Club member who can spare the time to turn all these results into a cross-table in word/excel format, I can post on Google Docs and provide a link.

2011 Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club — Club Championship Preliminary_Results

2011-04-01T08:58:00.001+11:00

Round 5

Group A

Bredin - Mlinaric 0.5-0.5
Edwards - Marton 1-0
Calixto - Mitrovic 1-0
Escalante - Cardenas 1-0
Watson - Burgess 0-1

Group B

Mallari - Batiwatte 1-0
Hill - Mere 1-0
Christensen - Chiara 1-0
Gluvchinsky - Mikolajczyk 0-1
Hale - Aspin 1-0

Group C

Valenzuela - Irmler 1-0
Bye - Hickey 0-1
Gletsos -Grbin 0-1
Patterson - Kirillov 1-0
Kuru - Galwey 1-0

2011 Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club — Rapid Championship_Final Standings

2011-03-29T13:46:00.002+11:00

The 2011 Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club — Rapid Championship was conducted in February of this year over a three week period.

Steven Liu emerged as the clear winner with 7.5/9 and Rob Watson in clear second place with 6.5/9. There is a whole bunch on joint third placing with 6/9. Please see here to access the standings.

2011 Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club — Club Championship Preliminary_Results

2011-03-29T13:41:00.002+11:00

Round 1

Group A

Calixto - Bredin postponed
Escalante - Edwards 1-0
Watson - Mlinaric 1-0
Burgess - Marton 1-0
Cardenas - Mitrovic 1-0

Group B

Batuwatte - Chiara 1-0
Mere - Mikolajczyk 0-1
Mallari - Aspin 1-0
Hill - Hale 1-0
Christensen - Gluvchinsky postponed

Group C

Gletsos - Valenzuela 1-0
Patterson - Eyres 1-0
Kuru - Irmler 1-0
GAlwey - Hickey 1-0
Kirillov - Grboin 1-0

Round 2

Group A

Cardenas - Bredin 1-0
Mitrovic - Burgess 0-1
MArton - Watson 0-1
Mlinaric - Escalante 0-1
Edwards - Calixto 0.5 - 0.5

Group B

Hale - Batuwatte 1-0
Aspin - Gluvchinsky 0-1
Mikolajczyk - Christensen 0-1
Chiara - Hill 0-1
Mere - Mallari 0-1

Group C

Kirillov - Valenzuela 1-0
Grbin - Galwey 0-1
Hickey - Kuru 1-0
Irmler - Patterson 0-1
Bye - Gletsos 0-1

Round 3

Group A

Bredin - Edwards 0-1
Calixto Mlinaric 0-1
Escalante - Marton 1-0
Watson - Mitrovic 1-0
Burgess - Cardenas 1-0

Group B

Batuwatte - Mere 1-0
Mallari - Chiara postponed
Hill - Mikolajczyk 1-0
Christensen - Aspin 1-0
Gluvchinsky - Hale 0-1

Group C

Valenzuela - Bye 1-0
Gletsos - Irmler 1-0
Patterson - Hickey 1-0
Kuru - Grbin 1-0
Galwey - Kirillov 1-0

Round 4

Group A

Burgess - Bredin 1-0
Cardenas - Watson 0-1
Mitrovic - Escalante 0-1
Marton - Calixto 0-1
Mlinaric - Edwards 1-0

Group B

Gluvchinsky - Batuwatte 0-1
Hale - Christensen 0-1
Aspin - Hill 0-1
Mikolajczyk - Mallari 0-1
Chiara - Mere 1-0

Group C

Patterson - Valenzuela 1-0
Kuru - Gletsos postponed
Galwey - Bye 1-0
Kirillov - Irmler 0-1
Grbin - Hickey postponed

GM Jan Gustafsson and GM Peter Svidler Talkfest

2011-03-15T13:55:00.003+11:00

Chess Base has a new "publication": Ask the experts Vol.1 video talk show with the two grandmasters, GM Jan Gustafsson and GM Peter Svidler, with very good English I must add, first broadcasted on Playchess and now uploaded on YouTube by Chessbase.

This is a sample of the show "Ask the experts" broadcasted on the playchess.com server. Viewer can ask questions directly to our experts, for Vol.1 Gustafsson and Svidler answered a lot of questioned concerning the Mainz tournament, endgame techniques, 1.e4 e5, Sveshnikov and Rossolimo and the Russian Superfinal. The whole show is avalaible on the playchess.com server in the Premium section.

The next show is on march 17th with GM Victor Bologan! Don't miss!

If you cannot view properly then view on YouTube here.

2011 Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club — Club Championship Preliminary

2011-02-28T09:18:00.002+11:00

Hi Chess Players,

The preliminary round of our Club Championship starts on Wednesday, if you would like to compete let me know before Wednesday and be there before 7.30 otherwise your opponent may start your clock.

You also must be a member of RYDE-EASTWOOD LEAGUES CLUB and have paid your Chess Club fee to be eligible to compete.

Regards,
LES MIKOLAJCZYK

2011 Ryde Eastwood Club Chess Calendar

2011-02-02T01:02:00.003+11:00

Dear Chess Friends,

Here is the Chess Calendar for 2011. Click here to access excel document.

Note that the Ryde Eastwood Chess Club Rapid begins tomorrow and continues for the following two weeks. There are 3 rounds per Wednesday night.

Club Championship Preliminaries begins on 2nd March 2011.

Constitution of the Ryde Eastwood Club Chess Club

2011-01-28T10:27:00.004+11:00

Dear Chess Friends,

Our President, Les Mikolajczyk, has asked me to upload the Chess Club's Constitution on the Blog for all members to view.

If you cannot see it well, please click here to go to the pdf.

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club 2010 Presentation

2010-12-23T17:58:00.003+11:00

Dear Chess Members, another great chessic year has come to an end and we had some titanic battles for chess glory as well as just pure chessic fun.

Here are the achievements for this year.

If you cannot see it well, please click here to go to the pdf.

Great to have got to know some of you a bit better this year. Hope to do more of the same next year.

A very Blessed Christmas to all those who are followers of Jesus Christ and a Happy and Safe Holidays to all others.

See you all in the new year and be warned! I am studying and practising my chess!!!

Fun video ...... what chess for spectators should be?

2010-12-15T10:14:00.004+11:00

A great fun video from the London Chess Classic (happening now):

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Classic 2010_Round 7 Results

2010-12-03T00:12:00.000+11:00

Round 7

Escalante - Kuru 1-0
Mallari - Galwey 1-0
Patterson - Marton 0-1
Grbin - Edwards 1-0
Hale - Eyres 1-0
Mitrovic - Irmler 1-0
Chiara - Hickey 0-1
Kirillov - Mere 0-1
Mikolajczyk - Williams 1-0
Valenzeula - full point bye

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Classic_ Cross Table after Round 6

2010-11-26T20:55:00.001+11:00

Les has prepared a cross-table for the 2010 Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Classic here.

Ryde Eastwood Club Championships Grand Final

2010-11-25T11:12:00.003+11:00

Last night was the final night of play in the 2010 Ryde Eastwood Club Championships Grand Final with a round-robin between the best six players of the Club. And nothing was certain going into last night. Rob Watson had a chance to win outright if he wins and joint first if he draws; Bill Gletsos needed to win to possibly share first; Lou Damaschino similarly needed to win to have a chance to share first.

Bill's game finished relatively early as he defeated Mark Aspin. Then came the wait, the agonising wait. Lou played Egon Cardenas. I am not sure what was the verdict on the game (as my game ended late as well) but Egon certainly did not help himself as he spectacularly self-destructed to an obvious tactic losing material and ending up a whole Queen down.

So we have now Bill and Lou on 3.5/5 with everything hinging on the last game to finish, which fittingly was Rob Watson vs Josh Christensen. Now, Josh must have something to prove after dropping the game last week to Egon which dashed all his hopes of taking the Championship outright. Fighting for pride, Josh ended an exchange up, a Rook for a Bishop and the position totally blocked. Josh could not find a way through. Both players were also under a bit of time pressure to make time control at 40 moves. They did, a massive exchange occurred and suddenly it was a won endgame for Josh with a Rook for a Knight and two passed pawns. Josh played accurately and Rob could not hold the position and lost.

That meant, Bill Gletsos and Lou Damaschino as 2010 Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Champions. Congrats to both!

Here are the round by round results:

Round 1

Damaschino - Christensen 0.5-0.5
Gletsos - Cardenas 1-0
Watson - Aspin 1-0

Round 2

Christensen - Aspin 1-0
Cardenas - Watson 0-1
Damaschino - Gletsos 1-0

Round 3

Gletsos - Christensen 0.5-0.5
Watson - Damaschino 1-0
Aspin - Cardenas 1-0

Round 4

Christensen - Cardenas 0-1
Damaschino - Aspin 1-0
Gletsos - Watson 1-0

Round 5

Watson - Christensen 0-1
Aspin - Gletsos 0-1
Cardenas - Damaschino 0-1

Standings

=1st Damaschino, Gletsos
=3rd Christensen, Watson
=5th Aspin, Cardenas

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Classic 2010_Round 6 Results

2010-11-25T11:11:00.000+11:00

Round 6

Galwey - Escalante 0-1
Grbin - Mallari 0-1
Kuru - Marton 1-0
Kirillov - Patterson 0-1
Hale- Mikolajczyk 0.5-0.5
Hickey - Burgess 0-1
Edwards - Mitrovic 0.5-0.5
Williams - Chiara 0-1
Eyres - Valenzuela 1-0
Irmler - Siow 0.5-0.5
Mere - full point bye

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Classic 2010_Round 5 Results

2010-11-20T10:41:00.000+11:00

Round 5

Escalante - Mallari 1-0
Galwey - Hale 1-0
Kuru - Kirillov 0.5-0.5
Burgess - Grbin 0-1
Marton - Irmler 1-0
Chiara - Patterson 0-1
Mitrovic - Hickey 0.5-0.5
Valenzuela - Edwards 0-1
Mere - Mikolajczyk 0-1
Siow - Eyres 0-1
Williams - full point bye

World Blitz Chess Championship 2010

2010-11-17T11:17:00.003+11:00

The World Blitz Chess Championship is taking place from the 16th-18th November, 2010, in Moscow after the Tal Memorial tournament. The participants include eight players from Tal Memorial 2010 - GM Levon Aronian (ARM) 2801, GM Vladimir Kramnik (RUS) 2791, GM Pavel Eljanov (UKR) 2742, GM Alexander Grischuk (RUS) 2771, GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE) 2763, Boris Gelfand (ISR) 2741, GM Sergey Karjakin (RUS) 2760, and GM Hikaru Nakamura (USA) 2741.

They will be joined by 3 invited players - GM Magnus Carlsen (NOR) 2802, GM Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR) 2744, and GM Peter Svidler (RUS) 2722, as well as the six section winners GM Maxime Vachier Lagrave (FRA) 2703, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS) 2720, GM Boris Grachev (RUS) 2654, GM Rauf Mamedov (AZE) 2660, and GM Boris Savchenko (RUS) 2632. GM Teimour Radjabov (AZE) 2744, GM Sergei Movsesian (SVK) 2721, GM Fabiano Caruana (ITA) 2709 and World Junior Champion GM Dmitry Andreykin (RUS) 2683 have been invited to complete the field of 20 players.

For results after first day, see here.

Here are some of the videos of the games (all videos by bumblebee1607):

Annual Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Presentation Evening and Dinner

2010-11-16T22:36:00.001+11:00

Dear Chess Club Members,

The year is drawing to a close and it is another successful year for the Club. To celebrate our successes, come along for the Presentation Evening followed by Dinner at the Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club's Hawk's Nest Restaurant. The Invitation, Dinner Menu and cost are in the documents following.

Presentation and Dinner Invitation

Menu

Children's Menu

Dear Chess Club Member,
I invite you and your partner to our annual presentation and dinner evening on Wednesday 15th December. The presentation will start at 7.30pm in our chess club room, followed by dinner in the Hawk’s Nest Restaurant (see attached menus).
If you would like to attend dinner the cost will be;
For a Chess Club Member--------$20
For their Partner--------------------$30
For a Child that is a member of the chess club and orders from the children’s menu---$0
Could you let me know if you will be attending the dinner by the 8th so I can inform the restaurant.
Please pay Tom before the 15th or you can direct deposit the amount into the Chess Club’s bank account, details are;
Commonwealth Bank West Ryde
BSB No.062 271
Account No. 1009 5836
If you direct deposit please inform Tom, his email is tompowers@optushome.com.au
Hope to see you there.
Les Mikolajczyk

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Classic 2010_Round 4 Results

2010-11-16T22:36:00.000+11:00

Round 4

Mallari - Kuru 1-0
Patterson - Escalante 0-1
Hale - Grbin 0.5-0.5
Kirillov - Hickey 1-0
Edwards - Burgess 0-1
Mikolajczyk - Marton 0-1
Mere - Mitrovic 0-1
Irmler - Williams 1-0
Eyres - Chiara 0-1
Valenzuela - Siow 1-0
Galwey - half point bye

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Classic 2010_Round 3 Results

2010-11-06T18:12:00.003+11:00

Round 3 (corrected today 10th Nov 2010)

Patterson - Mallari 0-1
Burgess - Galwey 0-1
Escalante - Kirillov 1-0
Chiara - Hale 0-1
Mitrovic - Grbin 0F-1F
Hickey - Irmler 1-0
Bredin - Mikolajczyk 0-1
Williams - Valenzuela 1-0
Marton - Mere 1-0
Eyres - full point bye
Kuru - half point bye
Edwards - half point bye
Siow - half point bye

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Classic 2010_Rounds 1 and 2 Results

2010-10-29T01:48:00.001+11:00

Round 1

Patterson - Hickey 1-0
Marton - Mallari 0-1
Escalante - Mikolajczyk 0.5-0.5
Edwards - Kuru 0-1
Galwey - Mere 1-0
Williams - Hale 0-1
Mitrovic - Valenzuela 1-0
Eyres - Irmler 0-1
Chiara - Siow 1-0
Cheng - Grbin 0-1
Burgess - half point bye
Bredin - half point bye
Kirillov - half point bye

Round 2

Hale - Patterson 0-1
Mallari - Mitrovic 1-0
Kuru- Chiara 1-0
Irmler - Galwey 0-1
Grbin - Escalante 0-1
Mikolajczyk - Burgess 0-1
Kirillov - Bredin 1F-0F
Hickey - williams 1-0
Valenzuela - Marton 0.5-0.5
Siow - Edwards 0-1
Mere - Eyres 1-0
Cheng -full point bye

How to Demolish the ...Qd6 Scandinavian courtesy of GM Alexey Shirov

2010-10-29T01:11:00.003+11:00

Annotated game with a win by one of my favourite players, GM Alexey Shirov. He demolished fellow Soviet emigre (now Dutch), GM Sergei Tiviakov, in a ...Qd6 Scandinavian. {Fellow club members will know that Josh Christensen essays the Scandinavian at Club games. Here is how to defeat him courtesy of GM Shirov. :) :) :)]

Annotations courtesy of GM Kevin Spraggett:

I have known Alexi since the Paris Open in 1990 when he was just a lanky 17 year old , beginning to compete in ''western'' tournaments. Already at that time he was of GM strength and demonstrated a remarkable talent for complex, messy chess where the initiative is the only thing that really counts.

There are many gifted players who have attacking skills just as pronounced as Shirov's, but what separates him from the crowd is that with Shirov's attacks there is a certain irresistibility involved. Almost as if no matter how well you defend Shirov will always come out on top....his resourcefulness, imagination and tremendous energy never seem to exhaust themselves (they exhaust his opponents first!).

Witness his game yesterday against Sergei Tiviakov, where Shirov takes apart Sergei's favourite opening by simply throwing everything at him and going straight up the board for the jugular....

A topical line of the Scandanavian (1.e4 d5 2.PxP QxP 3.Nc3 Qd6!? ). I have played it once or twice myself--from either side! Tiviakov seems to have made this his main defence against the King Pawn openings. I mean, he seems plays it almost all the time these days!

I have never understood why some very strong grandmasters (and make no doubt: Sergei is one of the best in the world) continually play opening lines that are slightly inferior. But let me qualify myself: the Scandanavian is slightly inferior because it seems that Black always has an uphill battle to achieve an equality that can be more comfortably obtained by playing a more theoretical opening.

But Sergei has quite a reasonable score with it: he loses rarely, wins occasionally and makes a lot of draws. In other words, it has served him well and he obviously feels comfortable with the positions that arise from it. Nevertheless, I wonder if Sergei is not pressing his luck by playing the Scandanavian against whom ever sits down opposite him, regardless of his opponent's last name. Some players simply should not be provoked, and Alexi is one such player...

Here is the Paul Keres game mentioned in GM Spraggett's annotations:

Ryde Eastwood Club Championships Grand Final

2010-10-19T21:22:00.002+11:00

As you know, I got the details of the Ryde Eastwood Chess Classic horribly wrong (but they are now corrected). However, I did get the Club Championships Grand Final correct, which started last week. In case you wish to know who is playing (and this may influence your decision to play in the Classic since winning it is easier ......), here are the finalists:

Group A
BILL GLETSOS 10/11
LOU DAMASHINO 9/11

Group B
JOSHUA CHRISTENSEN 8/11
MARK ASPIN 8/11

Group C
ROB WATSON 10.5/11
EGON CARDENAS 9/11

Now if I am a betting man, I would open a tab and start giving odds ......

1) Bill is a wily experienced campaigner, but playing week in and week out against us patsers have taken their toll, his ACF rating is slipping but he still have a trick or two (or even an Ace) up his sleeve. Surely he must be the favourite.

2) Lou is an improving player but may have hit a plateau for a time. It is just a matter of whether you caught him on one of his improvement spurts and if so, watch out!

3) Josh is also experienced, well, he certainly has learned how to mate with a knight and bishop and he knows well his Lucena endgame (hmmmmmmm! wonder whether he knows the Phillidor or the Vancura Position?), and he has real ambition to win the title and will be Bill's main rival.

4) Mark is another improving player and I have it on best authority that his improvement is due to ChessGrandmaster software ...... He has certainly improved since the day of his first game (rapid) with Alan Marton where he allowed Alan to bamboozled him and swindled him out of a win. But realistically, an outsider chance.

5) Rob, another experienced player on a comeback to chess after years of layoff, has shrugged off his recent illness, got on with his chess but does he have the stamina? He certainly has the skill ......

6) Egon has improved tremendously in the last 6 months (those sessions with Arthur certainly did no harm). Will be the dark horse in the race.

[disclaimer: The description given above are definitely tongue in cheek and bears no resemblance to reality!]

Ryde Eastwood's Classic (corrected)

2010-10-15T11:05:00.001+11:00

Hi,

Our annual Chess Classic competition starts on Wednesday at 7.30pm. If you want to compete let me know before Tuesday 5.00pm (LMikolajczy [at] webbaustralia.com.au).

It will be a long play competition 1 game each Wednesday for 7 rounds.

Regards,
LES MIKOLAJCZYK

Ryde Eastwood's Classic and the Grand Final of the Club Championships begins ...... [corrected]

2010-10-13T09:45:00.006+11:00

Beginning on 20th October [corrected] and until the 1st December [corrected], the Ryde Eastwood's Classic [corrected] and the Grand Final of the Club Championships. Last chance for the last Ryde Eastwood Chess Club tournament for the year. Email Les Mikolajczyk (LMikolajczyk [at] webbaustralia.com.au) if you wish to play.

[This post was edited on Friday 15th October 2010 at 11:08 am.]

2010 Chess Olympiad_Rd 2

2010-09-22T19:23:00.002+10:00

Round 2 games can now be followed live here and here.

2010 Chess Olympiad

2010-09-21T21:39:00.008+10:00

The 2010 Chess Olympiad has started in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia. The official website is overloaded, well what can you expect from Siberians/Russians, eh? Nothing like the German efficiency two years ago where every game was broadcasted!! Live games are found here with Rybka 4's analyses and results are here and here.

Games can now be re-played here by clicking on the result of the individual game.

It seems there were a lot of "upset" draws eg, IM Sam Collins (Elo 2431) holding GM Alexander Grischuk (Elo 2760) with Black on Bd 1 of the Russia 1 vs Ireland match and Malaysian No 1 player IM Mas Hafizulhelmi (Elo 2422) with White holding English No 1 GM Michael Adams (Elo 2728).

The only GM to fall, I think, is one of my favourite palyers, Swedish GM Tiger Hillarp Persson (Elo 2517) losing to Surinam's CM Dewperkash Gajadin (Elo 2179) on Bd 2 of their match.

Both Australian teams began well with a 4-0 clean sweep of their opposition. A great induction especially for the Women Team's Bd 4 player ACT teenager/junior Emma Guo.

Here are the Australian Olympiad Open team's Rd 1 games against Bahrain which we won 4-0:

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And here are the Australian Olympiad Women Team's games against Nigeria which we won 4-0 including a 14-moves miniature on Bd 3 by WIM Biljana Dekic:

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Tonight: Australia Open plays the Mighty Armenia! (2006 and 2008 Gold Medallists) (RtgAvg=2698) who struggled a bit against Costa Rica last night dropping two draws. Australia Women plays Slovakia (RtgAvg=2349) who defeated Malaysia last night.

Miskolc 2010: Peter Leko vs Boris Gelfand in Miskolc, Hungary_Games 7 and 8

2010-09-01T14:32:00.002+10:00

GM Boris Gelfand defeated GM Peter Leko 4.5-3.5 in an 8-games rapid match. Here are the games 7 and 8 with annotations courtesy of Chessbase and GM Ferenc Berkes and IM Gyula Mészáros, "who has been his trainer for fourteen years now".

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Miskolc 2010: Peter Leko vs Boris Gelfand in Miskolc, Hungary_Games 5 and 6

2010-08-30T13:34:00.001+10:00

GM Boris Gelfand leads after winning Game 5 in a Petroff.

Here are the Games 5 and 6 with GM annotations courtesy of GM Berkes and GM Meszaros:

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Miskolc 2010: Peter Leko vs Boris Gelfand in Miskolc, Hungary

2010-08-28T10:15:00.004+10:00

From Chessbase:

This Rapid Chess event is taking place in the National Theater, 1 Déryné str, Miskolc from August 25–29, 2010. The number one Hungarian grandmaster, Peter Leko takes up a duel of eight games against the top Israeli GM and World Cup winner Boris Gelfand. The games are being played at a rate of 25 minutes for all moves plus an increment of ten seconds per moves.

Peter Leko has been doing this every year since 2005 when he played English GM Michael Adams. Then it was GM Anatoly Karpov, GM Vladimir Kramnik, GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Viswanathan Anand from 2006-2009.

Here are the first 4 games with GM annotations courtesy of GM Berkes and GM Meszaros:

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Spanish Chess League CECLUB Honor Division

2010-08-27T09:08:00.003+10:00

From Chessbase:

The Spanish Chess League CECLUB Honor Division is underway in Sestao, Vizcaya, 23rd-28th August 2010. It is a 6-round event with 10 teams. The first 4 rounds are a Swiss, with the final two rounds to decide the final places.

There are nine players rated 2700 or higher (Shirov, Ponomariov, Navara, Nakamura, Vachier-Lagrave, Bacrot, Gashimov, Almasi, and Jobava), as well as 30 more rated at least 2600, such as Kasimdzhanov, Caruana, Vallejo Pons, Short, Rublevsky, and Le Quang to name a few.

Here three games (annotations courtesy of Chessbase):

NH Chess Tournament

2010-08-21T02:20:00.001+10:00

From the NH Chess Tournament here is a surprising easy win for US GM Hikaru Nakamura and there is a twist to the whole story. I will let GM Ian Rogers (courtesy of Chess Life Online) explain:

Nakamura,Hi (2729) - Van Wely,L (2677)
4th NH Chess Tournament Amsterdam NED (7), 2010.08.19
Opening: Sicilian Najdorf

Losing a game in 17 moves is bad enough, but worse was to come for van Wely when the editor of New in Chess, Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, showed van Wely a copy of his article in the as yet unpublished issue of New in Chess.

In it van Wely states "Not 12...Nd7 because of 13.Nd5! Qc5 14.Nb3! Qc6 15.Na5 Qc5 16.Nxb7 and Black loses." Never would a player have received less satisfaction from having their analysis proved correct.

After the game, which lasted less than one and a half hours, both players appeared somewhat shell-shocked. They stood outside the press room discussing how such an error could be possible and whether the line was playable at all.

"My memory started to go when I was 25," admitted van Wely, perhaps giving Nakamura pause to think that he might only have a few more years left to get to the top.

In GM Rogers' notes there is the reference to the earlier game between Smith,Bryan (2468) and Laznicka,Viktor (2636). Brian Smith turned up at Chess

Life Online and posted this comment:

Can we chess players please make a pact to let my poor game with Laznicka go to rest? You know, like a wounded horse - maybe it is better to just shoot it, that might be more merciful, right?

Please, couldn't someone point out that I was just up a rook in a completely won position that Laznicka would have simply resigned if there were even a somewhat normal amount of time on the clock. As it were, each of us had 15 seconds or so for five moves, which should have been perfectly sufficient as well, but I guess nerves (and a gigantic crowd around the board) interferred. Not to mention the fact that my final blunder was made on move 41 (!) after the time control was reached and I was winning again, because i wanted to make one more move "to make sure". Ironically, I did not even make that move fast enough! Instead, the correct move would have forced resignation...So please stop revisiting my pain.

I have no idea why this silly game was picked up by all commentators - after all, Laznicka played many good games in the World open, surely this was his worst. It is also one of the most silly games I have ever played. Besides that the opening is simply aweful, white can win in multiple ways which various commentators have pointed out and even I saw during the game (although was unable to come to a good decision because of extreme tiredness due to playing another tournament just before the world open). So why Van Wely repeated it is actually baffling. Thanks!

Bryan Smith

For readers enjoyment (and education) here is the Smith-Laznicka game annotated by GM Lubomir Kavalek (courtesy of the Huffington Post):

NH Chess Tournament_Videos

2010-08-20T14:23:00.001+10:00

Here are the Game of the Day from ICC Chess:

Caruana-Van Wely (commentator: GM Joel Benjamin)

Van Wely-Nakamura (commentator: GM Joel Benjamin)

Giri-Ljubojevic (commentator: GM Alex Yermolinski)

Match Efimenko-Naiditsch

2010-08-20T13:39:00.006+10:00

Match of the classic chess Mukachevo, August 12 - 18, 2010

The chess match between Grandmasters Zahar EFIMENKO (Ukraine) and Arkadij NAIDITSCH (Germany) was organised by Universal Event Promotion and the Mukachevo Chess Club 32x64 in Mukachevo, Ukraine on 12-18 August 2010.

The best player of Germany, Naiditsch, achieved a victory against the Ukrainian national team player, Efimenko, by a narrow margin: 3,5 points to 2,5 points. Naiditsch won the second game of the match, while five other games were drawn.

Annotated games courtesy of Chessbase and GM Mikhail Golubev:

2010 Ryde-Eastwood Chess Club Bobby Fischer Cup

2010-08-16T17:47:00.001+10:00

Message from President, Les Mikolajczyk:

Hi,

The Bobby Fischer Cup starts this Wednesday, if you want to compete be there by 7.30

It is a rapid play tournament and there are 3 games each Wednesday.

How to Play the Alekhine's Defense, Four Pawns Attack [B03]

2010-08-11T14:54:00.002+10:00

Head over to ChessCafe to read Abby Marshall's The Openings Explained Column with this month's opening being the Alekhine's Defense, Four Pawns Attack [B03].

But here are the annotated illustrated games for you to replay [annotations by Abby Marshall courtesy of ChessCafe]:

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97th British Championships and "Mickey" Adams

2010-08-06T12:09:00.004+10:00

The 97th British Championships is currently going on at the Sports Centre, University of Kent Canterbury, CT2 7NL finishing tomorrow, Saturday 7 August. The Championship is notable for two things: 1) The return to tournament play of GM Michael Adams, England's present top chessplayer (except for one brief period when Nigel Short overtook him at the end of last year); 2) The same GM Michael Adams "running away" with the title of British Champion, securing the title with one round to spare 9/10 (+7 =2 0-).

Puzzles from GM Adams play:

Round 5

Why is 23 Nxf7 a blunder? Do you see how it leads to a forced mate some moves later?

Round 7

White just played 29 Rd1. What do you play as Black to win?

Instructive games from GM Adams play:

Round 1
How to crush the King's Gambit!

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Round 2
How to play the Caro-Kann Advanced Variation

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Round 8
According to GM Kevin Spraggett:

This round saw a tough fight! The experienced Conquest dug in deep with his CaroKann and built up a solid ''come and get me'' fortress. Adams was up to the challenge! He used the e5-square as a manoeuvring pivot for his two Knights and probed Conquest's position time and time again. Then before Conquest knew what had happened, he lost his e6-pawn! A very instructive game and one of the best from the championship!

Play and learn.

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2010 Ryde-Eastwood Chess Lightning Competition

2010-08-03T14:15:00.001+10:00

Message from the Prez:

Hi,

Our Clubs Lightning Competition starts on Wednesday the 4th of August, if you want to be in it be there at 7.30. The finals will be played on the following Wednesday.

Puzzles from 43rd Biel International Chess Festival

2010-08-03T01:08:00.002+10:00

2010 Biel Puzzle 1

Black just played 1...c4. What would you play with White?

2010 Biel Puzzle 2

Black just played 1...g6. What would you play with White?

Biel 43rd International Chess Festival_Final

2010-08-02T01:08:00.000+10:00

To round up the exciting finish to the 43rd Biel Chess Festival and the premier event, the Young GMs tournament. As I predicted for Rd 9 (last round), Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son vs Anmisg Giri would turn out to be pivotal. Both the leaders, Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, took easy draws to set up a playoff. But that allowed Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son to catch them by defeating Anish Giri. And that he did.

From a quiet King’s Indian Attack, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son slowly outplayed Anish Giri, who might regret his 17th move (e.g. 17…Rfe8 looks close to equal). After a forced sequence of moves an ending was reached where White had more than enough compensation for the pawn. (Chessvibes)

Position reached after 28 Rxb7. Can you as White win this? (Replay the game below to find out how.)

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This means and by virtue of a better Sonneborn-Berger points on tiebreak, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son went straight into the final playoff whilst Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had to face each other first in semi-finals play-off. Both won their rapid games with the white pieces setting up an Armageddon-type final where White (Maxime) has to win and Black (Fabiano) only has to draw to proceed to the final play-off. The Goddess smiled her favours on Fabiano as Maxime blundered away a promising position.

So it was a Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son vs Fabiano Caruana in the final playoff and again, the Goddess smiled a second time. Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son with the Black pieces gave away a possibly winning endgame two pawns up. Black just played 60...b4-b3. Can you win this as Black?

Now replay the game and spot where Black gave away the win.

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Fabiano did not make any mistake in his game with the Black pieces and managed to convert a Knight endgame with an extra pawn into a win. In the following position, what would you play? What was White's mistake? Can you see how Black might be able to win a pawn? As Black, can you convert the winning Knight endgame with the extra pawn? (Replay the game below to find out how.)

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So we have it, the 43rd Biel International Chess Festival Young GM Tournament Champion is GM Fabiano Caruana.

Dare I predict that this group of young GMs will continue their rivalry for many years to come? However, note that a number of other very promising young GMs are missing from the tournament, mainly from Russia and the Ukraine.

On a down note, the high number of draws have drawn very adverse comments from chess players/fans worldwide. I think that was a disappointment. My explanation is chess burnout. These young GMs are just playing way too much chess, they have not accumulated enough experience to play diverse openings and middlegames thereby allowing their opponents to "prepare" for them. Remembering Botvinnik's comments in his book, he strongly suggest taking rest time of up to 3 months or more (?) in between tournaments.

You can replay games and read the report by Chessvibes here; report by Chessbase here and here.

BTW, in the Main Tournament, South Australian Andrew Saint came equal second with 7/9, see here.

Biel 43rd International Chess Festival

2010-08-01T09:33:00.003+10:00

I thought I would blog about the Biel 43rd International Chess Festival where for this year, the organisers decided to have a young GM-guns OK-corral style shootout. They have the following young GMs: Anish Giri, David Howell, Fabiano Caruana, Maxim Rodshtein, Parimarjan Negi, Dmitry Andreikin, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son. As I previously blogged, I was hoping for a true slugfest with wild attacking, exciting games. But it has turned out to be a bit of a fizzer! (see here and here and here.)

Round 6, on Saturday, was another lame round. Even though all the players are quite young, they're going it round after round like they have no energy. Four of the five games were drawn, and in 20, 20, 24 and 31 moves. Geez. Only Howell - Vachier-Lagrave went the distance, and was won by Black. On Sunday they had an official day off (how could the spectators tell?), and hopefully on Monday they'll offer the fans something a bit more interesting. (Dennis Monokroussos)

Up to and including Rd 7, there were 26 draws and only 9 wins!

What's happening? They are young, aren't they? Is this premature ageing? Or is this early career burn-out? Or have they "bought" into the old men's stories of playing safe and don't take risks?

In any event, Round 8 was a surprise. Firstly there was a match-up between the tournament two dark-horses, Wesley So and Anish Giri. Well, Anish won!

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[Annotations by Chessvibes].

Giri - So was decided in a queen ending. So's clever 19...Bxh3!? led to that ending, where White was slightly better but a draw looked the likeliest result. The game was decided when So chose 34...f4?! 35.Qh4 Qxh4?, voluntarily transposing into a lost king and pawn ending. No doubt So missed White's triangulation maneuver on moves 42 and 43, but it was a bad risk to enter the pawn ending in the first place. Live and learn. (Dennis Monokroussos)

Also, David Howell finally won against the tournament out of form junior, Parimarjan Negi (But according to Dennis Monokroussos:"Howell - Negi saw the "Botvinnik System" of the 2.c3 Sicilian. Black was doing fine, but his plan of doubling rooks on the d-file followed by 26...Rd3 ingeniously forced White to beat him. White had no choice but to sac the exchange, and the result was a position where Black had no meaningful active possibilities whatsoever while White could try this and that. Soon White's position was not only easier to play but simply winning, and Black forced him into it!" See if you agree.).

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[Annotations by Chessvibes]
So did my favourite, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, who defeated Evgeny Tomashevsky.

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Tomashevsky - Nguyen was bad for White almost from start to finish. The ending - from move 35 on, say - was quite interesting, in that White desperately wanted to eliminate Black's d4-pawn while Nguyen kept finding ways to keep the pawn alive and meaningful. Black succeeded, and in the end White's preoccupation with the pawn left him unable to cope with threats to his king. (Dennis Monokroussos)

[......]Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son now did manage win, against Tomashevsky. And with creative play, we may add. Thanks to a strong pawn phalanx the exchange sac 27…Rxb6! was the obvious way to continue, and soon White had to give back the material, but more power moves (especially 36…d5!) decided the game. (Chessvibes)

But the co-leaders were the French junior and current World Junior Champion, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Italian(USA) Fabiano Caruana, both of whom also happen to be the first and second seeds.

The final pairings for the last round (Rd 9):
Maxim Rodshtein - Evgeny Tomashevsky
Parimarjan Negi - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
Fabiano Caruana - David Howell
Wesley So - Dmitry Andreikin
Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son - Anish Giri

For the two co-leaders, they were expecting wins as they play the bottom two on current standings. If so, there will be a play-off "Thursday morning, from 11 am. Modus: two rapid games (10 minutes, with 10’’/move). If the result is 1-1, then two blitz will be organised." My tip for the Match of the day for Rd 9: Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son vs Anish Giri. Also, Wesley So vs Dmitry Andreikin will be interesting as Dmitry has to win to have any chance of tying for first. It is the same for Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (I am really having trouble knowing what to call him as I am very unfamiliar with Vietnamese names). Am I right? Stick around for the next blog!

You can play the games here or here (if you install Microsoft Silverlight). For commentary on Rd 6 and Wesley So's loss to Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri's loss to Maxim Rodshtein, head here. There is also David Howell's loss to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

On a side note, Australian player from South Australia, Andrew Saint, has been blazing through the field in the third Main tournament at Biel (after the Young GMs and the Master tournaments). He was now sitting on 6/6 for a player ranked 51st with Elo of 1841 (which someone on ChessChat has suggested is a bit underrated). How did he finished up?

Puzzles from 2010 4th Leiden Chess Tournament

2010-07-19T16:31:00.001+10:00

1) White to play to win

2) White is already better. How does he
cement his advantage?

3) White to play and win

[Courtesy of Chessbase.]

Puzzle from Benasque 2010

2010-07-19T16:20:00.001+10:00

Black just played 1...Nb4. What does White play to go on to win?

Puzzle from Dortmund 2010

2010-07-19T08:36:00.002+10:00

Here is a puzzle from the on-going Dortmund 2010 (clue: it is from the game of one of the world's best juniors):

Black has just played 1...h5. Can you spot the petite combination for White, winning a pawn and creating very good winning chances?

2010 US Junior Closed Championship

2010-07-13T09:46:00.003+10:00

Here is a game fragment from the presently happening US Closed Junior Championship (follow live games here). Before revealing the answer, try solving the problem: Can you win as White? Black just moved 1...Kh7??

[Diagram courtesy of Chessbase]

Club Championship Postponed Game Results

2010-07-07T21:27:00.001+10:00

Here are the results of the postponed games in the Club Championship.

Postponed Game Results

Gletsos - Maldonado 1-0
Escalante - Zee 1-0
Burgess - Gong, N 1-0
Aspin - Grbin 1-0
Hale - Gunn 0-1
Beveridge - Burgess 0-1
Chiara - Watson 0-1
Escalante - Valenzuela 1-0
Yum - Siow 1-0
Siow - Christensen 0-1
Gletsos - Escalante 0.5-0.5
Yum - Christensen 0.5-0.5
Amin - Mere 1-0
Kuru- Gluvchinsky 0F - 0F
Burgess - Gletsos 0.5 -0.5
Maldonado - Edwards 0-1
Kirillov - Siow 1-0
Irmler - Galwey 0-1
Damaschino - Burgess 0.5-0.5
Burgess - Edwards 0.5-0.5

2010 NSW Open

2010-06-17T10:33:00.003+10:00

A number of member sof the Ryde-Eastwood Chess Club competed in the 2010 NSW Open and the U1600 tournaments.

In the Open, Arthur Huynh drew with top seed GM Zhao ZongYuan in Rd 2. (Game below, moves taken from Brendan Norman's blog here.) Results are here and here.

In the U1600, Tereza Grbin, Lou Damaschino, Mark Aspin, Greig Edwards, Vince Chiara, and Noah Gong competed. The results are here. I understand Greig won $20.

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There is also some video footage if your are interested in Sydney chessplayer/blogger, Brendan Norman, here BUT Warning: it takes some time to load.

The Game from the 2010 US Championships

2010-06-03T11:23:00.004+10:00

Further to my earlier blog about the Nakamura-Shulman game, here is the webcam footage of the game. Watch Nakamura's facial expression and body language especially from 4:15 onwards. Note that there is a background story to the defeat of Nakamura. Going into the Quad finals of the Championship, Nakamura, typically of his brash attitude, announced that Shulman will be the 4th GM the three GMs contenders, namely Nakamura, Kamsky and Onischuk will be looking to score a full point. Or in Aussie parlance, Shulman in Nakamura's view was the "bunny" or "patsy"! Well, the gods have a sense of humour ......

Additionally, ask yourself, how long will you take to resign in this position?

Further, persevere to the discussion of the Shabalov-Stipunsky game where Black blundered badly giving Shabalov the game, the 1st placing in the Consolation tournament and USD10,000 at wround the 18:20 mark.

For more videos from the US Championship, check out the link from Chessvibes here. Also the cartoon from José Diaz is very apt and funny.

18th Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament (2010)

2010-05-28T09:04:00.003+10:00

From the Nordic coolness of Malmo, third city in Sweden which I visited last year with my family comes the 18th annual Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament. Dylan and I also visited Limhamn Chess Club and Dylan played in a junior tournament organised by Limhamns (and Connie Holst) where he came second in his age group. Here is the website for Sigemans and here for Limhams SK and here for the tournament Dylan played in.

The Limhamn Chess Club is proud to invite the players, the chess audience, the media and the sponsors to the 18th annual Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament. The tournament will take place at the classical Hipp Theater in central Malmo, for the thirteenth time. As in the previous year, six players play each other in a round-robin tournament.

This year's tournament is, to a large extent, a Nordic competition, with only one player from outside the Nordic region. Once again, the home team contains Tiger Hillarp Persson, one of Sweden's best chess players, and the most interesting young Swedish player, the 16-year-old Nils Grandelius. Add to that Pia Cramling, who has not played in the Sigeman Chess Tournament since 2001, and Jonny Hector, who probably has never been better than now. The Swedish players face young Norwegian Jon Ludvig Hammer, who has made a name for himself, despite having to compete with his fellow countryman Magnus Carlsen, with a number of impressive results during the last two years. Last, but not least, we have Holland's latest chess star and the world's youngest grandmaster, 15-year-old Anish Giri, who, in addition to being the youngest, is the tournament's highest rated player.

Tournament Schedule
Round 1 Wednesday 26 May 14.00-21.00
Round 2 Thursday 27 May 14.00-21.00
Round 3 Friday 28 May 14.00-21.00
Round 4 Saturday 29 May 14.00-21.00
Round 5 Sunday 30 May 12.00-19.00

From Round 1, here is an interesting game with the Slav Defence and it seems an important theoretical novelty by White on move 12 (pawn sacrifice).

Games from the 2010 US Championships

2010-05-24T14:02:00.003+10:00

From Round 2 of the Quad Final, here is an interesting game with a nice combination/mating net involving an exchange sacrifice. I think this means Nakamura's chances of retaining his US Chess Champion title has just been sunk!

Games from the 2010 US Championships

2010-05-19T14:44:00.005+10:00

The 2010 US Chess Championship is 24 palyer Closed Swiss event with defending champion GM Hikaru Naklamura back to defend his title. The other two top (>2700 Elo) players are GM Gata Kamsky and GM Alexander Onischuk. Teenage boy wonder, GM Ray Robson is also in as the 2009 US Junior Champion. The sole female player is IM Irina Krush.

Irina Krush began well defeating GM Gregory Kaidonaov in Rd 1. In Rd 3, Irina missed a win in the endgame epic game of 113 moves against GM Varuzhan Akobian (no stranger to Australia).

Here is the game for you to replay. Can you find where Irina went wrong?

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Krush’s king march was a carbon copy of the most famous king march in history, Short-Timman, Tilburg, 1991. Here is that game:

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Then in Rd 4, Irina (with Black pieces) played Ray Robson and had this position after Ray played 66 Rc5. Firstly, do you think a Rook + Bishop vs a Rook is winning? What would you play as Black?

Here is the entire game for you to replay. I think the endgame is instructive. Irina missed the win and allowed Ray to escape with a cute swindle of a stalemate.

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She has now played 12 hours and 206 chess moves in the last two rounds.

After her loss yesterday, Krush said she received lots of thoughtful emails from chess friends. She said she wanted to fight hard today to validate her support group. After the game Krush reminisced about her missed chances and how a few different moves could have allowed her to win all four games. “I still love chess,” she said without any hint of insincerity.

Also from Rd 3, here is a game featuring GM Onischuk with the Black pieces. When GM Sergey Kudrin played 16 Bd7, can you find the continuation as did Onischuk, allowing the exchange sacrifice?

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Finally, here is Nakamura on his mission to rehabilitate old and ancient openings:

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RECCC_2010 Club Championship Preliminaries

2010-05-18T23:30:00.000+10:00

Results

Round 11

Mlinaric - Maldonado 0.5-0.5
Damaschino - Burgess postponed
Hickey - Escalante 1-0
Beveridge - Gletsos 0-1
Edwards - Zee 0-1
Valenzuela - Gong, N 0-1
Mikolajczyk - Grbin 0-1
Marton - Hale 0-1
Gunn - Christensen 0-1
Kirillov - Yum 0.5-0.5
Aspin - Arumugan 0-1
Eyres - Siow 0-1
Watson - Amin 1-0
Irmler - Galwey postponed
Chiara - Gluvchinsky 0-1
Mere - Kuru 0-1
Cardenas - Dennis 1-0
Reich - Gong, S 0-1

NSWCA InterClub Grade Matches 2010

2010-05-18T22:19:00.003+10:00

It is that time of the year again, the cold winter evenings and you are stuck in a car with three other chess players on the long drive to Rooty Hill and you are definitely examining your sanity in agreeing to play in the Grade Matches again this year. Or you just lost to someone rated 100 point lower than you after winning for most of the game and the game lasted 3 hours. Now you face a long drive home from the southern depths Greater Sydney, namely St George, all the way back to civilisation near Ryde.

Or you could be the Fantastic Four who came joint first in the U1400 last year making all those trips worthwhile. What/whichever it is, the NSWCA Interclub Grade Matches are on again (actually it begins next week). This year we have the same Four Amigos (***) (with a name change from Ryde-Eastwood Checks to ...... is it enough?!) attempting to go one better (?) than last year and win the U1400 outright! (see here)

[Of course I claim to have actually contribute to the Checks success last year even though I never did receive the recognition (sob! sob!). After all I, playing as reserve, took a half-point off a Rooty Hill player rated 300 points above me! HiYah!! C'mon guys, that was a valuable half-point! ]

We also welcome back some former club members (***) and new members (one from the barren landscape that is Canberra!).***

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club have 3 teams in the Grade matches this year. They are (drum rolllllllllll):

U1400 Knights
Vince Chiara (El Capitan)
Alan Marton
Mark Aspin
Greig Edwards

U1400 Hawks
Doug Eyres (le Capitain)
Jothan Gunn
Tereza Grbin
Egon Cardenas

U1400 Reserves
Bruce Williams
Ricardo Maldonado
Stephen Dennis
James Hickey
Les Mikolajczyk

U1600
Les Mikolajczyk (Der Kaptein)
Lorenzo Escalante
Rob Watson
James Hickey

U1600 Reserves
David French
Vince Chiara
Tereza Grbin

Note: The U1600 team has no name. C'mon, you cannot seriously play without a catchy name. Otherwise how are you going to distract your opponent! But seriously folks, we (ie club members) need to come up with a name for the U1600 team. Let's have a name competition. Send your entries to wengnian.siow8@gmail.com.

For the first week, the Knights are playing the Hawks. Huh?! Well, I guess at least it is good to get this friendly game out of the way! the un-named U1600 (see how awkward it is without a name!) is playing away to Norths Brown Bears.

For club members not playing in the Grade Matches, casual games (and postponed games from the Club Championships Preliminaries, namely moi!) are the order of the day.

*** Guess who?

Long Live the Champion!

2010-05-12T10:03:00.005+10:00

In case you have not heard, GM Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand, World Champion has successfully defended his title by defeating the challenger, GM Veselin Topalov from Bulgaria.

A lot were expected from the Championship Match especially after the debacle of Topalov's last tilt at the World title against then World Champion (one of two Champions) GM Vladimir Kramink from Russia. Hence the birth of the term, "toiletgate" which forever soiled the image of chess. Grave fears abound after the eruption of the Icelandic volcano wreaking havoc around Europe and severely disrupting the travel plans of Anand and his team from Frankfurt, Germany to Sofia, Germany.

However, the Match itself got off to a great start, with Topalov landing the first blow, totally demolishing with the White pieces Anand in a Gruenfeld Defence to 1 d4. Anand hit back with two victories in two successive Whites and two Catalans. Then the momentum swung back to Topalov (or rather his longtime second (sidekick and wannabe clone), GM Cheparinov) who found a clever way to a neutralise Anand's Catalan. (But sales of Israeli GM Boris Avrukh's GM Repertoire vols 1 and 2 (Quality Press)) are sure to skyrocket!) Topalov equalised in Game 8 and both players missed wins in their respective White games. Play were also a bit sloppy but nonetheless exciting as the World Champion and World No 2 (on ratings) proved to mere patzers the world over that they were also human after all! Anand had his last White game in Game 11 but could not win with a surprise English Opening 1 c4.

Then it was the last game with Topalov playing White. Anand resorted to the defence of World Champions, namely the Queen's Gambit Declined (QGD) and signalled his intention of seeking a draw with the very quiet variation known as the Lasker Defence of the QGD (named after World Champion Emmanuel Lasker).

Then we reached the middle game, and after Anand played 29. Nc4 e5 30. e4 f5! surprising Topalov and seeking the initiative. After ...e5 is played, would you have seen ...f5 coming? In any event, if you are White, what would you play (diagrammed position below)?

Do not look below.

After Topalov played his 31st move (?!), Anand played ...e4. And we reach the diagrammed position below. What would you play as White?

Here is the link to the whole game playable online.

RECCC_2010 Club Championship Preliminaries

2010-05-10T21:18:00.000+10:00

Results

Round 10

Maldonado - Valenzuela 1-0
Gong, N - Edwards 0-1
Zee - Beveridge 0-1
Gletsos - Hickey 1-0
Escalante - Damaschino 0.5-0.5
Burgess - Mlinaric 1-0
Grbin - Eyres 1-0
Siow - Aspin 0-1
Arumugan - Kirillov 0-1
Yum - Gunn 0-1
Christensen - Marton 1-0
Hale - Mikolajczyk 0-1
Amin - Reich 1-0
Gong, S - Cardenas 1-0
Dennis - Mere 1-0
Kuru - Chiara 1-0
Gluvchinsky - Irmler 0-1
Galwey - Watson 0-1

RECCC_2010 Club Championship Preliminaries

2010-05-01T18:55:00.000+10:00

Results

Round 9

Burgess - Maldonado 1-0
Mlinaric - Escalante 0-1
Damaschino - Gletsos 0-1
Hickey - Zee 1-0
Beveridge - Gong, N 1-0
Edwards - Valenzuela 1-0
Hale - Grbin 1-0
Mikolajczyk - Christensen 0-1
Marton - Yum 0-1
Gunn - Arumugan 1-0
Kirillov - Siow postponed
Aspin - Eyres 1-0
Galwey -Amin 1F-0F
Watson - Gluvchinsky 1-0
Irmler - Kuru 0-1
Chiara - Dennis 1-0
Mere - Gong, S 0-1
Cardenas - Reich 1-0

RECCC_2010 Club Championship Preliminaries

2010-04-23T14:15:00.000+10:00

Results

Round 8

Maldonado - Edwards Postponed
Valenzuela - Beveridge 1F-0F
Gong, N - Hickey 0.5 - 0.5
Zee - Damaschino 0-1
Gletsos - Mlinaric 1F-0F
Escalante - Burgess 0.5-0.5
Yum - Grbin 0-1
Christensen - Arumugan 1-0
Hale - Siow 1-0
Mikolajczyk - Eyres 0-1
Marton - Aspin 0-1
Gunn - Kirillov 0.5-0.5
Amin - Cardenas 0F-1F
Reich - Mere 1-0
Gong, S - Chiara 1-0
Dennis - Irmler 1-0
Kuru - Watson 0-1
Gluvchinsky - Galwey 0F-1F

Basketball is chess ?! Enjoy!

2010-04-15T12:49:00.000+10:00

RECCC_2010 Club Championship Preliminaries

2010-04-15T00:30:00.002+10:00

Results

Round 7

Escalante - Maldonado 1-0
Burgess - Gletsos Postponed
Mlinaric - Zee 1-0
Damaschino - Gong, N 1-0
Hickey - Valenzuela 1-0
Beveridge - Edwards 1-0
Christensen - Grbin 1-0
Hale - Yum 0.5-0.5
Mikolajczyk - Arumugan 0.5-0.5
Marton - Siow 1-0
Gunn - Eyres 1-0
Kirillov - Aspin 0-1
Gluvchinsky - Amin 1-0
Galwey - Kuru 0.5-0.5
Watson - Dennis 1-0
Irmler - Gong, S 1-0
Chiara - Reich 1-0
Mere - Cardenas 0-1

RECCC_2010 Club Championship Preliminaries

2010-04-13T00:08:00.001+10:00

Results

Round 6
Maldonado - Beveridge 0.5-0.5
Edwards - Hickey 1-0
Valenzuela - Damaschino 0-1
Gong, N - Mlinaric 1-0
Zee - Burgess 1-0
Gletsos - Escalante Postponed
Grbin - Kirillov 0.5-0.5
Aspin - Gunn 0.5-0.5
Eyres - Marton 0-1
Siow - Mikolajczyk 0-1
Arumugan - Hale 0-1
Yum - Christensen Postponed
Amin - Mere Postponed
Cardenas - Chiara 1-0
Reich - Irmler 0-1
Gong, S - Watson 0-1
Dennis - Galwey 0-1
Kuru - Gluvchinsky Postponed

Chess videos

2010-04-08T11:22:00.002+10:00

Videos of two games (endgame) from the the 14th Int. Neckar-Open held on 1st - 5th April 2010 in Deizisau (Region Stuttgart - Germany)(see here and here (if you can read german)).

GM Pablo Lafuente (eventual winner from Argentina Elo 2559) - GM Fidel Corrales Jimenez (Elo 2585 Cuba) Round 7 (note the title of game is misnamed as GM Lafuente clearly has white.)

IM Frank Zeller (Elo 2420 Germany) - GM Viktor Erdos (Elo 2593 Hungary)

videos courtesy of IM Georgios Souleidis.

RECCC_2010 Club Championship Preliminaries

2010-04-05T19:09:00.001+10:00

Results

Round 5

Hickey Maldonado 1-0
Beveridge - Damaschino 0F-1F
Edwards-Mlinaric 0-1
Valenzuela - Burgess 0-1
Gong, N - Escalante 0-1
Zee - Gletsos 0-1
Gunn - Grbin 0-1
Kirillov -Marton 1-0
Aspin - Mikolajczyk 0-1
Eyres - Hale 1-0
Siow - Christensen Postponed
Arumugan - Yum 0-1
Chiara - Amin 0-1
Mere - Irmler 1-0
Cardenas - Watson 0-1
Reich - Galwey 0-1
Gong, S - Gluvchinsky 0-1
Dennis - Kuru 0-1

Videos of GM post-game analysis from 2010 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess_2

2010-03-26T11:42:00.004+11:00

More GM post-Game analysis from the 2010 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Tournament in Nice, France.

Round 9 Rapid - Aronian-Ponomariov Reti Opening
I recommend this game. Aronian gives clear commentary and he ells you what his plan(s) were when playing the game. Also, don't miss the candid interview at the end where Aronian talks about his form (poor) and his motivation. Of course, for those who don't follow chess gossip, GM Levon Aronian, Armenia's top chess player is Australia's No 1 woman player's boyfriend.

Round 10 Rapid - Gelfand-Svidler - Gruenfeld Defence

Enjoy GM Peter Svidler's anglo accented English (Svidler is an avid cricket fan and follows the fortunes of the English cricket team closely even when playing in a chess tournament. There is even a story that then organisers of the GibTelecomm Chess Festival dangled some net practice as incentive for Svidler to play. It worked! see previous blog here.) in his favourite 1 d4 Defence, namely the Gruenfeld.

RECCC_Club Championship Preliminaries

2010-03-25T11:03:00.000+11:00

Results

Round 4

Maldonado - Zee 1-0
Gletsos - Gong, N 1-0
Escalante - Valenzuela Postponed
Burgess - Edwards Postponed
Mlinaric - Beveridge 0-1
Damaschino - Hickey 1-0
Grbin - Arumugan 1-0
Yum - Siow postponed
Christensen - Eyres 1-0
Hale - Aspin 0.5 - 0.5
Mikolajczyk - Kirillov 0.5 - 0.5
Marton - Gunn 0-1
Amin - Dennis 1-0
Kuru - Gong, S 0-1
Gluvchinsky - Reich 1-0
Galwey - Cardenas 0-1
Watson - Mere 1-0
Irmler - Chiara 1-0

Videos of GM post-game analysis from 2010 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess

2010-03-22T00:09:00.004+11:00

I begin with Magnus Carlsen's blindfold game win over Levon Aronian (King's Indian Defence) (see also previous blog here):

Next is another loss by Levon Aronian (rapid game)to Vassily Ivanchuk (Reti Opening). Aronian is having a bad Amber after winning the 2009 edition. Vassily Ivanchuk has been leading before Magnus took over the lead but recovered the lead after Rd 7.

Next we have the win by Vugar Gashimov over Alexander Grishuck (A Benoni Defence by Gashimov). Gashimov stopped Magnus in Rd 7.

Grischuk bounced back with a win over Peter Svidler (in a Semi-Slav Defence):

RECCC_2010 Club Championship Preliminaries

2010-03-21T23:31:00.001+11:00

Club Championship Preliminaries_Results for Rounds 1-3

Round 1

Gletsos - Maldonadro Postponed
Escalante - Zee Postponed
Burgess - Gong, N Postponed
Mlinaric - Valenzuela 1-0
Damaschino - Edwards 1-0
Hickey - Beveridge 0-1
Aspin - Grbin Postponed
Eyres - Kirillov 0-1
Siow - Gunn 0-1
Arumugan - Marton 0.5-0.5
Yum - Mikolajczyk 1-0
Christensen - Hale 0-1
Kuru - Amin 1-0
Gluvchinsky - Dennis 1-0
Galwey - Gong, S 1-0
Watson - Reich 1-0
Irmler - Cardenas 0-1
Chiara - Mere 1-0

Round 2

Maldonado - Gong, N 0.5-0.5
Zee - Valenzuela 0-1
Gletsos - Edwards 1-0
Escalante - Beveridge 1-0
Burgess - Hickey 0-1
Mlinaric - Damaschino 0-1
Grbin - Siow 1-0
Arumugan - Eyres 1-0
Yum - Aspin 0-1
Christensen - Kirillov 0.5-0.5
Hale - Gunn Postponed
Mikolajczyk - Marton 0-1
Amin - Gong, S 0.5 - 0.5
Dennis - Reich 1-0
Kuru - Cardenas 0-1
Gluvchinsky - Mere 1-0
Galwey - Chiara 1-0
Watson - Irmler 0.5 - 0.5

Round 3

Damaschino - Maldonado 1-0
Hickey - Mlinaric 1-0
Beveridge - Burgess postponed
Edwards - Escalante 0-1
Valenzuela - Gletsos 0-1
Gong, N - Zee 1-0
Marton - Grbin 1-0
Gunn - Mikolajczyk 0.5 - 0.5
Kirillov - Hale 0.5 - 0.5
Aspin - Christensen 1-0
Eyres - Yum 0-1
Siow - Arumugan 0-1
Irmler - Amin 10-0
Chiara - Watson Postponded
Mere - Galwey 0-1
Cardenas - Gluvchinsky 1-0
Reich - Kuru 0-1
Gong, S - Dennis 1-0

The worst King's Indian game by a super-GM?

2010-03-17T14:15:00.003+11:00

FM Dennis Monokroussos on his blog, The Chess Mind, has this to say:

Kramnik - who has had pretty good success over the years against the King's Indian, played one of the worst King's Indians I can remember seeing at the top level - probably the worst. Seeing that game without any names attached, I would never have imagined that it was played by one of the world's best players - but it was! (By the way, there's a moral here for all of us. Even the greatest players in the world can play really badly when they're out of their comfort zone and away from what's familiar to them. Just make sure you're playing something worthwhile rather than garbage to get them there.)

He is referring to the blindfold game between Gelfand and Kramnik in Rd 4 of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Tournament. The game is below and do you agree?

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Puzzles and Games from 2010 European Individual Championship in Rijeka_3

2010-03-16T12:20:00.003+11:00

Puzzle #7

POSITION AFTER BLACK'S 34th MOVE (34...Rb6)
Question: What does White play to make a breakthrough?

Puzzle #8

POSITION AFTER BLACK'S 18th MOVE (18...Bxd5)
Question: What does White play to begin an attack?

Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament 2010 (Nice FRA)

2010-03-15T13:12:00.002+11:00

For King Indian Defence lovers out there ......

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Here are Magnus Carlsen's notes:
Already before the tournament Carlsen had prepared the King’s Indian and his ambition to steer for a highly complicated struggle worked out beyond expectation. To begin with he got the chance to implement an idea he had seen in a game Eljanov-Radjabov; a quick counter-push on the queenside to undermine White’s centre followed by a piece sacrifice (20…Nxd5) to break up that same centre. The tactical complications that ensued demanded a lot from both players and it was soon clear that Carlsen felt more at ease. Aronian missed the push 22…e4, a seemingly contradictory move that seems to contribute little to Black’s wish to open up lines and files, but which in fact is the right move to keep his initiative going. White could still have put up some resistance with 25.Bg5 (instead of 25.Nxf2), but Aronian had also missed 25…Qh4, which in case of 26.Be1 is followed by the deadly 26…Be5. Three moves later Aronian threw the towel.

Another Puzzle ...... White to Play to Win ...... Are you up to the Challenge?

2010-03-14T08:55:00.004+11:00

The Challenge: You are White and have reached this position in your game, the last to finish in a team competition consisting of 8 x 8 boards. White needs to win to ensure your team draws the match. The crowd gathers and murmurs in the background, your teammates whispers encouragement and/or prays silently, the pressure mounts, the clock is ticking down, and ...... (answer posted next week).

More Puzzles and Games from 2010 European Individual Championship in Rijeka.

2010-03-13T12:51:00.001+11:00

Puzzle #3

POSITION AFTER WHITE'S 27th MOVE (27.Qc7)

Question: What are White's threats?
What is Black's answer to the threats?

Puzzle #4

POSITION AFTER WHITE'S 25th MOVE (25.f3)

Question: What does Black play to attack?

Puzzle #5

POSITION AFTER BLACK'S 26th MOVE (26...Qh6)

Question: What does White play to attack and win?

Puzzle #6

POSITION AFTER BLACK'S 29th MOVE

Question: As White, what would you play: 30 Rd1 or 30 Qc3?

Puzzles and Games from 2010 European Individual Championship in Rijeka.

2010-03-12T10:46:00.006+11:00

Puzzle #1
If you are White in the following game, would you play 33 Qg2?

Position after 32…Rxe3

Puzzle #2
If you are White in the following game,can you play 32 Qxh8?

Position after 31…Kc7

[Answers next week.]

Games for replay

Game #1 Movsesian-Chiril: Look out for White's finish.

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Game #2 Babula-Bologan: For the King's Indian fans.

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Game #3 Nisipeanu-Pelletier: How to catch a Queen.

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Game #4 Motylev-Godena: Back to the Future_19th Century play.

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GM Spraggett's commentary to Motylev-Godena (My apologies but I don't have the time to incorporate these annotations into the game replayer):

AFTER WHITE'S 7th MOVE (7.Bxc6)
A well known position that has occurred in about a hundred master games over the years. Usual now is 7... dc 8. Qxd4 Nf6 9.Nc3 Bg4!? with a more or less balanced position. Not much is happening that is very different from the normal Exchange variation of the Spanish.

However, Godena is a player who goes his own way and likes to surprise his opponent with little known, and even less studied, side variations. Here he played....

7... Qb4 !?

A very sharp check that immediately creates a crisis : White must now play in gambit style if he is to avoid getting the worse right off the bat! 8.Qd2 or 8.Nbd2 simply won't do. On the otherhand, is Black's last move any good? He neglects his development and is for the time being a piece down.

8. c3!?

The only way to play! The complications that result are very difficult to fathom over the board and require precise calculation and accurate evaluation of the resulting positions. According to my database, there are only about a dozen games that have gone this way and theory still has to mention this position in its books!

8... Qxb2 forced

Much worse is 8... dc3 as after 9. bc Qb2 10. Bd5 Qxa1 11. Qb3 the Black Queen will be trapped after White castles and moves his Queen Knight.

As mentioned, there are few games to go by in this little studied position. White has mostly tried either 9. Qxd4 bc 10. O-O Qxa1 11. Qxh8 Kf8 with a messy position (diagram, right) or 9. O-O, with mixed results. Motylev, undoubted taken by surprise by Godena's opening choice, had to re-invent the wheel himself and comes up with a new idea!

9. Ba4!?

This move looks quite strong! White preserves his Bishop and intends to use it later in an attack against the Black King. Black will now have to take the Rook in the corner , being an exchange up, but his problems are just beginning: where to put the Black King? And the Black Queen is always in a danger of being trapped! I don't like Black's position....

9... Qxa1 Worse is 9... dc 10. O-O !

This position reminds me of the type of game that was often seen during the lifetime of Paul Morphy! One of the players (yet to be decided!) is risking too much....Not good now is 10... Ne7 as after 11. Qxd4 O-O 12. Qd2! the Black Queen is trapped. Probably necessary, but hair-raising, is the cold blooded 10... Qxa2!? 11. Bb3 Qa6 12. Qxd4 Qf6 13. e5 Qg7 and atleast the Black Queen is safe. However, it is clear that White has many attractive continuations.

10... b5?! A horrible move!

Black simply drives the White Bishop to a better square while creating a weakness on the Queen-side. Black is now lost almost by force. Probably he was lost anyway...

11. Bb3 ! Setting it's eyes on f7.

Probably equally strong is 11. Qxd4 f6 12. Na3 Qxa2 (12... Qxf1 13. Kxf1 ba 14. e5) 13. Nxb5 (diagram,right) when White has many threats and the Black Queen is still out of play.

11... c5 Black hopes to play ...c4 and shut out the White Bishop

Note that the immediate 11... Qb2 loses immediately to 12. Qxd4 f6 13. Qd5!, exploiting Black's 10th move

12. Nxd4! Ripping open the centre!

If you put your head into the lion's mouth, you should not be surprised if it gets bitten off!

In this kind of position (with the Black Queen out of play and almost trapped, and the Black King still uncastled) material is not such an important factor. Here White realizes that with just his Queen and Bishop he can create serious mating threats against Black. Play proceeded:

12... cd It is too late for the consolidating try 12... a6 as after 13. Qd2 cd 14. Qxd4 f6 15. Qd5 Black's position falls apart.13. Qxd4

A dream position! White threatens the Black Rook on h8 and also (if there is nothing immediately better) Qd5, attacking the other Rook and f7. Something has gone seriously wrong with Godena's opening surprise!

13... f6 At this point, Black has little choice

Now Motylev has a pleasant choice. I would prefer 14. Na3!? Qb2 15. Nxb5 and if 15... Kf8 16. Qd5 Kg7 17. Qf7 Kh6 18. Qf8 when Black should soon get mated. However, Motylev's choice is more sadistic!

14. e5 ! Very thematic: more ripping

There is little that Black can do from White opening up the position, exposing the Black King to mating threats.

14... Bb7 15. Na3 [15. ef is also good]

Now should Black give the Queen with 15... Qxf1 16. Kxf1 Bc6 (what else) simply 17. ef gives White exactly the same attack as in the game.

15... Qb2

16. ef Threatening f7

Taking the pawn on b5 was equally good. If now Black tries to escape to the Queenside he walks into an equally deadly attack: 16... O-O-O 17. Nxb5 Bc6 18. Nxa7 Kb7 19. Nxc6 and Black does not have a single good move.

16... Nh6 At least taking some of the sting out of White's immediate threat...

17. Qe5 ouch!

I am certain that Godena wanted to resign here, but nobody likes to lose in less than 20 moves! So he continues for a couple of moves...Note that if he now moves to f8 he would allow a mate in 1 move. So Godena goes the other direction

17... Kd8 18. Nxb5

I can imagine that a lot of vultures were hovering over the board at this point! Motylev quickly concludes his attack:

18... Qd2 19. Qc7 Ke8 20. Nd6

Godena resigns. It is mate in at most 6 moves! An opening experiment that went bad [1:0]

[My thanks to Chessvibes for the puzzles and games and to GM Kevin Spraggett for the commentary.]

RECCC_Club Championship Preliminaries

2010-02-26T13:12:00.002+11:00

Message from President, Les Mikolajczyk:

Just a reminder that our Club Championship starts on Wednesday [3rd March 2010] at 7.30 pm. If you want to play you must let Bill know be 6.00pm Tuesday [2nd March 2010] otherwise you will not be in the draw. Bill’s email is bgletsos[-at symbol-]optusnet.com.au

The competition time limits are 90min for the first 40 moves and 30min to finish. All clocks will be started at 7.30pm.

Games from Moscow Open A and B

2010-02-25T22:20:00.002+11:00

Perhaps a game to which we can actually aspire to, English player Michael Yeo (Elo 2147) playing in the 2010 Moscow Open B Tournament, against Alexey Kondenko (Elo 2234) in a Sicilian Richter Rauzer, annotations by Michael Yeo and IM Malcolm Pein:

If you wish to play through another game from the Moscow Open but from the Open A Tournament between A.Evdokimov – D.Gochelashvili in a King's Indian Defence (annotations by IM Vladimir Barsky in "russian" english), click on the game below:

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The World No 1 vs USA No 1

2010-02-15T11:57:00.000+11:00

The first (or rather another game) in the ongoing rivalry between two ex-teen titans. Some commentators have already predicted that this may be a long-time rivalry in the making providing chess kibitzers with good value entertainment for years to come. Remember Carlsen won the World Blitz in November 2009 but then lost to Nakamura 1-3 in the final of the BNbank Blitz tournament, held Saturday, November 28th in Oslo, Norway. BTW, they drew again in Corus at Wijk aan See.

Another game from the Gibtelecom Chess Festival 2010

2010-02-04T09:29:00.002+11:00

John Saunders reports on Rd 8 (here):

The game of the day was almost certainly the one between Argentinian grandmaster Damian Lemos and French International Master Clovis Vernay. The Frenchman, playing Black, attempted to extract himself from difficulties with a remarkable tactical combination involving an eye-catching queen sacrifice. Many a player would have succumbed to such a dangerous attack but the Argentinian found an equally astonishing defence to neutralise the Black counterattack and convert the material advantage into victory. Great credit must go to both players for providing this feast of chess.

The game with John Saunders' annotations:

A Story to Inspire Us Club Players All ......

2010-01-30T11:28:00.006+11:00

The 2010 Gibtelecom International Chess Festival is an annual chess festival on the English island of Gibraltar (smack in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea). It is also home to the famous Gibraltar monkeys. Of course for Australian chess players, the 2008 edition was where our Australian Champion, GM Zhao ZongYuan, obtained his third and final norm.

But to show that fairytales exist comes a story from this year's edition. Here is English writer, John Saunders, writing on the official website (here):

One of the joys of open competition is the element of surprise when an unfancied player stands up to a seasoned grandmaster. The third round of the Gibtelecom Festival had a wonderful example of this (in fact, it was quite reminiscent of the third round of the English FA Cup which also throws up amazing upsets). Ivan Cheparinov is a very strong grandmaster from Bulgaria who has been rated above 2700 and spends most of his time seconding former FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov at major events. In a few months he will almost certainly be the leading figure in Topalov’s support team when he challenges current World Champion Vishy Anand for the World Chess Championship.

But today Cheparinov faced a humble amateur – 31-year-old Victor Havik from Norway. Victor doesn’t have a chess title and his rating (whisper it softly) is even lower than the current writer. And I haven’t pushed a pawn for a few years now. With a 567 rating difference this should have been a walk in the park for the higher rated player. But maybe the Norwegian amateur had one thing going for him – the Magnus Carlsen factor. Norwegian chess has had an almighty shot in the arm with the advent of the teenaged genius.

It was a very long game but Victor kept Ivan at bay for more than six hours. Even so, wise heads were still predicting ultimate victory for the Bulgarian when Victor found an improbably beautiful queen sacrifice. It didn’t win the game (that would have been too much of a fairy story) but it did hold a draw.

Corus Chess 2010

2010-01-28T22:34:00.002+11:00

Corus Chess is one of the most special of chess tournaments in the international chess calendar held in the Dutch town of Wijk aan See (pronounced why kahn say) and one of the longest with 13 rounds. It is also one of the 4 tournaments which make up the Grand Slam of chess tournaments (the others currently being Linares, MTel and Nanjing) with the Final held at Bilbao. The 2010 edition began with spectacular fireworks from Mr "Fire On Board"***, GM Alexei Shirov. Shirov began with 5/5 and then 5.5/6 but is now 6.5/10 (+5 =3 -2). Admittedly Shirov's 5/5 has been mainly against the 2600s GMs (with the exception of GM Peter Leko).

The official website is here filled with goodies (see especially the Reports and Game Analysis).

One of the most interesting match-up was between the World No 1, 19 year old Magnus Carlsen of Norway and the former World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Earlier in December in the London Chess Classic 2009, Kramnik lost to Carlsen. Here Kramnik had his revenge in Rd 9. Kramnik has been showing good form in recent months, moving away from his drawish reputation ("Drawnik") to an attacking style reminiscence of his earlier years before he became World Champion, leading some to dub him "Kramnik 2.0".

ChessVibes in conjunction with the organisers have been filming post-mortem press conferences. Here is Kramnik explaining his win over Carlsen:

Here is the Game Analysis: click here.

Here is another of Vladimir Kramnik's post-mortem Press Conference explaining his win over USA's Hikaru Nakamura in Rd 8. Kramnik showed top form crushing Nakamura's Dutch Leningrad Defence.

I also recommend heading over to ICC's ChessFM for their GOTD analysis. It is free for the moment. Get there before they locked it up and you need to become a member in order to view the video analysis.

*** That is the title of his book of collected games in two volumes which has been recommended as a must read.

Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club_2010 Calendar

2010-01-28T19:17:00.001+11:00

From Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Blog

Members in the Chess News_2010

2010-01-25T22:49:00.005+11:00

I thought I should belatedly report on members of the Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club endeavours in the arena of chess in 2010. We had the biggest tournament in 2010, the Australian Championships at Norths. We had two club members who played in the Australian Major. Anton Smirnov who came joint 61th with 6.5/11; (Of course Anton is also claimed by Norths Chess Club). Dylan Siow-Lee finished joint 45th with 5.5/11 out of a field of 96th.

In the Australian Minor, Vince Chiara, Greig Edwards and Jasper Hong played. Vince was joint 15th with 6/11 while Grieg managed 5/11 coming 26th out of a field of 42. Jasper came joint 37th with 4/11 points.

Full results can be found here.

Just two days ago, three present club members competed in the NSW Australia Day Weekender at Norths: Greig Edwards, Dylan Siow-Lee and Robert Watson (who rejoinded the club after 18 years; previously he was with the Eastwood Chess Club). Rob showed he is slowly regaining his form sharing in the 3rd prize in the rating division U1600-1400 with 3.5/7. Greig Edwards almost repeated his 2009 feat sharing in the rating prize in division U1250 with 3/7 (check last year's blog). Dylan Siow-Lee only managed 2.5/7 including a last round loss to Rob.

A former member, Steven Liu, shared in the 2nd prize in rating division U1800-1600 with a score of 4.5/7.

Oh, and btw, IM George Xie won the event with a perfect score of 7/7 continuing his awesome form from the Australian Championships.

Full results can be found here.

Happy New Year and the AGM ......

2010-01-23T22:41:00.004+11:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Chess is back and has begun on Wednesday evenings (7:30 pm onwards) for the last two weeks. In any event, every member should try to attend this Wednesday 27th January for the AGM.

AGENDA

FOR THE THIRTY NINTH GENERAL ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE RYDE-EASTWOOD LEAGUES CHESS CLUB

ON 27 JANUARY 2010

1 OPENING OF THE MEETING BY THE PRESIDENT ---LES MIKOLAJCZYK

2 MINUTES OF THE THIRTY EIGHTH GENERAL MEETING

3 REPORT OF OUT-GOING COMMITTEE

4 BALANCE SHEET PRESENTED BY TREASURER -- TOM POWERS

5 ELECTION OF OFFICE BEARERS FOR THE COMING YEAR

6 DISCUSSION OF COMPETITION COMMITMENTS FOR 2010

7 REFRESHMENT BREAK

8 GENERAL BUSINESS

9 CLOSING OF THE MEETING BY THE PRESIDENT

Documents available on the night
Minutes of 38th AGM Report of out-going committee Balance sheet Membership and rating list

Postings on Chess Improvements in 2009

2009-12-31T23:59:00.001+11:00

Here are the links to postings on chess improvements in 2009:

18th Amber Blindfold and Rapid (2009)

Chess Videos

More Chess Videos and oldest Scot to score IM norm

Annotated IM games on wins over GMs and others

Learning from GM-Annotated games from the 2009 Canadian Open Chess Championship

More Chess Videos ...... From the 2009 Scottish Chess Championship

More Chess Videos ...... From the 2009 Scottish Chess Championship

More Chess Videos_GM Commenatry on NH Chess Tournament 2009

Topalov-Kramnik Grudge (rapid) game

How to Play the KID ......

Endgame Theory_Winning with 2 Knights

An interesting Closed Ruy Lopez ...... (and testing new game viewer)

Chess Challenge: Play Against Garry Kasparov

Blessed Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!

2009-12-24T08:36:00.002+11:00

The Presentation Night and Dinner was very well-attended and Tom Powers told me it was a big increase over last year. So much so that a bit of management was required by Tom to ensure everyone had a seat (tables were added). It seemed everyone had a good time including the children.

I was a bit late for the Presentation and was outside talking when Dylan came to me and said my name was called. I was pleasantly surprised by the trophy, President's Award no less, it seems for services rendered for this blog etc. I was of course a bit chuffed. And hopefully will not the one and only chess trophy I get !?

This blog will be updated with date of AGM when I know it. But I will be away on hols and then to the Australian Championships beginning on 2nd January at Norths Chess Club at Norths Leagues Club. Drop in for a visit if you are not playing as there will be daily commentary by GM Ian Rogers. See here for schedule and details. Who will become the Australian Champion? My bet is on GM Zhao ZongYuan.

Thanks everyone and it has been my pleasure to keep the blog for an don behalf of the Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club. Thanks to Les, Bill, Tom and Denis for a fantastic year and looking forward to another in 2010. (I think the club will resume sometime in middle of January.)

To all who read this, Blessed Christmas (if you celebrate) and Happy Holidays!!!

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Presentation and Annual Dinner

2009-11-27T16:45:00.002+11:00

Message from the President, Les Mikolajczyk (lmikolaj@bigpond.net.au):

Fellow chess players,

You are invited to our presentation night and our Christmas dinner, the cost for the dinner will be;

For members
Children’s menu $5
Christmas set menu $15

For non members
Children’s menu $10
Christmas set menu $30

The price includes – soft drinks, standard beers & house wines
The menus are attached.

Our presentation night will be held on the 16th December in our chess room starting at 7.30 followed by the Christmas dinner in the Hawks Nest Restaurant.

Non member numbers will be restricted to the following;
1 non member child per member child
2 parents per member child
1 partner per member

If you would like to attend the Christmas dinner you must let me know ASAP but no later than the 9th December. Payments can be made to Tom starting next Wednesday.

Please contact Les if you require the menu.

Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club Chess Club Classic 2009_Round 5 Results and Final Standings

2009-11-27T16:35:00.002+11:00

The last competition for the year has finished and Lou Damaschino has emerged the winner with 4.5/5 with Vince Chiara and Alan Marton joint second with 4/5. Congrats.

No	Name	Rating	Round 5	Points
1	ROB WATSON	1801	7:w: ½	3½
2	SHANE BURGESS	1531	11:w:1	3½
3	LES MIKOLAJCZYK	1462	17:w:1F	3,0
4	MATO MLINARIC	1433	8:w:0	3,0
5	KARL KIRILLOV	1418	15:b:1	1,0
6	VINCENT CHIARA	1411	9: b:1	4,0
7	LOU DAMASCHINO	1386	1:b: ½	4½
8	ALAN MARTON	1380	4:b: 1	4,0
9	JAMES HICKEY	1357	6:w:0	3,0
10	TOM POWERS	1316	½:bye	3,0
11	EGON CARDENAS	1246	2:b:0	2,0
12	DYLAN SIOW-LEE	1245	18:b:1	3,0
13	GREIG EDWARDS	1241	22:w:1F	2,0
14	UNO MERE	1241	20:b:1	3½
15	BERNARD REICH	1149	5:w:0	0
16	MANUEL VALENZUELA	1144	21:w:0	2
17	MARK ASPIN	1133	3:b:0	2,0
18	HAROON HOWARI	1108	12:w:0	2
19	DOUGLAS EYRES	1032	23:b:1	3,0
20	WILLIAM GONG	918	14:w:0	½
21	JASPER HONG	897	16:b:1	3,0
22	CALVIN WANG	724	13:b:0F	1,0
23	NOAH GONG	706	19:w:0	2,0
24	HIN ZEE	Unrated	bye: ½	1½