Why I Might actually play in a Tournament

I haven't posted much lately because there has been nothing new going on in my life regarding chess but that might change. It looks like I might be able to play in the Southern Alberta Open this month. I guess I need to dust off the old chess board and study an opening or two. To any future opponent wondering which openings I am studying, let me just say it's the Hammerslong as black and white - I swear.

The only reason I am contemplating playing is because I can combine it with a business trip. If not I would not consider it.


In other current chess events (concerning people who might actually read this blog):

Keith MacKinnon won the Edm International Qualifier last weekend and will be playing GM's and IM's in Dec. It will be tough but should be a good learning experience for him.

Eric Hansen and Kevin Me are going to the World Youth Championship. Good Luck!

Aaron Sequillion. It's hard to understand Aaron's results. When I played him a couple of years ago he was under 1800 and I was able to beat him. After that he went on a tear and climbed over 2100 and looked like he was on his was to becoming a master but since then he's plummeted to back under 2000.???? I hear the best way to improve your rating is to play alot and I guess the easiest way to lose points is to play too much.

Rick Pederson has been going the other way. He was under 1854 and in less than a year has climbed to an all time high at 2126. I played him at the Sask Open when he was 1908. I could have won that game if I saw a simple tactic but missed it and went on to lose in the final round so he came second instead of me.

Robert Sasata. Hasn't played much lately. I thought he might play in the Canadian Open this year but he didn't. The Edm International still has one spot open. I'm sure he could give them some tough opposition.

Looks like Jamin Gluckie hasn't played much lately either and has even let his CFC membership expire.

Why I'm not playing in the Alberta Open

It seems like all my posts now are excuses as to why I'm not playing in a tournament. The Alberta Open is the most prestigious swiss event every year. This year it is being held at the Edmonton Chess club and surprisingly it appears that there will be less than 40 participants. The last time I played in it was two years ago at the West Edmonton Mall Hotel. I brought the family with me and I enjoyed it very much. I was hoping to play again this year, but after bringing the family to the Canadian Open earlier this year I couldn’t justify the expense of another chess excursion. With a $40 entry fee, $100 for gas $250 for hotels, plus food the total cost would have been about $500 and with Christmas approaching I figured there would be a better use for that money. On the positive side at least I do have a desire to play unlike when I passed on the Med Hat Open.

From of the pre-registered players list, I will pick IM Ihor Nester 2375 to win. I have never seen him before but he has the highest FIDE rateing and the only IM in the event, so he should be the favourite. If Eric Hansen was playing I would have picked him but it appears he is skipping the tourney. My other prediction would be that the junior players will perform better than their ratings. That of course is not a big stretch since they always seem to be underrated.

Another junior player who is over performing is wonderkid Magnus Carlsen who just demolished the opposition at the Nanjing Spring Chess tournament. I had predicted that he would be the highest rated player before the end of the year but he appeared to be quiet for most of the summer. Then it was revealed that he had been training with none other than Kasparov! If Carlsen’s first tournament after the training is any indication then Kasparov is worth every penny of the millions he is being paid. After this event Carlsen will join the elite club of players who have broke the 2800 rating barrier and should be #2 behind Topalov.

Why I'm not playing in Medicine Hat this Weekend

All year I had plans of playing in the Medicine Hat Open. Last year when I went to this tournament I had a great time. The event is well run and very friendly, plus I have a close friend who lives in Med Hat who I rarely get to see. The tournament this year looks like their best and strongest ever. Having two GM's will always bring the strong players out of the woodwork. So why didn't I go?

Although I had intentions to play this weekend for some time, after playing in the Canadian Open my desire for chess has waned and it hasn't come back yet. August is also my busiest time at work with our annual budget preparations, and I haven't had any time for chess. Needless to say with no time and little desire I haven't played much and I certainly haven't studied anything. I don't think I'm in very good form at this moment and the few online speed games I have played seemed to indicate as much as I dropped 150 points in not many games.

Another thing that always has to be considered before going to a weekend tournament is family harmony. One time I made the mistake of going to a tournament when my wife thought I had better things to do that weekend. That is a mistake I don’t want to repeat. My wonderful wife is very understanding of my hobby, but sometimes she can't understand the attraction that chess players have to spending valuable time and money, crowding into small rooms for hours at a time, and putting themselves under enormous mental strain all for the chance to win a few measly rating points and maybe, if you’re lucky, sharing in a three way tie for a prize that will not cover your gas back home.

Right now, I'm not sure when I will play in a tournament again. The Alberta Open is always a good tourney but it’s on the thanksgiving weekend and I don’t think I want to leave my family at home then and I don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a hotel.

My prediction for the Medicine Hat Open is a two way tie between Hansen and one of the GM’s

Chess 960

I have just played my first chess960 games on chesscube. I must say it was fun. I won a bunch in a row but then lost several to finish up the session. The random placement of the pieces was disconcerting at first but knowing my opponent was in the same prediciment made me feel somewhat better. It was somewhat like being driven blindfold to an unknown location and then trying to find your way home or at least finding your way to something that looks familiar. All the positions reached during the game were completely new and the mates were unique and somewhat amusing.

I haven't played much chess lately due to a very hectic work schedule. My company always does it's budget in August and it means long days and working weekends for much of the month. Another reason might have been chess burn-out. After playing in the Canadian Open I didn't have much interest for several weeks. I think the chess bug is coming back though, as I am now I thinking about events I might want to enter. The Medicine Hat Open looks very interesting and also The Alberta Open and WBX event are appealing.

My kids have recently shown interest in chess again, especially my daughter. On Monday we had to make a trip into Edmonton for an appointment and I put them in a half-day of the week long chess camp that is going on this week. I hope they continue to show interst.

Canadian Open - Look Back

Well the Canadian Open has now been rated and, as I expected, I lost a bunch of points. I had estimated I would lose over 50 but it ended up being only 41. I guess I hadn’t accounted for participation points. You can click on this link to see the cross table. Several people had outstanding tournaments including co-winner IM Proper, Jonaton Tayer, etc. Several others (including myself) were disappointed with their results.

One of the complaints about the tournament that has come up lately was the complete lack of GM and IM Norm possibilities available at the tournament. This opportunity is a major attraction to higher rated players when they are considering whether to enter a tournament. Two decisions by the organizers affected the possibilities of norms being achieved: First the tournament was 9 rounds and not 10 rounds; and secondly they decided not to use accelerated pairings in the first two rounds. There are advantages and disadvantages to both of these decisions.

Years ago the Open used to be ten or eleven rounds with two rounds on some days but it has been reduced to 9 rounds lately. The current organizers decided to stick to the 9 round format. With only one round per day it produces a more relaxed schedule and allows for more side activities such as simuls, lectures, blitz and bughouse tournaments.

Accelerated pairings ensure that the high rated players play against other high rated players more often and thus are more likely to have at least 7 opponents who are FIDE rated as is required for norms. They can though cause even more volatility in pairings for middle ranked players in the middle rounds. By not using accelerated pairing it gave more average players, like me, an opportunity to play against one of the star GM’s and IM’s. This might have been an incentive for some average players to sign up but I’m not sure if that small benefit made up for the loss of Norm seekers who were discouraged from participating.

My recommendation would be to go back to having a 10 round tournament and have two rounds on the second day of the tournament. This should allow norm and still give ‘patzers’ their moment of glory. On day two the rating differences are usually still great enough that the top GM shouldn’t have two much of a struggle knocking off their challengers. If future organizers insist on sticking to the 9 round format then I believe accelerated pairings must be used. Otherwise their will be a lot of strong players who might wonder if it is worth their while to play.

I’ve had some time now to reflect back on my play during the tournament and I see that I did play rather well for a good portion of most of the games. The only game where I feel I was completely outclassed was round 1 against IM Quan, and that is to be expected. In the other two games I lost against higher rated opponents I achieved a reasonable position but then missed tactical shots that destroyed my position. In my 6 games against lower rated opponents I always achieved superior positions but then in all but two of the games lost focus and let my advantage slip away. There were times when I became bored and seemed too lazy to bother calculating and assumed that if I just played logical moves that I would turn my advantage into a win. Right now I’m at a loss as to how I can fix this defect in my game.

I had three goals coming to Edmonton. One was to play many different openings and in fact I did play a different opening in every game. This may seem like a foolish goal to have, as one should probably focus on one or two core openings, but I don’t think this strategy hurt me during the tournament as I did not have any really bad opening positions. If I was doing better in the tournament I might not have followed this strategy as much but when I was having poor results I felt I had nothing to lose. My other two goals were to score at least 50% and to perform above 1900. I felt they were modest goals that were achievable but of course I did not come close to achieving either.

Canadian Open - Day 9

The final round saw exciting battles on the top 7 boards to decide who would be the Canadian Open Champion.

1 GM Alexei Shirov (6.5) - GM Eugene Perelshteyn (6.5) (0.5 - 0.5)

2 IM Irina Krush (6.5) - GM Michael Adams (6.5) (0.5 - 0.5)

3 IM Edward Porper (6.5) - GM Surya Ganguly (6.5) (1 - 0)

4 FM Theo Hommeles (6.5) - GM Mark Bluvshtein (6.5) (0 - 1)

5 FM Jonathan Tayar (6.5) - GM Xue Zhao (6) (0.5 - 0.5)

6 FM John C Yoos (6) - FM Eric Hansen (6) (1 - 0)

7 Victor Plotkin (6)- GM Hua Ni (5.5) (0 - 1)

So in the end it is Canadian GM Bluvshtein and new Edmontonian IM Proper who are 2009 Canadian Open Champions!!!

I played former CFC Prez, and new Treasurer, Maurice Smith and my game included two bad mistakes by me. I played the Sicilian and blitzed out the first dozen moves rather quickly even though we varied from the main theory quite early. I could have won a pawn at this point but played the wrong move so we remained quite even. Then I gradually took control and had a dominating position when I made one of my worst blunders. I wasn’t even thinking about what he might be threatening and moved my king to f1 and allowed him to capture on f2 with a check and fork my bishop. It should have cost me the game but he couldn’t find a way to win. He gave up his bishop to try to get a mate with the two rooks but when that wasn’t possible he conceded a draw. If I was him I would have played on because he definitely could have won a pawn or two and then pressed for a win.

In the tournament as a whole, my performance was horrible (Rp=1718) and I should drop about 50 points based on my results. Two of my opponents were provisionally rated so the actual numbers might be slightly different. I will probably make an entry later in more detail later on my mistakes.

Overall the quality of the tournament was excellent and the organizers should be very proud. Everything went off without a hitch, or at least that’s how it seemed to an average player like me. The rounds started on time; the facility was excellent, and all the players behaved with sportsmanship. It has been over 20 years since I last participated in a Canadian Open and even though I didn’t perform well, I enjoyed myself, and might consider doing it again.

Canadian Open - Day 8

The four leaders with 6/7 points met on the top two boards today and the result was a draw on both boards.

1 GM Mark Bluvshtein - GM Alexei Shirov 0.5 - 0.5


2 GM Michael Adams - IM Edward Porper 0.5 - 0.5

That gave the ten players tied a half point back a chance to grab a share of the lead and each and every one of the games were decisive.


3 GM Hua Ni - FM Theo Hommeles 0 - 1
4 GM Surya Ganguly - IM Zhe Quan 1 - 0
5 IM Artiom Samsonkin - FM Jonathan Tayar 0 - 1
6 GM Eugene Perelshteyn - GM Anton Kovalyov 1 - 0
7 IM Dmitry Zilberstein - IM Irina Krush. 0 - 1


That leaves 9 players tied for the lead going into the last round! Should be interesting. Here are the pairings for tomorrow:

1 GM Alexei Shirov (6.5) - GM Eugene Perelshteyn (6.5)
2 IM Irina Krush (6.5) - GM Michael Adams (6.5)
3 IM Edward Porper (6.5) - GM Surya Ganguly (6.5)
4 FM Theo Hommeles (6.5) - GM Mark Bluvshtein (6.5)
5 FM Jonathan Tayar (6.5) - GM Xue Zhao (6)
6 FM John C Yoos (6) - FM Eric Hansen (6)
7 Victor Plotkin (6)- GM Hua Ni (5.5)

After my loss yesterday I dropped to board 67 and was paired against Kristof Amudson (1601). I wanted a win really badly so I played the Kings gambit. Neither of us played the opening very well but I emerged with an advantage and eventually won a pawn. I desperately tried to hang on to my extra pawn so that I could win in the endgame and in doing so put both my rooks in passive position and then put my king on a precarious square with mating threats all around. I could not find a way out and had to give up the exchange and soon after he won a couple of pawns and forced a trade of the remaining pieces. End result I lost. I'm going to lose quite a few points this week.