2009 Saskatchewan Open

Here are my initial thoughts on the tournament. I will update it later this week and post more comments and all my games. (Edited comment I've added my games now)

Round 1
Bye
I had known about the tourney for some time and had pre-registrared but I didn’t really decide until the vary last moment to go. I had been thinking about taking the whole family and staying in a hotel. That way the kids could play in the unrated active while I played in the Open section – heck, maybe even my wife could be convinced to play in the unrated. On Friday though, I found out the kids were not that keen on the trip, which is unusual since they always enjoy staying in a hotel. So it was on to option two, where I go by myself, but I would only do this if I had a place to billet, since I’m too cheap to spend $$ on a hotel by myself. Around midnight on Friday I sent an email to the organiser asking if there was a billet still available and went to sleep. When I woke up Tyler had replied they would find me a spot so I packed my bags and headed east at 10:00 am Alberta time. The first round had already started so I had to rush to make the second round. 0.5/1

Round 2
Black vs. Micah Hughey 2190
After arriving I had 15 minutes to see who my opponent was and prepare something plus I had to go to the bathroom. While sitting there thinking I decided not to play the line I had looked at two days earlier when I looked at my previous game with Micah and instead would play a Scandinavian. The reason was that with his superior opening knowledge, I thought it would be better to avoid openings with tons of theory and hundreds of possible traps to fall into. I have only played the Scandinavian in online speed games before and chose the Nf6 line rather than capturing with the Queen because it is rarer. It quickly transposed into a Caro-Kann and even though I was in uncharted territory for myself, I think I played a great game. I gradually took the initiative and I knew I had the advantage when he offered a draw. I didn’t think my advantage was decisive so I accepted because I felt a draw against a 2190 payer is a good start for the tournament. 1/2


2009-01-sask1 Micah.pgn



Round 3
White vs. Igor Moshynskyy 1490.
I didn’t know what opening to expect but he played a Philidor. He sacked a pawn in the opening but only had minuscule compensation for it. Eventually reached a B+6p vs. N+5p ending. Came up with a plan to exchange pawns on the kingside so that I could penetrate with my K and help my passed pawn queen. It worked but I’m not sure if it was the best plan as it’s usually better to have pawns on both sides of the board when you have the B. 2/3


2009-01-sask2 Igor.pgn



Round 4
Black vs. Jamin Gluckie 2103, (my nemesis)
Found out at the bar on Saturday night that he was my opponent.
I hadn’t prepared anything against Jamin before the tournament. In fact, the people that I did look at their games the week before (Keith, Roy, Micah) I either didn’t play or changed my mind at the last minute, so I spent 20 min preparing something before going to sleep. At the time I thought this was one of the best games I’ve played but after Fritz looked at it I'm not so sure.
Jamin missed a couple of moves. The first time was after several exchanges where I take a pawn rather than retreat my bishop. If he takes the B with his queen he’ll leave his own B hanging. He ended up with some compensation as my position was cramped and defensive for some time but eventually I was able to free myself and hang onto my extra passed pawn. The second time was my Qb3 move which attacked his a4 pawn but more importantly allowed me to put my rook on d1. When I saw this move I saw that if I wanted to I could force the exchange of all the major pieces and leave just a B+6p vs N+5p endgame. I thought my chances of winning that were pretty good and I would eliminate any chance of losing and remove the possibility of any perpetual checks with his queen so that’s what I did. I should have taken more time before exchanging the queens and I would have seen that he had no good move to make and I could have just started marching my passed pawn to it’s queening square. After exchanging queens I was unable to find a way to march my passed pawn with out letting his N ravage my other pawns so I repeated some moves and accepted his draw offer. After the game Jamin was pretty sure I could still win by triangulating my King and the manouvering him into Zugzwang I think he was right but I will check with fritz. 2.5/4


2009-01-sask3 Jamin.pgn


Round 5
White vs. Rick Pedersen 1908
Jamin decided to withdraw after the fourth round and that changed my pairing from a 1350 player to Rick. I also thought about withdrawing too but I have never played Rick before and since I was playing very well I figured I better keep going. I quickly looked up a few of Rick’s games on the database and saw that he played a Pirc frequently. I have never played against a Pirc before so I planned on playing solid moves and decided I would accept an early draw if it was offered. Unfortunately Rick was in the running for prize money and was out for my kings blood. I played too quickly, maybe because it was the final round, and too passively. Plus I made the mistake to castle long which didn’t match the passive way I played the game. I opened up a file for his rook and then was killed in a typical queen + rook + rook attack. I could see the end coming for quite a while but couldn’t find the moves to prevent it. The only good thing was that it was over quickly and I got home at a reasonable hour. 2.5/5


2009-01-sask4 Rick.pgn



Overall I was very happy with my play, except for the last game. I played new openings for me in almost every game and for the most part played them well. On the other hand I realized there is a couple of things I need to work on. I need to learn how to defeat high rated opponents when I have advantage. I am too willing to accept draws from experts in superior position. Plus I'm still too weak on my openings. Rp=1923 and new rating should be 1807 (back over 1800) but it should have been better.

Keith MacKinnon won the tourney with 4.5/5, his only blemish was aquick draw against his buddy Kevin in round 4. Therefore my first prediction for 2009 came true. A second prediction should also have come true if I would have been able to finish of Jamin when I had the chance. Rick Pederesen came clear second with 4/5.

Thanks to Igor for putting me up for the night and thanks to the Saskatoon Chess Club for hosting a very strong event.

Chess in 2009

As the new year is a couple of weeks old, I figured I would blog on my chess plans for the year and my chess predictions for the year.

Possible Tournaments:

January 2-4 Schleinich Memorial Calgary
= Had time off but it was too cold and I had no desire to play
Jan 24 - 25 Saskatchewan Open Saskatoon
- Preregistrared. 50% chance
Jan 31 - Feb 1 Trumpeter Classic Grande Prairie
- Not Likely
Feb 16 Regional Chess Challange St. Albert
- If the Kids want to play.
Feb 28-March 1 Northern Alberta Open Edmonton
- Conflicts with a special family day
March 14-15 March of Kings Cal
- Not Likely
April 4-5 Lethbridge Open Lethbridge
- Not Likely
April 10-12 Alberta Closed/Reserves Cal
- Not Likely
April 18 Alberta Chess Challenge Finals Edm
- Kids might play if they qualify again
May 14-18 Calgary International Open Cal
- Not Likely
June 6 Alberta Active Championship Cal
- Not Likely
June 27-28 Battle at the Border Lloydminster
- Conflicts with a special family day but might play a few rounds.
July 11-19 2009 Canadian Open Edm
- Would love to play
September 6-7 Over/Under 1800 Cal
- Would only consider if I'm over 1800 at the time
September 19-20 Medicine Hat Open Med Hat
- Plan to play again this year
October 10-12 Alberta Open Edm
- Maybe
November 21-22 Southern Alberta Open Cal
- Not Likely
December 19-20 WBX Tournament (part of EICF) Edm
- Maybe

2009 Predictions

Anand will retain his World title throughout the year.

Magnus Carlsen will be the highest rated player in the world by the end of the year.

Topolov will beat Kamsky in the Challenger match.

Ivanchuk will win the Canadian Open (I don't even know if he's playing).

Kevin Spraggett will end the year once again as Canada's highest rated player. I hope he plays in the Canadian Open.

The CFC will lose money again this year, but only a small amount compared to the USCF.

Robert Sasata will finally lose a rated game. Looks like he hasn't lost in two years.

Eric Hansen will be an IM by the end of the year and will be Alberta champion again, if he enters.

Keith MacKinnon will win the Saskatchewan Open.

I will finally beat someone higher rated than me.

Man vs. Machine vs. Machine vs. ...

Over the years I have owned several different chess computers ranging from the very weak to Grandmaster strength. All of the early ones were dedicated units. Some were new and some I picked up second hand.

My first was some kind of Boris Diplomat that looked something like this. It was a very weak unit as I remember and I would estimate it would be rated around 1000.


Soon moved on to a Chess Challenger such as the the shown here. I don’t remember if it was model 7, 8 or 9 but I remember it being around 1400-1500 and the green cover was always bubbling up and it became hard to play on. I don’t remember what happened to these first two units, but I no longer have them.

I figured I needed to upgrade to a higher strength machine. I remember that it was the first time I ever ordered something over the phone (this was before the internet was invented by Al Gore). I looked at all the options and decided to purchase a Novag constellation from The Canadian Chess Computer Warehouse in Montreal. I had never heard of the company before so I was nervous it wouldn’t arrive but it did. I must say I was very happy with my Novag Constellation for many years. I think it was advertised around 1800 and therefore higher then my rating at the time I got it. It was my steady playing partner for several years as my rating improved. One of it faults was that it never learned from its defeats so that once I beat it in a certain line than every time after that, if we entered that line, I could repeat the earlier game and beat it again. This forced me to vary my openings or I would end up replaying games over and over. Even though I quit playing chess for many years I brought it with me when I moved to Alberta. Recently I took it out of the box for the first time in ten years.

When I started playing chess again I soon realized I would need to purchase a chess program for my personal computer if I wanted to be competitive with everyone else. When I quit playing chess in the early 90’s I didn’t own a computer and I don’t think affordable programs were that strong at the time. The Fritz program seemed the best for me so I tried the Fritz10 program and I must say it is an incredible program. It’s good to have your own grandmaster to analyse positions. I can remember trying to study my games years ago on the Novag Constellation and while it would catch any major blunders, I sure I missed many finer points. I was hoping when I visited PEI this summer I would be able to find my old games and put them through Fritz and see what wes revealed, but alas they had been tossed a couple of years ago.

Last year the kids spotted a Go 1650L at a garage sale. I picked it up for a cheap price. I assume the 1650 is supposed to be it’s rating but it seems much weaker to me in the few games I’ve played with it.


Finally I bought the kids the Chessmaster game for the Nintendo DS system. It claims that the top rating is 1850 and from the few games that I played against it I think that that is probably close.



So what I’ve decided to do is hold a tournament with all the programs and computers I still have and see what happens. The competitors are as follows:
Fritz 10 (Set at 2000)
Fritz 10 (Set at 1900)
Chessmaster DS (1850)
Human (currently underrated at approx 1800)
Novag Constellation (1700-1800)
Go 1650L (1650? )

So far I’ve played a few of the games and ran into a few problems. First I had to chose a time setting that wouldn’t take too long but still give a good game. I chose an active time of 30min per player per game. Then I had to find the manuals for the Novag and Go units so I could set the times appropriately. I was able to find the Novag manual on the internet but the Go unit was a little harder as I could only find the Spanish instructions and had to translate them as best I could. The problem is the time settings are different for all of them. When I played the Chessmaster DS against the Novag it was a good game - Novag lost the exchange but was able to trap the Chessmaster Queen and win it for the Rook. So Novag was probably winning but when the Novag’s time ran out on the Nintendo unit Chessmaster claimed a win and that was the end of the game. I guess I will have to adjust the time settings on the DS and replay the game.

An interesting game shown below where I couldn’t figure out how to stop the connected passed pawns and win with my extra rook.

machine tourney terry-2000b.pgn



Edited comments: I just remembered that I have a couple of other chess playing computer programs. First is the Chess game for Playstaion. I can't recall playing a complete game against it but I doubt that it is very strong.

I also have the Chess Titans Program that came with Windows Vista on my laptop. I know that it has 10 levels and on the lower levels it is extremely easy to beat. I've beaten it on level 8 but haven't finished a game on level 10 yet.



And finally I forgot about the Chessmaster 9000 program that I picked up for $10 in the sale bin at Staples a coupl of years ago. It is a great program for choosing various computer opponents with different personalities and a wide range of strengths. I think I will add it to the tournament.

Edmonton Jr Tournament

Just got back from the X-mas Jr tournament in Edmonton. Both my kids decided they wanted to play this weekend but it was a close call. One flipped a coin to decide and the other was influenced by the guaranteed door prize. They were both very rusty, not having played since last April, but both did OK and I don't think they will lose any rating points.

I've been wondering if I been doing the best things I can to help them improve. Should I show them openings, endgames, or tactics? Should I try to teach them in a formal way or encourage them to play online. I know I shouldn't tell them to play each other because that causes nothing but problems. Whenever I do try to show them something I'm not sure if I am doing it effectively. I always thought teaching would be an easy thing to do (you know, "those who can, do; those who can't, teach") but now I realize that teaching requires a special set of skills and a lot of patience. Plus, the best teaching only occurs when there is a corresponding strong desire to learn.

Random Chess Predictions:
1.FIDE will change the qualifications once again before the next world champion is decided.
2. The CFC will continue to alienate a large number of it's members no matter what they do.
3. Canada's next Olympiad team could be much stronger if GMs Nakamura, Spraggett, and Kovalyov are eligible and willing to play, but that won't happen.
4. E4 Effort will win the WBX Team tournament in Edmonton next weekend, even though another team with an IM and underrated juniors joined today. Board winners as follows
Board 1 winner IM Proper followed by Sasata and Hansen (he didn't get a IM title for nothing)
Board 2 winner Jamin Gluckie followed by Me (not me but Me, because I won't be there)
Board 3 Peter Thompson followed by Zeggelaar (both teams have stacked board 3)

Meteors over Lloydminster

As anyone who seen the news in Canada in the last two weeks probably knows, there was a huge meteor event over Lloydminster Nov 20th. I have this Friday off and was planning on going Meteorite hunting near Lone Rock to find pieces of the huge fireball that light up the sky over most of western Canada last month. I was looking out my office window at the time to make sure my command start on my vehicle worked when the whole parking lot lit up as bright as day for a couple of seconds. One of the workers at my company was driving home through the area that evening and had his passenger windshield shatter when it happened, either from a fragment or the sonic boom. The scientists have located over a dozen pieces and have narrowed down the search area where they expect thousands of fragments landed. Unfortunately it finally snowed today, so I doubt if I would be able to find anything if I went.


View from Edmonton


View from closer vantage point



Fragment embedded in frozen pond


Random Chess thoughts: (since this is supposed to be a chess blog)

1. Vote for Eric. He deserves it. Canadian Chess Player of the Year

2. My kids said they want to play in the Edmonton Christmas Kids tournament. Maybe chess is not just for nerds.

3. The FIDE world championship cycle is becoming more of a joke every time they alter their rules. I would prefer the candidate matches that they had twenty years ago.

4. There is no need for drug testing in chess and I hope the GM's of the world follow Shirov and support Ivanchuk over FIDE. Although I'm sure some of my opponent are hyped up on energy drinks!

5. FIDE's forfit rule for being late is unreasonable. I know I've been late before and when my opponent is late I would still prefer to play the game rather than win by forfit.

Who are You?

I was curious as to who, if anybody, was visiting my blog so I put a live trafic feed at the bottom. I was surprised to see so many hits from all over Canada and even one from Finland! I was sure there was only three other people who read my site but when "The Big Ape" from Med Hat left me a comment I went to his blog and copied his idea using Feedjit. If you visiting don't be shy about leaving a comment.

On to chess. This week I played a number of games against Fritz lowered to 2000. Almost all the games were horrible. I think when there is no ego to protect then a person’s game suffers. I'm sure many of my blunders would not have been made against a human opponent because I would have been more careful, so as not to be embarrassed. When the computer beats me I don't feel the same crushing level of defeat that a human opponent can inflict. I find the same thing happens to me in online blitz games when I have no fear of losing face because I don’t know who I’m playing. Two weeks ago I played a series of blitz games against an opponent and after losing the first game badly I played several really good games and won in spectacular fashion. My opponent strongly suggested my play from game 2 on did not seem “natural” to him and that I had some outside “help”. If this was a face to face game I would have been highly offended but as I did not know him, other than that he was from the USA, I could have not cared less what he thought and so I just left. I should try to find those game if I can and look to see if my play was really as good as he thought.
Here is my last Fritz active game played while my son was doing his Judo class.


2008-01-01 Fritz.pgn


I think I played the ending rather well but I did miss a winning plan that Fritz revealed when I looked at it tonight.

Fritz vs Chaisson

This week while waiting for my daughter at the swimming pool I took the laptop and played four 25 min games against Fritz. To make it fair I lowered the computer's strength. According to the directions it's strength was 2000, but it didn't seem that strong to me. I drew the first game, blundered the second and won the third and here is the fourth.

Fritz2000 2008-11-25.pgn


Edited comment: I 've played several more games since then and I lost every one, most with stupid blunders. I seem to be playing like its a blitz game.