More Friendly Games

Last Friday night Jamin and I got together again for a few more friendly games. I was eager to try out a couple of new openings I had looked up earlier in the week. Unfortunately I guess I hadn't looked at them enough and I lost all five games we played. Probably these losses can be attributed more to the 300 point rating difference than the openings but I find it discouraging when my opponent hasn't yet begun to think and I am struggling to remember the proper move order, or even worse have no idea what the correct move is and have to spend time trying to figure out a plan.

The only way to combat this deficiency in my game is to study openings and it would probably help if I narrowed my opening repertoire down to a couple of standard lines and concentrate on them. When I returned to chess 2 years ago I was basically a blank slate. I had forgotten almost all the opening theory I had learned in the 80's (most of which was probably outdated anyway). I have been reluctant to trim my opening tree up to now and in fact have been going out of my way to expand it. Partly because I felt that some of the openings I had been playing were not best suited for my style and I hoped trying out different openings would help me find some which were a more comfortable fit. The other reason is that I fear I will get bored with chess if I play the same openings over and over.

As the Canadian Open approaches I think I will soon need to choose my top openings and begin to study them more thoroughly if I want to achieve the level of play I think I am capable of.

Then again, there is the whole 1.d4! line that I have been itching to try, and wouldn't it be nice to play every game in the Canadian Open without repeating the same opening twice.

Chess vs Golf

As I sit here watching the Masters on TV and the Alberta Closed broadcast on the internet, I am struck by the similarities between these two activities. Both are individual pursuits that require hours of intense concentration; both have star players that electrify events they enter; both have ordinary patzers/duffers that play just for enjoyment; and both have been somewhat of an addiction for me at different times in my life. In each activity every player has an indication of his strength. In chess it is a rating and in golf it is a handicap. This allows the player to track his improvement and judge his performance against his expected result in an event.

There are differences of course. One difference is the number of participants, especially in North America. In my small city on any summer day you can find hundreds of golfers whacking the ball around the course but you would be hard pressed to find anyone playing chess. Also chess is inherently a battle between two players, whereas golf, while it can be in a match format, is usually a one player vs. the field competition.

When I ask myself why I enjoy both of these activities, I think it is because they are both difficult and they allow me to challenge myself. They give me a concrete result of my efforts. In chess it's a win/loss/draw or a performance rating in a tournament. In golf it’s a round score or a tournament score. Plus I enjoy the fact that to improve at either activity you need to put in some effort and practice or study, and when I have the time I can enjoy the practice all most as much as I enjoy the competition.

ps. I see my pick to win the Alberta closed (FM Hansen) has just defeated the top seed IM Proper in round four so is back in contention and my pick to win the Masters (Phil Mickelson) has just birdied 6 holes in the front nine in the final round and put himself into contention.

pps. Golf update: Mickelson double boggied number 12 to drop back and couldn't pull close enough again to win. Angel Cabrera won a three way playoff.
Chess update: FM Hansen and IM Proper tird for first and will have a play-off sometime in the future.

Friendly Games

Last night I Jamin and I got together for some quick games at BP's. I really enjoy these types of games, where you get to try out different things with no risk. It makes me long for a local chess club where that could be a weekly occurrence. There used to be a club here in Lloyd but it died off before I returned to playing chess. I did stop by the club twice when it was in operation and once played in simul against Dr Gibney and Kay Deshanse who played alternating moves. The simul was to raise interest in the club and I remember I played a KID and managed to get the lone win when Dr Gibney made an error in a drawn position. Maybe if I would have joined the club at that time I could have helped keep it alive but I had other activities on Thursday nights and didn't have the same addiction to chess that I have now.

I guess if I really need that kind of weekly over the board stimulation I should just pull up my britches and restart the club myself. I have thought about doing just that over the last year but I always come up with excuses not to do it. I think I am just scared of the commitment required because know from previous experience how much work that is. I keep hoping someone else will get the ball rolling and then I will jump in and help out.

As for the games we played last night, they were 15 min games with 3 sec increments. I played badly in the first game and lost quickly, then we had two draws - one of which was a blown win by Jamin, then I lost the last two games - one of which was a blown win by me. I got to play some new openings and enjoyed the evening.

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Chessmen

I have finally decided that I will registrar for the Canadian Open in Edmonton this July. I have been fortunate enough to play in one other Canadian Open back in the late 80's in Sudbury, Ontario. I was able to go at that time because the PEI chess Association had managed to get a donation of airfare from CanadianAir for the winner of the PEI open. One other PEI player (David Sherren) came with me. Neither of us played as well as we hoped, but we both learned something from the trip and had a good time.

This time I want to play up to my expectations and have set a goal for myself in terms of performance. In preparation, I planned on playing in a few more chess tournaments in the coming months. My first target was to enter the sectional round robin Aaron Sequillion was organizing for A class players in Edmonton this May. It would have worked out perfectly for me but unfortunately when I tried to register he had just filled out the last open spots earlier that day. I told him to keep me in mind if anyone drops out, but I'm not counting on that.

Next, I looked at the Road warrior schedule for Alberta chess tournaments and saw that I might be able to play in the April Red Deer Open. I re-arranged some work and personal appointments to make that possible but, alas, once again my plans were foiled. Last night I was browsing the Alberta Chess Association Webpage and noticed a post that the Red Deer Open has been cancelled.

I feel like there is a curse on my chess plans. It looks like the only pre-Canadian Open preparation I may get is the Battle At The Border tournament in Lloydminster in June.

Chess websites/blogs

I've added a couple more links to chess websites. One in particular is very good. http://www.jrobichess.com/ Apparently the writer is from Alberta and started playing chess only a couple of years ago when his young son wanted to play after watching "Searching for Bobby Fischer". There are alot of interesting videos, blogs, and reviews on his site. I don't know who he is, or where in Alberta he lives, other than it's far from a city.

The other is http://www.chessvideos.tv/ where there are chess instructional videos. Some are very good, others, not so good.

March of King Games

Here are my games from the recent March of Kings tournament in Calgary. If you have any comments about the games don't be shy. Thanks to DJ for the pictures. Notice the top two seeds Eric and Nenad appear to have the same fashion stylist.

The tournament was larger than previous years and quite strong. Eric Hansen played along with many other + 2000 players. My first game was against the number two rated player in the tourney Nenad Ristovic (2312). I played a very good game against his French defence up until time pressure started to make me rush some of my moves. I think it was still fairly equal until move 30 then I made some small errors and then I blundered on my 36th move when I missed his simple intermesimo QxB+ move and resigned immediately down a piece.

Just before 6.c3


2009-03-14 r1 Ristovic.pgn

My second game was against Simon Ong (1638). He played the English and I responded with a Kings Indian Defense set-up. I haven’t played the KID for some time but this one developed just like I remember my old games from years ago where I storm the kings side. I was able to open the h file and get a strong bishop posted on f3 and finished it with a nice mate.

I'm just about to play 12.Rb8

2009-03-14 r2 Ong.pgn


Round three was against Roy Yearwood (2100??). The last two times as White against Roy he played 1…Nc6 and I was able to get very good positions but accepted his draw offers. This time he also played 1…Nc6 but unfortunately I played the opening badly and dropped the exchange. At this point I knew I had blown the game and thought about resigning but instead decided to play on since I had nothing else to do that evening. It’s funny when you have nothing to lose anymore, all the pressure of the game drops away and sometime in a more relaxed state you can see things more clearly. I think I played pretty well from this point on creating continuous little tactical threats around the board like a fly bothering a sleeping dog. Roy seemed to be on the defensive even with his superior piece strength and had more trouble finishing me off than he should have. Eventually though he found a tactic that ended my threats and at that point I resigned.

Once again the picture was taken while I was thinking. This time I'm going to play 5.Be2.


2009-03-14 r3 Yearwood.pgn

I withdrew in round four. Unfortunately the course that I had booked in for the 16-17th had been cancelled and I had a long drive ahead of me to get back to Lloyd for work on Monday morning. I planned on withdrawing in the last round but withdrew a round earlier when I saw I was going to be paired with an 800 player. That’s probably not the right thing to do but I didn’t have any enthusiasm for such a game Sunday morning, plus my kids kept telling me how much they missed me and wanted me to come home every time they called. My Rp was 1866 and I gained a big 4 points!

Eric Hansen won the tournament with 5/5. Jan Lazo, Jesse Beaudin, and Rick Pedersen tied for second 4/5. Young Lazo's performance was particularly impressive with victories over Ristovic, Yearwood and T. Kaminski.

The Calgary chess club is a nice facility but there are a couple of drawbacks. First the skittles room is at the back so visitors have to walk through the playing room to get to it. Secondly their H-A/C fan is very loud and goes on and off constantly during the games.

Marching of to Battle in Calgary

As a married chess player with kids who lives far from any chess clubs, it is hard to justify using up my free time and money to play in weekend tournaments. I thought I found an ingenious solution when I noticed that the Calgary “March of Kings” tournament was scheduled for the 14-15th and I was booked for an industry course in Calgary on the 16-17th. I was quickly able to book myself into another professional development course that I had been considering taking on the 12th and then it only made sense to stick around Calgary for the weekend. I could explain to my wife that by sticking around Calgary for the weekend I would be saving 12 hours of driving time and since I could stay at my brother house and my company was paying for the gas the tournament was costing me practically nothing.

That is how I ended up getting permision to play in the March Of Kings. So I packed my bags and said good-bye and headed out of town with my favourite CD’s for the long drive. (As an aside, Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” Cd is even better than I remember after not having listened to it for a couple of years – great song writing.) While in Calgary I was able to see the chess statue that is right outside my companies office. It is called “The Winner” by J. Seward Johnson Jr. and was made in 1988. I tried to figure out the position on the board that the subject is staring at but unfortunately the piece has suffered vandalism over the years and many of the chess pieces are missing.

I will post my games with analysis later this week when I have time to look at them more closely. Eric Hansen won the tournament with 5/5.