Canadian Open

Half way point of Canadian Open.  I must admit I wasn't paying attention until I saw the website last night.  I followed the Wang - Hebert game live.  It went into a Q+6p vs Q +7p ending.  I was hoping Richard would be able to hold the draw, and at times I thought he might, but in the end the Hebert's experience won the day.  Other Alberta players I noticed playing are Rick Pedersen, Brad Willis, R. V. Kalaydina and Sardul Purewel in  the open section and Chris White and Adie Todd in the under 2000 section.  There might be others I missed.  I did not notice any Saskatchewan players.

I expect Richard Wang to end up as the top Albertan.  He seems to improve in dramatic spurts and he is due for another jump.   He could even get a norm depending on good play and lucky pairings.  A draw vs Irina Krush in round 2 is his highlight so far.

As far as highlights go for Alberta, the big one so far is the round 1 upset Brad Willis (2094) vs GM Bojkov (2544) (1-0).  Brad is a strong player who has only recently began playing chess seriously again after retiring.  Not many can say they beat a GM in a regular game.  Kevin Spragett even analysed the game on his blog here.

I also see Justin Gulati from PEI is playing and had an interesting game vs GM Arencibia in round 2.  I don't know what happened to him in round 3 though - it looks like he has a forfeit.

Canadian Championship

Some quick notes:

After 6 rounds Eric Hansen is leading the Canadion Championship with 5/6!  Keep it up Eric and bring back the trophy.

The candidate matches are also under way but I must admit that without Calsen or Nakamura I don't have much interest.

In my last post, I talked about posting an analysis of a game I played in the Calgary New Year Open - but obviously I haven't done that.  My excuss is that it's not that interesting a game anyway.

Chaisson - Borwski.pgn


I also played in the Northern Alberta Open in Feb and I haven't analysed or posted those games either.  I went into that tourney knowing that I would skip the final game.  My first game was against Keith McKinnon (2351) and I was beaten fairly easily.  Next I defeated Richard Roberts (1388).  Then I had a good draw with Richard Pua (1982) where I was worse but managed to get into a better position and almost win.  My final game was  a disappointing loss to Jim Daniluk (2035) where I sacrificed a pawn for an attack but then chickened out.  That's what was disappointing.

MacKinnon - Chaisson.pgn


Chaisson - Roberts.pgn


Pua - Chaisson.pgn


Chaisson - Daniluk.pgn


I have no idea when I will play another OTB game.

Chess & Stress

Well I haven’t posted for a while for two reasons. One, I haven’t played any serious chess since the Battle at the Border; and two, my life has been extremely busy and stressful over the past half year or more. My biggest stress came from a death within the family and in addition to that there was uncertainty in my employment situation and whether I would need to relocate.

Last year, the company I worked for over 10 years announced that they had decided to put my division up for sale. This was followed by months of stressful waiting until the buyer was eventually announced. Some of the other engineers I worked with transferred and moved to stay with the old employer, some others quit and found a new job before the sale was finalized, and some waited to see who the new owner would be. I waited, and was originally pleased to be able to transfer to the new company only to find out that I didn’t fit in with their plans. Whereas the old company had 15 engineers in the regional office, the new company is now reduced to 4. The long and short of is that I was out of work for a short period of time before finding and starting a brand new job. Unfortunately my new job will require extended travel away from home and thus also place stress on my family.


So what has this to do with chess? While I haven’t been playing serious chess I have played more than a 1000 speed chess games during this period and I have noticed a direct relationship between my stress level, which fluctuated greatly between periods on intense stress and relief, and my performance. While I was experiencing high stress level at work (as highlighted in red below) my performance in speed chess was horrible and my rating would drop, and when I had a period of relief (as highlighted in blue) I would play very well and get my rating back up. When I first noticed this trend and realized how direct the correlation was, I was amazed.

It shows how important a player’s mindset is when playing in a tournament and how distractions will affect performance. At the top level this can definitely change the outcome of a tournament (as Jean Herbert has stated in a chesstalk thread about winning the Canadian Closed last year) but even at lower levels being able to relax during tournament even when not playing is important. Maybe the best thing to do is not play rated chess when your under stress.

Then again, if you’re like me, you don’t have many chances to play rated games. That is why I joined the last round of a tournament when I was in Calgary last week after just the second day in my new job. I will post the game later when I have time but this time I want to do something new.

Before I would just put the game through a chess engine and post it, making note of possible continuations the engine came up with, some I might have considered and some I hadn’t. This time I will analyze the game myself without microchip help and maybe even post it before putting it through the computer squeeze. Hopefully I will learn more this way, even if I do embarrass myself with obvious errors in my analysis.

Battle at the Border Complete

The 4th annual tournament is now complete.  GM Pascal Charbonneau was the winner with a superb performance.  With a perfect score and full point lead going into the final round all he needed was a quick draw to secure the victory.  It was a great event and every year Jamin makes improvements.  The site was perfect and with only one game per table you didn't feel crowded during the games.  Credit should also go to Tony for running the DGT boards on boards 1-3, Jill for doing a great job as TD, and Robert for taking video and pictures.

Here is a re post of the final standings from the official website.

I've highlighted five players who I thought had great tournaments:

Brad Willis: faced tough opposition and had played well
Ali Razzaq: also a great result at 3.5/6
Jason Xiao: Highly underrated. Drew & won against 1900 opponents
Jason Danner: 2 wins and a draw against 1900 opponents
Nigel Reynoldson: Another underrated junior who played well

and five who are probaly not satisfied:

Hikaru Nakamura: Anything but 1st is disappointing for him I'm sure.
Eric Hansen: A couple of draws on day 2.
Richard Wang: This talented junior was the victim of two upsets.
Len Steele: Unfortunately had to face both of the underrated Sask juniors and could only manage draws.
Roger Blum: Last year had a great tournament so in order to balance the universe had to perform badly this year.

My final two games were a victory over Chris Achtemichuk (1730) and a loss to Alex Yam (2222).  I finished with 3/6 which is respectable.  I regret only my first and last games where didn't put up much resistance to a couple of masters. I played badly in the opening and was lost by the 12th move in both games.  I had the lead in my division until the last rounds when young Jason Xiao passed me by winning his last 3 games (perfect swiss gambit).

BATB R1 Gardner.pgn


BATB R2 McLeod.pgn


BATB R3 Willis.pgn


BATB R4 Reynoldson.pgn


BATB R5 Achtemichuk.pgn


BATB R6 Yam.pgn

Battle at the Border Underway

The first four rounds are complete.  Two more to go tomorrow.  A very exciting tournament so far.  GM's Nakamura and Charbanneau are the stars of the tournament and met in round four in a very strange game.  You can go to the great tournament website here and see the games.  Surprisingly Pascal won!

I had a loss and a win yesterday and another loss and then a win today.  Yo-yo effect in full force so far, but tomorrow my first game is against someone close to my level.  Yesterday I didn't play great but with the large rating differences it probably didn't change my results.  I overlooked a move against Rob Gardner (2309) then beat an unrated kid (Fraser McLeod). 

My game against Rob reached this position in the opening.
Here I played 9.h5?? overlooking the simple 9...Nxe4! 
I cannot retake the N on e4 due to mate after Qxa2

I'm pleased with my games today as I played a strong game in a loss against a Brad Willis (2130) and then ground out an endgame to a win against underrated junior Nigel Reynoldson (1309).

When I have more time I will post my games and some more info and pics.

Answers to the Chess Challenge

I hoped to get more guesses, but anyway, here are the answers.

Late last year I emailed some old opponents to try to recover some of my lost games. The first game was one of three I recieved from Peter MacKean.  Peter is a doctor who moved to PEI in the 80's and instantly became the highest rated player in the province by 300 points.  I was able to take a half point this game and it might have been the firt time I did that against someone over 2000.  The year was 1988.

Chaisson-MacKean.pgn


Game 2 was a recent game.  I happened to be in Edmonton on Thursday and played a round of their "Summer Open".  I was paired against Robert Richards and was able to pull in the full point.


Richards-Chaisson.pgn


The third game was also sent by Peter Mackean.  It was a win he had against GM Paul Keres in a simul!  His comments are included.

Keres-MacKean 1975.pgn



Game 1 ½–½ White__B__ Black __E__ decade_80_
Game 2  0-1  White__C__ Black __B__ decade_10_
Game 3  0-1  White_GM_ Black __E__ decade_70_

I guess Jamin gets the prize for being the closest, even though he labelled a famous GM a "C" player.

A Chess Challenge For You

Here are three games spanning several decades. Your challenge, if you chose to accept it, is to match the players class to the games. To make it easier I will tell you that there are only 4 different players in the 3 games and one of the 4 players is a famous GM, one is an Expert, one is a B class player and one is a C class player. It shouldn’t be too difficult. If you want you can also guess which decade the games were played in.

After I get a few guesses I will fill in the info.

Game 1.pgn


Game 2.pgn


Game 3_0.pgn



So fill in the blanks with GM, E, B, C (and 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 00’s, or 10’s) and place your guesses in the comments.

Game 1     ½–½    White_____ Black _____             decade_____
Game 2      0-1     White_____ Black _____             decade_____
Game 3      0-1     White_____ Black _____             decade_____
 
Hint # 1 Only two of the games are regular rated games.
Hint # 2 I am in more than one of the games.
Hint # 3 All the games were played in Canada

to be continued....