Sunday, March 29, 2009

Palmerston North Chess Club News


Thursday April 2nd is the Start date for the Palmy Club's Annual 60/60 tournament.
The club is open every Thursday at 7:30pm at Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School on Ferguson Street. Contact Club President Dennis Davey (06) 353- 0193 or Club Captain Stewart Holdaway 027 329 4399 for more details.



Pictured is the Burnham Cup. Palmerston North has battled Wanganui two years running for the Cup and won on each occaison, will this year be a third?

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The advantage of time

Post,M (2090) - King,M (1930) [A45]Queenstown chess classic (7.35), 21.01.2009


The position above is black to move. Black's queen is under attack and his pawn on d4 is also weak. Black is however better
21...Qa6?
The move I played in the game which gives white a chance to grab the pawn and have possible winning chances but after the better
21...Qb6
Now White cannot take the pawn with the queen because the knight hangs but what happens if
22.Nxd4
Well this is the reason I titled this post the advantage of time. My initial analysis had the following forced line
22...Rad8 23.Rhd1 Rd7 24.Qb2 Red8 25.Ke3
The only move to keep the piece and I iniatially thought
25...Re8+ 26.Kf2 Red8 27.Ke3 Re8+ 28.Kf2 Red8 29.Ke3 Re8+
Is an easy draw and the best on offer for black, it turns out after a little more research into the position their is a nice shot with a very nice follow up.



25...Rxd4!
I found this winning line 2 months after game.
26.Rxd4 Re8+! 27.Kf2 (If 27.Kd2 Qe6 28.Qc3 Qe2+ 29.Kc1 Rc8! wins the queen) 27...Rc8! 28.Kg3 (also losing is 28.Ke3 Rc2 29. Qb3 Qc7 the fork is unstoppable) Rc2 29.Qxc2 -/+ forcing white to give up his queen for whatever he can get.

13th World chess champion Gary Kasparov was a big fan of always going over old analysis because you never know what interestings things you may find with a fresh and deeper look.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Palmerston North Blitz Championship

Semi Finals
Best of 5

Mathew King 3 - Stewart Holdaway 2

Stephen Taylor 2.5 - Justin Davis 2.5

The match was tied after 5 games. According to the tie break rules set out Stephen chose the time of 5 - 3 and Justin chose colours and decided to be white. Black had draw odds. Davis won.

Final
Best of 5

Justin Davis 3 - Mathew King 2

Thursday, March 12, 2009

March NZCF Active Rating list

The full list is here
http://www.hpchessclub.org.nz/nzcfratings.html

Palmy players to make the list are

National rank Name Standardard rating Rapid rating

27th Ker, Charles M 2108 2002

55th Davis, Justin M 1968 1881

84th King, Mathew J 1885 1758

146th Smith, Jeremy A 1685 * unr

183th Taylor, Stephen 1605 1646

247th j Chen, Dylan 1477 * 1493

Holdaway, Stewart i 1641

White, Damon unr 1533*

j Kim, Teh gyu unr 1473*

j Hill, Ryan unr 1463*

j Howe, Matthew unr 1453*

Reweti , Savern unr 1407*

j Yuan, Daniel unr 1405*

j Yan, Michael unr 1386*

Young, John unr 1384*

j Kim, JuYoung unr 1358*

j Kim, Ricky unr 899*



j = junior
*= provisional
i= inactive

Palmerston North Blitz Championship


Pool A


Stephen Taylor - 4

Frank Visser - 3

John Kim - 2

Jacob King - 1

Jake Kim - 0


Pool B


Stewart Holdaway - 4

John Baker - 3.5

Ricky Kim - 2.5

John Kim - 1

John Baker and Ricky Kim played a sudden death match to decide the second placing. John won.


Pool C


Mathew King - 3

JuYoung Kim - 2

Terry Lee - 1

Ryan Km - 0


Pool D


Justin Davis - 3

Dennis Davey - 2

Andrew Parker - 1

Jack Jung - 0

Quarter Finals
Best of 3 match

S. Taylor 2 - D. Davey 0

S. Holdaway 2 - J. Kim 0

M. King 2 - J Baker 0

J. Davis 2 - F. Visser 0

Semi finals and finals to take place next week.


The semi final pairings are -

S. Taylor - J. Davis

M. King - S. Holdaway

Most semi finalist strolled through their games with a funny exception of Stewart Holdaway offering a draw in a lost position to the strong junior of the club Juyoung Kim. Kim however decided with 10 seconds left to stewarts 1 min plus that he should win and then duly lost on time.


Sunday, March 8, 2009

Grischuk wins Linares


It seems to be the year for new faces winning super tournaments first at the Corus chess festival and now Alexander Grischuk wins Linares for the first time. He just finished ahead of Ivanchuk on tie-breaks by having more wins.
Final Standings

1. Grischuk, Alexander 8 RUS 2733

2. Ivanchuk, Vassily 8 UKR 2779

3. Carlsen, Magnus 7.5 NOR 2776

4. Anand, Viswanathan 7 IND 2791

5. Radjabov, Teimour 6.5 AZE 2761

6. Wang Yue 6.5 CHN 2739

7. Aronian, Levon 6.5 ARM 2750

8. Dominguez Perez, Leinier 6 CUB 2717
The event was a double round robin. The prize fund was 314,000 Euros, with the winner getting 100,000 Euros, followed by 75,000 and 50,000 Euros for second and third place.
World champion Anand didn't have a great tournament losing to Carlsen for the first time and finishing at just 50%. Carslen must also be a bit disappointed losing to Wang unneccessarily and stuffing up a win against Radjabov even though his 3rd place is still in the prizes.

Monday, March 2, 2009

North Island Championship 2008

With the North Island Championship not too far away I thought it might be interesting to look at game from last's year's tournament. Anthony Ker is the current NZ champion including Rapid and Lightning formats and is also the current North Island Champion. It would be interesting to note if anyone else in New Zealand's long chess history has had as many national titles at one time.

Stuart,P (1996) - Ker,A (2342) [A86]North Island Championship Tauranga (3.1), 16.07.2008

1.c4 g6 2.g3 f5 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nc3 0-0 6.Nf3 e6 7.0-0 d6 8.b3 Nbd7 9.Bb2 c6 10.Qc2 Qe7 11.Rad1 e5 12.dxe5 dxe5 13.e3 e4 14.Ne1 Ne5 15.f4 Neg4 16.Qe2 Be6 17.Nc2 Rfd8 18.Rxd8+ Rxd8 19.Rd1 c5 20.h3 Nh6 21.Kf2 Nf7 22.Rxd8+ Nxd8 23.Qd2 Nc6 24.Bf1


24...Qd7
White's queen must be challenged. It cannot be allowed a dominating position pressuring down the only open file. One interesting aspect to note is for such a closed position only minor pieces will be left on the board after the coming exchange.
25.Qxd7 Nxd7 26.Na4 Bf8
With a closed position black can get away with this move for now abviously wishing to avoid exchanges.
27.Be2 Kf7 28.Nc3 Nf6
White has an outpost on d5 and black on d3. The position is very much equal.
29.Na4 h6 30.Ba3 b6 31.Bb2 g5 32.Nc3 Bg7 33.Kg2 g4 34.h4?!
Closing the position does not help white. Black has a possible square for his knight on h5 attacking a weak g3 pawn. Also hxg4 is no longer in the air where white could have split black's pawn's at a convienent moment or atleast tie white down to this idea.
On the other hand it does make black's life a little harder to get the break through needed for victory.
Possible is 34.Nb5 h5 35.Nc7 Bd7 36.Bc3 a6
34...Nd7


35.Kf2?!
Such a move is surprisingly inferior letting Ker increase his advantage.
35.Na4 Bxb2 36.Nxb2 Nb4 37.Nxb4 cxb4 38.Na4! Nc5 39.Nxc5 bxc5 40.Kf2 White has succeeded in blockading the postiion where black cannot make any progress. 40...Bd7 41.Ke1 Ke6 42.Kd2 a5 43.Bd1 Kd6 =
35...Nb4! 36.Nxb4 cxb4 37.Na4 Bxb2 38.Nxb2 Nc5
Black has a new outpost for his knight and white is in some difficulties
39.Ke1
39.Na4 Nxa4 40.bxa4 Ke7-+ Black is winning a pawn and the game.
39...Ke7 40.Kd2 Kd6 41.Kc2



42... Bd7
It is still not so easy for black to create a winning breakthrough.
41...a6!? 42.Nd1 Bd7 43.Kb2 a5 44.a4 bxa3+ 45.Kxa3 Nd3 46.Bxd3 exd3 47.Kb2 a4 48.Nf2 d2 49.e4! Ke6 50.exf5+ Kxf5 51.Ka3 Bc6 52.bxa4 Bf3 53.Kb4 d1Q 54.Nxd1 Bxd1 55.Kb5 Ke4 56.Kxb6 Bxa4 57.c5 Bd7 58.Kc7 Bf5 59.c6 Kf3 60.Kd6 Kxg3 61.Ke5 Bd3 62.c7 Ba6 63.f5 Kh2 64.f6 g3 65.f7 g2 66.f8Q g1Q 67.Qxh6 And still black has no easy road to victory but this is far from forced.
42.Kd2 Ne6 43.Bd1 Kc5 44.Be2 a6 45.Nd1 Ng7 46.Nf2 Nh5 47.Nh1 a5 48.Kc2 a4 49.Kd2 Be6 50.Kc2
50.Bd1 axb3 51.axb3 b5 52.cxb5 Kxb5 53.Be2+ Kb6 54.Kc2 Nf6 55.Nf2 Nd7 56.Kb2 Nc5 57.Bd1 Nd3+ 58.Nxd3 exd3 59.Kc1
50...a3
A very interesting decision. Black closes the position to keep a far advanced pawn on a3.Black may have ideas of a sacrifice on c4 to try and promote his far advanced a pawn to a queen.
51.Bf1 Nf6 52.Nf2 Ne8 53.Nd1 Nd6 54.Be2 Nb7 55.Bf1 Na5 56.Nf2 Bc8 57.Be2 h5
58.Bf1 Bb7 59.Be2 Nc6 60.Bf1

60... Nd4+!
Probably the only move to really try and complicate things the problem is it should still only be enough for a draw.
Another move that is not so forcing is 60...Ne7 but their is just no easy way through. 61.Bg2 Ba6 62.Bf1 b5 63.cxb5 Bxb5 64.Bxb5 Kxb5 65.Kd2 Kc6 66.Nd1 Nd5 67.Ke2 Nb6 68.Kd2 Nd7 69.Kc2 (69.Ke2 Nc5 70.Kd2 Nxb3+-+) 69...Nc5 70.Nf2 Kd5 71.Nd1 Nd3 72.Kd2 Kc5 73.Kc2 Ne1+ 74.Kd2 Nf3+ 75.Ke2 with a probable draw.
61.Kc1?!
61.exd4+ Kxd4 62.Bg2! This move ensures white of the draw and black has to be careful not to over extend. 62...Ke3 (62...e3 63.Bxb7 exf2 64.Bg2 Ke3 65.Kd1 f1Q+ 66.Bxf1 Kf3 67.Kd2 Kxg3 68.Ke3 Kxh4 69.Kf2 g3+ 70.Kf3 Black is lost.) 63.Nd1+ Ke2 64.Kc1 Ke1 (64...Kd3? 65.Bf1+ Kd4 66.Kd2 Black is just a piece for a pawn down.) 65.Kc2 Ke2=
61...Nf3 62.Nd1 Ba6 63.Kc2
Better is 63.Nf2 Black is still hard pressed to make any progress. 63...b5 64.cxb5 Bxb5 65.Bxb5 Kxb5 66.Kd1 Kc5 67.Ke2
63...Nh2 64.Bg2?
The losing move.
64.Be2 This is still holding.
64...b5 65.Kd2?
After the better 65.cxb5 Bxb5 66.Nf2 Be2 67.Kd2 Bf3 68.Bxf3 gxf3 69.Ke1 Kb5 If white could pass he would draw but he is required to move under current FIDE laws so black wins.
65...bxc4

0-1

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Topalov to Face Anand


Game seven

Topalov,V (2796) - Kamsky,G (2725) [C07]World Chess Challenge Sofia BUL (7), 26.02.2009

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 c5 4.exd5
Topalov goes for the main line after avoiding it with 4.Ngf3 in game 5.
4...Qxd5 5.Ngf3 cxd4 6.Bc4 Qd6 7.0-0 Nf6 8.Re1 Be7 9.Nb3
Gelfand shows an interesting Q-sac in the following game 9.Ne4 Nxe4 10.Rxe4 Nc6 11.Nxd4 0-0 12.Bf4 Qc5 13.Nxc6 Qxc6 14.Bd3 b5 15.a4 a6 16.Re3 Bb7 17.Be4 Qxe4 18.Rxe4 Bxe4 19.Qe2 Bd5 20.h4 Rac8 21.axb5 axb5 22.Bg5 Bd6 23.Ra6 Bb8 24.Be7 Rfe8 25.Bd6 Red8 26.Bxb8 Rxb8 27.Ra3 Rb7 28.Rg3 f6 29.Rg4 Rc8 30.Rd4 Rbc7 31.Qxb5 Rxc2 32.b4 h6 33.Rg4 f5 34.Rg6 Kh7 35.h5 R2c7 36.Qd3 Rb7 37.Qg3 Rc1+ 38.Kh2 Rc4 39.b5 Rb4 40.Rxe6 Bxe6 41.Qg6 Drawn Kasparov,G-Gelfand,B/Astana 2001
9...Nc6 10.Nbxd4 Nxd4 11.Nxd4 0-0 12.c3 Bd7 13.Qf3 Qb6 14.Bb3 a5 15.Be3 Bc5 16.Rad1
A normal developing move that leads to wild complications.
16...a4 17.Bc2 Qxb2
Kamsky stubbornly grabs a pawn.
18.Bg5



Topalov is willing and definately prepared to create complications even if it risks losing. Kamsky on the other hand needs a win and decides he must not shy away from complications even if he is black and it generally doens't suit his known style.
18...Nd5
18...Bxd4 Trying to win the bishop on c2 will cost black too much. 19.Rxd4 Qxc2 20.Bxf6 gxf6 21.Rg4+ Kh8 22.Qxf6#
19.c4 Bxd4 20.Qd3
The mate threat must be dealt with.
20...f5 21.Qxd4 Qxc2 22.cxd5 Qxa2 23.Qb6
Right now black is two pawns up but Kamsky must give something back.
23.dxe6?! Bxe6 24.Rd2 Qc4 -+
23...a3
Interesting is 23...Rae8! 24.d6 (24.Qxb7 Rf7 25.dxe6 Rxe6 Black is doing well) 24...Qc4 25.Be7 (25.Qxb7 Bc6) 25...Qc6 26.Qb4 (26.Qxc6 Bxc6 27.Bxf8 Kxf8 Black is better) 26...Qb5 White has a annoying wedge on d6 and e7 but black can give up the exchange being two pawns ahead and most likely have a better game.
24.Be7
24.dxe6 Bxe6 25.Qxe6+ Interesting is the piece sac. (25.Rxe6 Ra6!) 25...Qxe6 26.Rxe6 b5 27.Ra1 b4 28.Re3 h6 29.Be7 Rfb8 30.Rb3 Kf7 31.Bc5 Rb5 32.Be3= But still quite a risky line just for a draw.
24...Rfe8
Kamsky is running short of time once again.
25.Qd6



25...Ba4
The natural Ba4 gives white the advantage. Not only on position but now Kamsky is running to low on time. Topalov is a fantastic practical player but sometimes his moves can be refuted, of course not easily hence why Kamsky needs time to refute them and choosing when to sink into deep thought to do this is important and Kamsky was unable to solve this problem. Now the game is lost along with the match.
25...Kf7 Kamsky admitted he lost confidence and just couldnt make this move which leads to an edge for black. At the chessfm blog he was quoted as saying " I play like a 2200 player in time pressure."
26.Qxe6+ Kh8 27.Ra1 Qc4
Topalov has 30 plus minutes while Kamsky has dived to under 10
28.Rec1!?
GM Marin from chessbase describes this move best. "Objectively speaking, it may be said that it leads White on the verge of defeat, but from psychologycal point of view it defines an approach that eventually won the game for White."
The safe option is 28.Rxa3
28...Bc2 29.Qd7 a2 30.d6 b5 31.Qb7 Reb8?!
31...b4 This is winning. 32.d7 Reb8 33.d8Q+ Rxd8 34.Bxd8 Rxd8 35.Qe7 Rc8 36.Rxa2 Qxa2 37.Qxb4
32.Qc7

32... Rc8?!
32...Bd3! would avoid defeat.
33.Qxc4 Rxc4 34.d7 Bb1 35.Rd1 Kg8 36.d8Q+ Rxd8 37.Bxd8 Bc2 38.Rdc1 b4 39.Rxa2 b3 40.Ra8 Kf7 41.Rb8 Ke6 42.Re1+ Kd5 43.Be7 Ra4 44.Bf8 Ra7 45.h4
1-0

Topalov wins the match and is now scheduled to play Anand.

All in all an interesting and tense match. Kamsky had excellent chances but at critical points was bested by Topalov's great practical play and not his opening innovation's like was to be assumed.

One interesting point coming from Kamsky's interview on chessfm was during the match Kamsky's team would study everyday with water running music blearing and closed doors in case of their Hotel room being bugged!

Palmerston North Chess Club News



The next club night is the AGM. The Club is open every Thursday from 7:30pm at Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School on Ferguson street. Contact Club President : Dennis Davey (06) 353 0193 or Club Captain : Stewart Holdaway 027 329 4399 for more information.

The Palmerston North Club Blitz Championship is due to be held on the 12th of March. All are welcome as this promises to be a fun event with a nice trophy up for grabs.

Past winners S. Holdaway in 2007 and J. Davis in 2008.