The Lone Path To Victory

This is it. Your moment of glory. As your eyes are transfixed on the board before you, your mind is on overload. It's been busy calculating variation after variation. But you know the truth.

Only one road leads to victory.

Every other road leads to a worse position and potential disaster. If you could load up Fritz right now, Fritz will spew out things like this:



Only 1 variation leads to your survival and increase your chances of pressing home your advantage.

And herein lies the key to better chess improvement.

The ability to calculate accurately and more crucially, the ability to spot the correct continuation.

This is why some players tend to resort to safer lines. Because they know that a wrong move would not decrease their advantage. Wasted tempi would not be immediately punished.

However, if you truly want to test your mettle, do not be afraid to open the position up and resort to complications if you know you are tactically better than your opponent. For any player below 2000, keep throwing your opponents more and more complex positions to solve. Because no one can take this sort of punishment move after move without making a mistake (this naturally applies both ways).

Of course this also means that you also are more likely to be standing at a razor's edge and you need to know your stuff inside out. In other words, you need to understand chess better than your opponents.

And remember, close positions will never stay close forever. So learn to play open and semi-open positions and work on your tactical ability.

Grandmasters are experts at this. They know how to seek out the best move even if it's the only single move to win. And if you give them time, they will find it 9 times out of 10.

Australian Youth

In the World Youth Championships concluded recently, Bobby Cheng came in first in the U12 category.

My best of congratulations to him and his family!

There was a sudden and marked improvement in his results over the course of the year. This was the time where he was reported to have become very serious in chess and wanting to attain the Grandmaster title. It has now evidently paid rewards and I wish him the very best in his quest.

Anton Smirnov came in 4th because of tie breaks although he finished level on points with the runners up in the U8 category. Well done and congratulations to him and his dad, Vladimir.

And a well done and thank you to the rest of the Aussie team for a tremendous effort in Turkey.

Special thanks go to Alana Chibnall for providing constant updates on the Australian team's progress in Turkey (in spite of having to prepare for her competition).

It's Like Buying From The Home Shopping Network....

We've all heard the talk before.

How this new chess book will solve all your woes. Will increase your rating by a gazillion Elo points. That your opponents would be floundering with your new found secret "opening"/"trick"/"tactic". The one that would make you reach the rank of a titled master in less than a year. And unlike the other 1,000,000 chess books before it, this one will be different. It will be interesting, does not require you to memorise lines etc. etc.

Have you heard all of this before?

Yes, and in case you're wondering why this sound familiar. That because you probably already have.

It's no different than the exercise machines that you see being touted on the Home Shopping Network. How this revolutionary exercise machine will shape your butt, trim your waistline, stores easily into your cupboard and requires you only 5 min of your time.

The real world is unfortunately not like that.

You cannot hope to achieve anything without determination and willpower. If you cannot invest the time to train and upgrade your chess knowledge, no chess book will help you if you cannot lift your own game. Acquiring new chess knowledge is never easy. Most importantly, it takes a LOT of time. A lot of blood and tears and sheer determination.

In other words, it boils down to this:

How badly do you want it?

The good thing about trying to improve your chess skill is that it basically involves the same steps and skills that you use when you were a student.

You spend time on it, learning the necessary knowledge, acquiring new concepts, learning to apply them and gathering the experience learned from application of this knowledge. This sort of training does not occur overnight. It takes an enormous amount of time and practise to get it right.

This is the same with chess.

In education, a poor teacher will not make you improve and likewise poor chess material will not make you better. In fact, it teaches you bad skills that you'll find harder to rid yourself of later on.

On the other hand, good chess books and good chess material or a good chess coach will guide you towards your aim quicker.

Sure, there have been good chess books being published but there's also been some real stinkers as well. And this also applies to other chess media. There's also been good chess DVDs and some obviously "hacked up in a day" chess presentation DVDs.

The trick is to sort the wheat from the chaff and to apply these materials that you have gathered in a consistent manner. Only then will you improve.

There's no shortcut in life.

Carlsen Tsk Tsk

Looks like the #1 on live rating list still has a few things to learn when it comes to understanding blitz chess rules and common board courtesy. This is what happened in last night's game v Gashimov in the World Blitz Championships currently held in Moscow.



Moving your Queen twice?

And in the following game v Kosteniuk (bottom right screen) for the following video:

http://video.russiachess.org/browse/16/#session73

No handshake after losing to Kostenuik? Tsk tsk.

World Youth Chess Championship Rd 1

Round 1 results:

U-8 Open:
Smirnov Anton (1853) (AUS) 1 - 0 Kesgin Halit Kaan (0) (TUR)

U-10 Open:
Gray Callum James (0) (AUS) 0 - 1 Shurunov Andrei (1887) (RUS)

U-12 Open:
Akhmetov Ayan (KAZ) 1 - 0 Koh Cedric (0) (AUS)
Terzi Alexei (BLR) 0 - 1 Cheng Bobby (2202) (AUS)

U-14 Open:
Yuan Yi (2097) (AUS) 1 - 0 Karlsson Mikael Johann (1703) (ISL)

U-16 Open:
Tan Justin (2011) (AUS) 0 - 1 Kurayan Ruslan (2306) (UKR)

U-18 Open:
Schon Eugene (2171) (AUS) ½ - ½ IM Krejci Jan (2458) (CZE)

U-12 Girls:
Papathanasiou Elisavet (GRE) 1 - 0 Koh Clarise (0) (AUS)
Drogovoz Maria (RUS) (0) 1 - 0 Pretorius Jana (0) (AUS)

U-14 Girls:
Ataoglu Buse (0) (TUR) 0 - 1 Guo Emma (1910) (AUS)
Baekelant Eva (1966) (BEL) 1 - 0 Simmonds Leteisha (1624) (AUS)

U-16 Girls:
Webb-Liddle Miranda (0) (AUS) + - - Flores Nancy (1927) (ARG) (forfeit?)

U-18 Girls:
Richard Emma (2135) (FRA) 1 - 0 Chibnall Alana (0) (AUS)
Oliver Tamzin (1777) (AUS) 0 - 1 WFM Brunello Marina (2158) (ITA)


Round 2 is scheduled to begin today and these are the pairings:

U-8 Open:
Ibik Halit Yavuz (0) (TUR) v Smirnov Anton (1853) (AUS)

U-10 Open:
Temur Igonin (0) (UZB) v Gray Callum James (0) (AUS)

U-12 Open:
Koh Cedric (0) (AUS) v Keleptrishvili Irakli (1751) (GEO)
Cheng Bobby (2202) (AUS) v Kessler Luca (1992) (AUT)

U-14 Open:
Studer Noel (1974) (SUI) v Yuan Yi (2097) (AUS)

U-16 Open:
Sevciuc Vladlen (0) (MDA) v Tan Justin (2011) (AUS)

U-18 Open:
Arslanov Shamil (2379) (RUS) v Schon Eugene (2171) (AUS)

U-12 Girls:
Koh Clarise (0) (AUS) v Al Dhaheri Shaikha (0) (UAE)
Pretorius Jana (0) (AUS) v Camilia Bt Johari (0) (MAS)

U-14 Girls:
Guo Emma (1910) (AUS) v Kuehnel Lena (1761) (GER)
Simmonds Leteisha (1624) (AUS) v Tuzi Bruna (0) (ALB)

U-16 Girls:
Webb-Liddle Miranda (0) (AUS) v WFM Hakimifard Ghazal (2124) (IRI)

U-18 Girls:
Chibnall Alana (0) (AUS) v Ibragimova Iroda (1917) (UZB)
Haug Marianne Wold (2005) (NOR) v Oliver Tamzin (1777) (AUS)