'Twist' Time Soon!

Two months ago I highlighted the campaign by The Wiyos to raise money for their new CD, 'Twist'.

I am pleased to report that the campaign was a great success and that 'Twist' soon to be a reality. I have seen the impressive cover art (not yet in the public domain) and pre-orders are set to be shipped within the next few weeks. The official release date is January 2012.

Keep up to date with all of the latest news and tour dates over at the official Wiyos website.

Chess Reviews: 189

ChessBase Magazine #144

October 2011

ChessBase

‘A hot summer for chess means that the new issue of Chessbase Magazine contains five really top tournaments. Starting with the World Team Championship in Ningbo in China and the Russian Championship in Moscow via classic tournaments in Biel and Dortmund going all the way to the Botvinnik Memorial, in which the four best players in the world tested their rapid chess skills against each other.’

Indeed, a glance at the index of players reveals an impressive number of games by the top stars: Anand (6), Carlsen (16), Kramnik (23), Svidler (14), Morozevich (19), Ivanchuk (9). It is good to see the World’s best players being so active.

Nobody has more games in this issue than Kramnik. His results are still frustratingly inconsistent. He was second to Anand in the Botvinnik Memorial, convincing winner of the Dortmund tournament (for the 10^th time!) but had to be content with a share of third-fifth in the Russian Championship.

Perhaps it is a sign of the times that the great Botvinnik’s memorial tournament was ‘only’ a Rapidplay event. It is doubtful that he would have approved of the format, but would probably have been pleased to see the World Champion, Anand, competing against Carlsen, Kramnik and Aronian.

With such a line up, the games deserve proper attention and the magazine’s annotations pinpoint some interesting key moments.

Anand – Aronian

Black has just played 32 …Rh4! and Anand, quite logically, stepped aside with 33 Kf1? However, this gave Black a chance. Instead of the game continuation (33 …Bf4? 34 gxh3 Rxh3 35 Qg2 and 1-0, (38) ) he had the possibility of 33 …Qxh5!, when 34 gxh3? Rxh3 is better for Black. The players would have to find 34 Kf2 Qg5 35 Rh1 Bxg2 36 Nxg2 Qg3+ 37 Ke3 Qg5+ 38 Kf2 to make a draw.

One would expect youth to triumph at the faster time limits, in which case Carlsen’s position, at the foot of the table, is hard to explain. An examination of the games on the DVD provides the answer; he was badly out of form.

Carlsen – Anand

29 Ree1?? is a howler. 29 …g6 30 Ng3 Bf2 wins the exchange (0-1, 66)

I like to read notes by top players about their own games. It is rare to see a top GM write so honestly about a defeat, so Ponomariov’s annotation were quite refreshing.

Kramnik – Ponomariov

Dortmund

In this complicated position, Kramnik played 28 Rc1!, leading Ponomariov to comment:

‘It turns out that White does not have to rush to take the rook on a7, as it is not going anywhere.’

…and after 28 …Nf5:

‘To my horror, I realised that in the tactics, White can take the Nc8 with check, after which the Ra7 becomes indefensible. At the same time, I cannot even organise perpetual check, because when the bishop on g1 takes the Ra7, it frees g1 for the white king!’

It is good to know that even players rated 2700+ have the same ‘cold shower’ moments as the rest of us. It’s both encouraging and enlightening, and it shows the value of prose annotations as opposed to long lines of analysis festooned with symbols.

On a similar theme, we read how Kramnik was eager to take Nakamura out of his preparation (another thing we all try to do at club level).

Nakamura – Kramnik

Dortmund

In a Nimzo-Indian with 5 g3 (‘As expected. Since Hikaru has started working with Kasparov this has become his favourite weapon against the Nimzo Indian’), the former World Champion was keen to break out a prepared line, but he had to wait a little while before he managed to do so.

15 e5

‘So far White had not spent any time on his moves, so I started to search for a decent move which would make him think.’

15 …Ba4

‘Right choice! Nakamura started to think here finally!’

I like the human touch at the very end of the game too.

Nakamura – Kramnik

Black has a huge advantage (the engines scream well over +4) and White finally called it a day. ‘I am very strong in such positions, so Hikaru resigned here.’

These are good examples of exactly the sort of annotations I like.

There are some fascinating video clips from post mortems at the Biel tournament. One features Carlsen and Morozevich demonstrating one of their two drawn games.

Carlsen - Morozevich

Morozevich is keen to look at 15 Nb5 here, as an alternative the game move, 15 Bb5. Carlsen comes across as very down beat. ‘Yes, but I couldn’t remember anything, so…’ Morozevich tries another couple of suggestions ‘Sometimes it just doesn’t happen…’

The opening surveys are a popular part of the magazine. This time they feature:

In Fritz Trainer format:

French Winawer 7 Qg4 Qc7

Semi-Slav

Caro-Kann (3 e5 c5)

In regular format:

Classical Dutch

Scandinavian Defence

Sicilian Kan 5 ….g6

French Tarrasch

Semi-Slav 9 …b5

Grunfeld Defence 7 Be3

Grunfeld Defence 5 cxd5

Queen’s Indian 3 …a6

Queen’s Indian 4 …Bb7

King’s Indian 7 0-0 exd4

All of the regular features are present and correct, of course.

I will leave you with a position from Oliver Reeh’s column on Tactics (all of the positions in CBM 144 were taken from the World Junior Championship).

Priyadharshan – Robson

White’s 26 Rhd1 wasn’t the most accurate move. How did Black force a win from here?

Yarm Chess Championships

The 17th Yarm Chess Championship took place at Yarm Preparatory School on Saturday 8 October. For the first time, we focused solely on the Primary and Preparatory age groups. I was anticipating an increase in entries at this level due to my work with the Chess in Schools and Communities charity so when Johannes Grundmann of Yarm School and I started the initial planning for the event back in the month of June, it was agreed to postpone the Secondary School section until later in the season.

My hopes were not in vain. The tournament attracted entries from no fewer than 30 teams and 13 teams were making their debuts. Each team consisted of four players, so we had 120 children playing chess. The last time I had a similar number juniors in one tournament was back in 1993, at the height of the publicity generated by the Kasparov - Short World Championship match. Even then, the tally of 130 children was boosted by the addition of sections for Under-13s and Under-18s, so 120 players from the Under-9 and Under-11 groups we had at Yarm makes it our biggest Primary event to date.

By coincidence, the two Grandmasters met in another match this weekend (a Blitz match, won narrowly by GM Kasparov).

We like to give some of the children the extra responsibility of being a team captain. Their job is to organise their teams and report the results directly to me This works well, despite the occasional misreported result (a couple of inadvertently (?) reversed 3-1 scorelines led to one or two crossings-out on my pairings!).

As far as the results went, Royal Grammar School (Newcastle) dominated both sections, as can be seen from the scores.

Final Scores

Under-11s

1st: 20/20 RGS A

2nd: 14.5 RGS C

3rd: 12.5 RGS D

12: Yarm A

11.5: RGS B

11: RGS F

10: Ings Farm A, St. Teresa's

9.5: Whale Hill A, RGS G

9: Yarm C

8.5: Yarm B, RGS E, Throston A

8: Throston B, Darlington

5: Yarm D

Under-9s

1st: 19.5/20 RGS A

2nd: 14.5 RGS C

3rd: 14 John Emmerson Batty A

12.5: Whale Hill A, St. Teresa's

11: RGS B

9: Yarm B

8.5: Yarm A, Yarm C

7: Whale Hill B

5.5: John Emmerson Batty B

Congratulations to RGS and their coach, Paul Bielby, on another very successful day.

Only Redcar's John Emmerson Batty Primary managed to stop RGS making it a clean sweep for the top three places. They were making their tournament debut and produced a terrific team effort. Captain Nina Pattinson was the only person in either section to take anything from an individual encounter with an RGS A team player; she drew - by stalemate!

Photo © Johannes Grundmann

It was a wonderful day of chess and everyone seemed to have a good time, as our group photo shows.

We are hoping for even more entries for the 18th Yarm Chess Championship. Be there - or be square!

There's a great report over on the Darlington Chess Club blog, written by Kevin Wilson. Mark the site as one of your 'favourites' as it is one of the finest junior chess blogs around.

Ken Dodd at Darlington

Ken Dodd

Darlington Civic Theatre

6.10.2011

The remarkable Ken Dodd, just a month short of his 84th birthday, was back in town for two nights of chuckle-muscle stretching fun.

The first night was a sell-out and I presume the second one was too. There's nobody quite like Ken Dodd. He has to be seen to be believed. By the end of the evening, one's watch usually has to be seen to be believed, too. Giving value for money is one of Dodd's obsessions; he simply can't bring himself to bring each private party to an end.

He appeared on the stage at 7.30 p.m., banging 'The Great Drum of Knotty Ash', and launched into a bombardment of jokes which didn't stop until 9.00 p.m. He then took a break - but there wasn't one for the cross-legged audience. Anne Jones took to the stage to provide half an hour of music and songs, before Dodd returned for another hour.

At 10.30 p.m., he announced the commencement of the interval. At this point, we had to jump ship and return home; not because we weren't enjoying the show, but because the advertised finishing time of 1.00 a.m. was stretching things a little bit too much.

Ken Dodd remains one of a kind. There will definitely never be another entertainer quite like him. Forthcoming tour dates can be seen on his website. Catch him while you can!

The Machine

I am currently preparing a review of Daniel Pettitt's impressive new CD, 'The Machine'.

Dan is a favourite of Marsh Towers, having been featured here many times. The review will follow some time over the next few days.

Meanwhile, interested readers should pop along to Dan's website for information on his life, work and tour dates.

On the Buses

Have you travelled by public transport recently? It's a great place to collect characters for short stories and novels.

I have written elsewhere about some of the extraordinary and eccentric people I have encountered and a recent sighting inspired me to continue the series.

Imagine two Neanderthals bumping into each other at the bus stop. A conversation starts; they know each other, as is made apparent by their foul banter. I'll edit out the offending words or this post will be at least three times the length it should be. Just take my word for it that every second word was one which would shame polite company. With those considerations, here's a fairly accurate reproduction of the encounter:

N1: 'What are you up to?'

N2: 'Well I've just been in that shop to nick some stuff and they were all looking at me, but I still got away with these cans of Extra Strong.' He pulled the ring from one of the two cans and proceeded to drink noisily. (Note: this was at 3.00 p.m. in the afternoon)

N1: 'Good one!'

As the sunlight picked out the detail of the tattoos on N2's neck, he suddenly seemed to remember something.

N2: 'Anyway - have a look at this!' As he said it, he unzipped one of the pockets on his tracksuit jacket. An enormous rat emerged and started clambering up his arm.

N1: 'Wow! Is it a wild one?'

N2: 'Don't be daft! As if I'd keep a wild rat in my pocket! No, it's my pet. It lives in my pocket...'

The bus approached the stop. N2 started shouting at his pet.

N2: 'Get in that pocket, you! Get in that pocket - quick! Here comes the bus!'

The rat wasn't particularly obedient. It was so big that it was hard to see how it managed to fit into the pocket in the first place. N2 boarded the bus and offered his fare. In one hand he had his can of Extra Strong and in the other was his ferocious looking pet.

Bus Driver: 'Sorry mate, you can't get on with that,' he calmly said.

N2: 'Eh? But it's my pet. It lives in my pocket. It won't be any trouble. If people are scared of him I'll stuff him back in my pocket.'

Bus Driver: 'I don't mean the rat - I mean the beer!'

N2: 'Aw, come on mate...I've just got my beer and I've got my rat, what's wrong with that, like?'

However, the bus driver would not be swayed, even by such an outwardly convincing statement.

Bus Driver: 'Look, why not just stand and finish your beer and get on the next bus?'

N2 then got off the bus, presumably to follow the driver's instructions. But perhaps it wasn't so simple after all, as he had a second can of Extra Strong at the ready...

Expect more episodes from 'On the Buses' soon. In fact, if you wait long enough, two might come along at once...

Chess In Schools Update

My latest report on the activities of the Chess in Schools and Communities project is now available on the CSC website.

There's a big event scheduled for later in the month which will be covered in the next report. Wait and see!