Are you feeling a touch of déjà vu when you look at this picture? Haven’t we seen this photo before? Is the Webmaster losing his marbles? No, it’s simply a game of spot the difference. If you have not read the earlier article on Website of the Year click here and see if you can see a difference between the two photos. If you don’t want to know the answer, look away now.

Those who you who read the original article will know that there was an error on the original trophy concerning our website address. The ECF agreed to produce a corrected version and did not not want the first trophy returned so we are now the proud possessors of both an official Website of the Year trophy and an unofficial imperfect one. The club will keep one copy and the Webmaster the other but who should have which?

While all the excitement of the latest photo session was taking place, Andy Flood, supreme commander of the Thanet Chess Congress, casually announced that actually he, too, had received a similar trophy for Congress of the Year 2018 so watch this space for more shameless self-promotion in the near future.

Meanwhile, what’s happening at the club, you might be wondering. Well, this season promises to be one of the closest club championships in living memory. David Faldon (175) has won or shared the Goodall Cup every year since he joined the club in 2010. However, he has some genuine competition this year with the arrival of Trefor Owens (167), Arnaud Wisman (155) and Shany Rezvany (163). Other new members have already made their mark: Paul Johnson (116) won his first four games in the Goodall including victory over Shany, and Richard Clement (128) beat Trefor in his first game. Perhaps this is David’s tactic: lie in wait and let the others make enough mistakes so he can coast home as usual. We shall see.

Just when you thought it was safe to enter the chess club….once again, we shine the spotlight on someone’s misfortune, a player making the sort of move that makes us all think ‘There but for the grace of God go I’. This week’s example may make you feel even better because although it is a bit of a cheat in that it was not played recently, it does feature two top players, thereby proving that yes, even chess grandmasters appear human at times. The game was played in the World Senior Team Championships last year between Alexander Huzman and our own Nigel Short. Nigel was recently a candidate for presidency of FIDE but stood down at the last minute to support the successful candidate, Arkady Dvorkovich. Until recently, Nigel was the oldest player in the Top 100 but as he is currently 101 he can quite fairly claim to be the oldest player in the Top 101.  Here at Broadstairs Towers we are not entirely sure what Twitter is but we know that Nigel is a regular ‘tweeter’ or ‘twit’ or whatever the word is. After England’s fine performance at the Olympiad, he tweeted his congratulations, adding that it was a good thing he was not called upon.

The featured position is instructive because it is one where mere mortals like your correspondent would probably stare at the position for a long time watching the clock go down and eventually agree a draw even though it is clear that Black is on top. In the analysis that accompanied the position, it was suggested that White might have had a chance had he played 43. a4 b4 44. a5 Kc7 45. Ba4 Nfg5 46. Nf4. Instead he played 43. Kd1? How would you answer that? Perhaps it is obvious but if not, it is a lesson for us all not to take anything for granted. If you haven’t got it yet, try to work out Black’s reply which forced resignation before looking at the answer below.

White:   GM Alexander Huzman (2571)      Black:  GM Nigel Short  (2652)

World Senior Team Championships 2017

Black’s reply was 43…Bxd4! If 44. exd4 Nc3 is mate.

This photograph was taken during or possibly after the Chess Olympiad and it shows all the tournament’s arbiters, the sheer number of which gives you an idea of what a vast event it must have been. Of particular interest to local readers is the presence of the former league chairman and Bridge Chess Club stalwart, Alan Atkinson, who was attending the Olympiad in an official capacity. But can you spot him? If you want a clearer picture before trying to work it out click here to download a higher resolution photo.   I’ll give you the answer under the photo. There was an interesting debate on the English Chess Forum as to the collective name for a group of arbiters and someone – to be fair, this was following some criticism of one or two – suggested the term ‘incompetence’! This brought about a reply from the former chairman himself who rightly described it as ‘harsh’ although he added that ‘there were the usual tales of some arbiters being useless/asleep/absent/etc’. 

Alan Atkinson is second from the left in the second main row from the bottom.

In the summer we received the glad tidings that this site had been named Website of the Year by the ECF and in our naivete we assumed that that was that and with that we were satisfied: the kudos of winning was enough. Now imagine our surprise then when a further email was received last week asking to whom the award should be sent! And here it is….as Reg said, it is really, really nice: modern, stylish, distinctive and…er…slightly wrong.

The bad news is there is a minor error. The good news is it is not easy to spot. In fact, if I thought I’d get any takers, I might offer a year’s free membership of Broadstairs Chess Club to the first person to find it. It’s made even more difficult to see in this photo by the unintentionally cunning position of the award in relation to the lighting. Yes, if you look very closely, you will notice that the website address on the award is listed as www.broadstairschessclub.com and as all our regular visitors know, we are www.broadstairschessclub.co.uk.

A minor error like this might in some circumstances be overlooked. However, when the award is for Website of the Year and the website address listed is incorrect, it manages to be both amusing and embarrassing at the same time. Fortunately, the ECF saw the funny side, too. A replacement has been ordered and the offer to return the original was declined ‘in case you create a second, international site’. So we await the second coming and another presentation at the club. Like all awards ceremonies, this one promises to run and run.

The 43rd Chess Olympiad is over and we can now (almost) confidently announce the winners. Chess 24 has all the results and if you click on ‘standings’, it has the following: 1. USA 2. Russia 3. China. All three are level on 18 MP (match points?) but the USA and Russia have 29 BP (board points?) to China’s 28½ so that seems to suggest a tie break between the USA and Russia which could be fun. However, a check on chessresults.com shows four separate tie breaks with TB4 appearing to carry most weight although it’s not clear what it stands for. Crucially, though, it has China first with 149, the USA second with 147 and Russia third with 144. All three teams won 8, drew 2 and lost 1. (Incidentally, congratulations to the England team who won 8 drew 1 and lost 2 to finish in an excellent fifth place – their best finish for 22 years.)

There was still confusion amongst contributors to the official website’s message board even while the closing ceremony was taking place. This was an event in itself with medals handed out like confetti in a programme interspersed with an unusual choice of songs from local singers (‘Chain Reaction’, ‘Cabaret’) adding to the consternation of chess fans messaging (“Who is this woman?” “No, not another song! Where’s my gun? I can’t stand any more!”), alongside some more unrepeatable remarks, the most charitable of which questioned her ELO rating. Medals were handed out for first, second and third individuals in five categories: reserve then boards 4, 3, 2 and finally 1.  With some confidence I can announce that Ju Wenjun of China won the prize for best women’s performance on board 1 with 7/9 and Ding Liren for best male on board 1 with 5½/8. However, a further ‘gold medal’ was then awarded to Ju Wenjun – ok, this seems to confirm her place as overall female individual winner – and Jorge Cori from Peru, who scored 7½/8 including seven games as White! He was rested for the last round, perhaps to protect his score.   One can only assume that there must be some seeding of opponents faced when judging the individual winners because England’s board 1, Jovanka Houska, had a terrific tournament, losing only one game and finishing with 7½/9. However, two of her opponents were under 1800 whereas Ju Wenjun did not face anyone below 2300.

                           Ding Liren

After yet more music the final medals for the top three teams were awarded. (There had earlier been medals for the top three teams in about four other categories but remember – there were almost 200 teams taking part.) Eventually, China was confirmed as winner of both the men’s and women’s competitions although, interestingly, the tournaments were named ‘Women’ and ‘Open’.  After each of the team winners was announced, an anthem was played and everyone stood up but whether this was the Chinese national anthem or a FIDE anthem – one wag suggested ‘Georgia on my mind’ would be more appropriate – was not clear and the Chinese players certainly did not seem to accord it much reverence.  As for Wei Yi, he had a rather modest tournament. After winning his first two games, he did not win another, was not selected for the last two matches and finished on 3½/7. Congratultions to Ding Liren, however, who was unbeaten in the competition, played for the winning team, took the medal for the best performance on board 1 and played one of the best games in the tournament in the crucial defeat of Poland in the penultimate round.

 

White:  Ding Liren (2804)      Black:  Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2739)

 43rd Chess Olympiad (Batumi) Round 10