Summer Swiss 2017

The Summer Swiss is a long-standing competition for Broadstairs members to keep them busy once league and championship games have been completed. Not everyone enters as there are five rounds and with three bank holidays occurring between now and the end of the season – the club is open but some members prefer to give chess a miss on bank holidays – those with five or more Goodall (championship) games still to play tend to opt out. Ideally, the competition probably needs at least twelve players to make it work but the difference with the Summer Swiss is that there is no prize for the winner! Instead, there is a grading prize for the best performance so uneven pairings are not a major problem and, anyway, as we are always told, it’s only a game….The draw for Round 1 has been made and matches have to be played by May 15.

Round 1

Reg Pidduck (107) v Nick McBride (171)
Bob Page  (141) v Michael Doyle  (90)
Michael Jenkinson (83) v Paul Carfrae (131)
John Couzens (125) v Fredy Reber (e50)
Jordan Leach (46) v Andy Flood (117)

 

 

 

Blunder of the Week

Welcome, once again, to the familiar world of Blunderland, a place we have all visited far too often but which never fails to entertain us when it is someone else’s misfortune we are witnessing. If you have ever been in this situation and thought to yourself, ‘Why doesn’t this ever happen to top players?’, take heart from this excruciating oversight from the Women’s US Championships currently taking place in St Louis. In the black corner we have the top seed IM Anna Zatonskih (2451) and in the white corner, the 16 year old WIM Jennifer Yu (2196). It is Round 1 and perhaps Anna viewed the pairing as a gentle full toss to get off the mark. It clearly was not that but at least she had a draw. White had just played 57.d6 and the following position occurred:

At this point the computer has the position as 0.00 i.e. dead equal. What could possibly go wrong? That pesky pawn is uncomfortably close to queening but dealing with that shouldn’t be a problem.  Well, have a look at the position and be honest – how many of you would have played the seemingly logical 57…..Rd1+??  That is precisely what Anna played and who knows what was going through her head were she able to see the computer’s analysis jump from 0.00 to ‘White can mate in 8 moves’ ! What had she overlooked? Why, of course, 58. Kc2!  Black resigned.   To Anna’s credit, she won her next game in 23 moves, has won three out of her four games since this defeat and is currently joint leader with 3½/5 while Jennifer, notwithstanding her good fortune in Round 1, has only won once since and is on 2½/5.

If you come across any similar blunders worth sharing – either your own or any you have seen or read about – please send them in so that next time we are feeling miserable after our latest disaster, we can console ourselves that even the best in the land get it wrong sometimes.

 

Thanet Chess Congress 2017

The 48th Thanet Chess Congress will be held from Friday August 18th to Sunday August 20th at its usual venue of Canterbury Christ Church University, Broadstairs Campus, Northwood Road, Broadstairs, Kent CT10 2WA. Thanks to generous sponsorship by John Couzens Roofing, Chandlers Builders Merchants and Cramptons Thorley Taverns, the organizers have been able to introduce a number of initiatives this year. Firstly, the prize money has been increased in all sections. Secondly, there will now be five categories with the introduction of a Challengers section for those graded under 170 – with only twenty points separating top and bottom in each of the middle three categories, chances of winning a prize will be higher.  Thirdly, entry for GMs and IMs is free and only £5 for U15s. Accommodation is available at the University if you book early and the food in the canteen is highly recommended. If you haven’t played at Thanet before, there is no better time to make this your first visit. If you don’t fancy playing all five rounds, take a bye and enjoy Broadstairs in the summer.  Further details are available at the new dedicated Congress website http://thanetchesscongress.co.uk where you can enter online or download an entry form if you prefer, find information about travel to and within Thanet, choose from the different types of accommodation available and check out all the results from last year. Early booking is recommended. Good luck!

 

 

Club News

Regular visitors to this site might be wondering what is happening at the grass roots level of the ordinary chess club. It’s all right posting news about Wei Yi, Wesley So and Hou Yifan but what about the Thanet Chess League? How is Broadstairs doing? What about the club championship? Who is winning? Is the club about to pack up at Easter as many seem to do these days (Answer: no, we keep going until August).   Broadstairs enters three teams in the Thanet Chess League so let’s start this round-up with the one most likely to win something this season: the Hargreaves Shield team.      

P W D L GP+ GP- MP
Broadstairs 5 2 2 1 10.5 5.5 6
Bridge 4 2 1 1 8.5 7.5 5
W’borough 5 2 0 3 10 10 4
Margate 4 1 1 2 7 9 3

Until last week, we were confident of retaining the Hargreaves Shield (U140) but the defeat by Woodnesborough has thrown the competition wide open. Even victory in our final match against Woodnesborough at home may not be enough – we need Margate to get at least a point from one of their matches against Bridge.

The Walker Shield (U115) has been our strength in recent years, winning the competition in both 2015 and 2016.

P W D L GP+ GP- MP
Margate 7 5 2 0 20 8 12
Bridge 6 3 1 2 13.5 10.5 7
Broadstairs 6 1 4 1 12.5 11.5 6
Herne Bay 6 1 2 3 8 16 4
W’borough 5 0 1 4 6 14 1

Sadly, the hat-trick is already out of reach as the table shows. With two points for a win and one for a draw, even victories in our last two matches will not be enough to prevent Margate winning this particular competition.  Nevertheless, hope springs eternal for 2018 which is more than can be said for our chances in the Blue Riband of Thanet Chess, the Millar Cup (no grading limit). Only a long search in dusty archives can reveal the last time Broadstairs won the Millar Cup. Your correspondent has been a member for over thirty years and it has not occurred in that time. In recent years competition for the Millar Cup has been a private battle between Bridge and Folkestone with other clubs merely making up the numbers.  It must be rather similar for teams in La Liga facing Barcelona and Real Madrid in which case Broadstairs historically are the Osasuna of the Thanet Chess League.  Actually, that’s a little unfair as Osasuna are currently bottom of La Liga and Broadstairs are currently in …er… mid-table.

P W D L GP+ GP- MP
Bridge A 7 7 0 0 35.5 13.5 14
Folkestone 8 5 1 2 40.5 15.5 11
Bridge B 7 5 1 1 30.5 18.5 11
Broadstairs 7 2 0 5 16.5 32.5 4
Herne Bay 6 1 0 5 10.5 31.5 2
Margate 7 0 0 7 13.5 35.5 0

Meanwhile, what is happening at the club? As everyone knows, the heart of any club is what goes on within: the club championship, domestic competitions and drinking in the pub afterwards. At Broadstairs the main club competition is the Goodall Cup, named after W.F.Goodall, the last Club Secretary but one who died in 1950…yes, you read it right: 1950. David Faldon is defending his title and with ten wins out of ten so far, he is in pole position once again although he still has to play the three highest-graded members after himself. Who else could win? Well, Ian Hames is also unbeaten but has dropped half a point while Nick McBride‘s surprise defeat recently means he will probably have to beat Ian and David to stand any chance.

The knockout competition, a time handicap for the John Couzens Vase is in its early stages but not too early for your correspondent who has already been knocked out (again) by Viktor Selyukov.  Entries are being taken for the Summer Swiss which begins at the end of April and the annual Blitz tournament has been pencilled in for July 3. The club will remain open until August 14, the last Monday before the Thanet Chess Congress of which more anon.

FIDE Women’s World Chess Championship result

Tan Zhongyi of China has won the FIDE Women’s World Championship after a tense final, eventually winning on the second rapidplay game. Tan, a mere WGM and only the ninth seed in the competition, beat Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine in the final, a result that must have surprised many people. Anna was second seed behind the favourite Ju Wenjung and when the latter was knocked out (by Tan) in the quarter-finals, Anna must have fancied her chances. Furthermore, she had a clear run to the final, winning all her classical games whereas Tan had already played 28 games of various lengths including two victories in an armageddon finish. The second of these occurred in the semi-final against Harika Dronavalli of India. The sixth game of this match as reported in the last posting (click here) lasted an incredible 162 moves with Harika winning a bishop + knight ending. Tan bounced back to win the match in the final ninth (armageddon) game lasting 99 moves with a maximum five minutes for Black, remember – one move every three seconds on average. Altogether, there were 661 moves in the match! In the final Tan took the lead in Game 2 after the first game was drawn before Anna levelled in Game 3 with a wonderful attacking game against Tan’s French Defence that I wish I had employed against Michael Green in our recent Millar Cup defeat at Bridge.

White:   Anna Muzychuk (2558)   Black:  Tan Zhongyi (2502)       

Women’s World Championship 2017

So with one game to go of the classical format – four games in the final as opposed to two in earlier rounds – the internet ‘experts’ still favoured Anna. The momentum was with her, everyone thought, except that Tan was White in Game 4 which was drawn and Anna must have felt that with Tan’s experience and record in the tournament at rapidplay games, perhaps her chance had gone. And so it proved: after Game 5 was drawn, Tan had the white pieces in Game 6 and time trouble was author of Anna’s downfall.

White:  Tan Zhongyi (2502)     Black:   Anna Muzychuk (2558)       

Women’s World Championship 2017

Whatever one’s views on the knockout system and rapidplay finishes for deciding something as important as a world championship, there is no doubt that there was considerably more interest and excitement in Tehran than in the snoozathon at Sharjah which did not even merit a final report on this site. Perhaps an analogy can be drawn between the two formats similar to that of T20 v Test cricket. Is the Tehran tournament the future of chess? Discuss.