Life Since... February

Hello everyone!

Well, it maybe the time I close my blog as I'm sure you've noticed I haven't updated it since February! I've been doing some exciting things and played a bit of chess as well, so you might be interested to know what I've been up to before I say the final good bye.

I spent a few months teaching chess to kids in a primary school, as a part of the Chess in Schools and Communities charity scheme. It was a new experience for me and I'm glad that most of those 70 or so kids now know how to play chess and more importantly - enjoy it! A few of them even went to a local competition between schools and did very well. I also received some wonderful chess poems from one of the groups, so full of imagination and humour! I found it so hard to judge between them to award the best.

A few weeks back I also did reporting for the Russian website chess-news.ru from the recent Grand Prix held in London. I took lots of photos and did interviews with many of the participants, mainly in Russian. I found it particularly amusing that I managed to get an exclusive interview from the winner, Veselin Topalov, at the end of the tournament. He shared the first place with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Boris Gelfand, but had a better tie-break. I don't think Veselin did an interview for the official site at the end of the tournament, but I managed to get one!

What can I say, I had such a great time there - I met some new interesting people; that includes the organisers, the super-GMs who were playing and many others who were there either to support the players, provide media coverage or just visit. Of course, I also saw many people who I already know from chess and it was nice to catch up with old friends. I can report that most of of the super-GMs present were quite easy to talk to, seemed like nice people and have a good sense of humour :) But, one thing I realised was that despite playing chess for so many years, I still had no idea what super-GM's life is like. It's incredibly intense and believe me, despite an appearance of so many draws, they ALL want to win each and every game! I honestly promise you that! I absolutely didn't notice the attitude of, "I'll just take it easy today". I was also glad that Boris Gelfand got a share of the first place, as he got some really unfair criticism during his match against Vishy Anand. He actually has a very exciting playing style and it shows when he gets his kind of positions.

So, back to me then! I played in an Open tournament in Crete in July. The place was wonderful - sea, hot sun and great food - but I didn't play very well. I did, however, get selected to the England women's team to play in the chess Olympiad that was held in Istanbul in September. I was even put on the second board, which was a bit tough, as you can imagine! Well, it was a great experience anyway. Here, on the photo, I'm actually on the top board, as our board one, Anya Corke, was resting on that day. We won against Quatar 4:0 anyway. Apart from me on that day we had Sarah Hegarty, Sabrina Chevannes and Kanwal Bhatia playing, as you can see. At the end of the tournament we ended up at around our initial seeding, while Sarah performed particularly well. I must also say big thanks to our coach GM Stephen Gordon, who was wonderful.

 
I didn't get to see much of Istanbul because we lived near the airport, about an hour from the city centre. But I did go to a couple of historical sites on my free days and was especially impressed by the bazaar. It was so colourful! And the Turkish delight was delicious! All that remains to say about the Olympiad is congratulations to the winners - the Armenian men's team and the Russian women's team! And I hope that English and Russian men can do a bit better next time!

I'll leave you with some chess tactics from my game in the women's Wales - England match, used as a preparation for the Olympiad. I was trying to figure out how to win for a while, probing here and there. And finally I was rewarded when my opponent fell into a rather simple trap. Her last move was
50.Rec2??

L. Roberts (1933) - M. Yurenok (2084)

Wales - England Match, 19 May 2012

50...Rxb2 suddenly, the rook on c2 is overloaded. It's no good taking my queen 51.Qxd4 as it's checkmate with Rb1# So, she played:
51.Rxb2 Qxc3 it's winning for me now, of course, but she made it even worse for herself with:
52.Na2? Rxb2 53.Qxb2 Qxd3 and I won a few moves later.
Incidentally, England won that match 4:0, although we were a little lucky in some cases.

And that's all from me! My life goes on, although perhaps not with as much chess playing as before. I will continue to play at the 4NCL and, if things work out in my favour, will play at the London Chess Classic Open in December.

Till we meet again! До новых встреч!

This blog is now closed.

Olympiad and more

Hello everyone!

I've finally played my first serious game of chess since July. It was a nice win in the London League, albeit against a weaker opponent. It's good to get some practice in though! The game started off as a quiet variation of the Slav but after 24 moves I got this completely winning position. Can you find the moves to finish this game off before looking below for my answer? Black to move:

P. Stokes (163 ECF) - Maria Yurenok (178 ECF)

London League, 30th September 2010

There are more than one ways to finish this game, but I chose:

24...Rf6! With not much time left on the clock I decided on a simple plan - put the rook on g6 creating various threats. And there's not much white can do about that! Of course, b7 pawn is irrelevant and no point taking the rook on f2 as it's not going anywhere.

25. Qe1 Rg6 26. c5 - it's hard to suggest anything for white as he's stuck for moves and has no reasonable defense against my plan.

26...Bh4 - now I'm threatening to win the queen with 27...Rxg2 28. Rxg2 Qh1+ 29. Rg1 Qh3+ 30. Rg2 Bxe1 +- With the clock ticking down white made the final mistake:

27. fxe4?? Qxg2# Don't you think it's a pretty checkmate?

I have two more London League games in the coming week. And I can't wait to play in my next serious tournament in France (Cap D'Agde) at the end of October. I haven't been training much but I do find time to improve my tactics by solving tactical puzzles on my iPhone on the way to work. I have more than 1000 of them to solve, so it will keep me busy for a while J

The past couple of weeks have been very exciting as I've been following games and results of the Chess Olympiad. Ukrainian men won the Open section and Russian women won the Women's section with a round to spare! I'm glad that the Russian women outperformed their Chinese rivals this time. English men didn't do as well as their team ranking, but English women finished 21st despite being seeded 39th - so a good result! Here is a photo from Meri Grigoryan of the English women's team in action.

From left to right: WFM Sarah Hegarty, Kanwal Bhatia, WFM Meri Grigoryan, IM Jovanka Houska. The next international  team competition which will be represented by England is the European Team Championship in the Autumn of next year. Lets see if I can show some good results to get into the team next year.

Italy's Calling

It's been a long time since I wrote the last post! I haven't actually played any chess since the 4NCL but that's about to change. Tomorrow I'm flying to Italy to play in the new Open tournament called 1° Festival Internazionale Di Scacchi ”Citta’ Di Roseto”.  Italy is probably my favourite country after the U.K. so I can't wait to go. I love the Italian food, the language, the weather and its wealth of history. In the past I've been on holidays to Milan and Sorrento (including Pompeii ruins nearby). But there are many more places I would like to see in Italy in the future. Since this time I'm playing chess it won't really be a holiday and I won't have much opportunity to explore places as a tourist, however there will be the sun and the sea - just the kind of location that I like for a chess tournament! I've even attempted to learn some words of Italian by downloading a couple of applications to my iPhone. Actually, I feel a bit shy when trying to speak a foreign language so I'm not sure if I would be brave enough to say something in Italian. You might wonder how I managed to learn English. Well, my parents sent me to an English school when I was 17 and there weren't any Russians there. I had no choice but to speak English!

There have been some very interesting chess news in the past month. The biggest news was, of course, GM Vishy Anand defending his World Champion's crown. What an exciting match that was! I imagine there would have been a lot of psychological mind games as the match was in GM Topalov's home country. Anand did very well to come through that successfully. Perhaps Anand gained some energy from what looked like overwhelming worldwide support in his favour. I wonder what your experience was but I felt as if everyone supported Anand.

The other piece of news that I want to mention was more directly relevant to myself. The English team was recently selected for the Olympiad in September. Even though I was considered in the selection I missed the team. It wasn't a great surprise for me as I was the lowest-rated player that was considered. I did, however, learn a bit about how selections are done and what I need to do to get selected next time. One obvious thing that I need to do is to bring my rating up. As far as I could tell this was the most important selection criteria. There was also one less obvious selection criteria and its strangely significant weight compared to some other criteria. The good news is it's all within my power to achieve the required standard. Even though I'm going back to work in August I'm not giving up chess any time soon and there will be many more chess tournaments to come in the future. The women's team that was selected includes: IM Jovanka Houska, WIM Ingrid Lauterbach, WFM Meri Grigoryan, Kanwal Bhatia and Sarah Hegarty. I wish the team all the very best in the Olympiad! I will be supporting the team by following their results and via Facebook. And I hope to see lots of interesting photos from Meri!

Save The Children!

Hi there.

As you already know, I am trying to get into the English women's team in time for the Chess Olympiad in September 2010. Since this is a very serious and difficult challenge for me, it gives me a perfect opportunity to fundraise for a charity. My favourite charities are for children and this time I chose to support "Save The Children". This charity does amazing work in the UK and all over the world to help vulnerable children. "Save The Children" deliver life-saving supplies to children in response to major emergencies across the world. They work very hard on long-term development projects to develop healthcare, establish food supplies, education and protection for children. And they also try to improve children's future by campaigning for their rights. You can see more about this charity's work on their website: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/

Please support me in my chess challenge by donating to "Save The Children". Your money will be put to a great use for the benefit of millions of children across the world. Here is my donations page for "Save The Children": http://www.justgiving.com/Maria-Yurenok

I hope you would be encouraged to give even more of your support to "Save The Children" when you read on my blog about many ups and downs of my challenge throughout the next 12 months. Thank you in advance for all your donations however big or small. Every penny makes the difference!

Maria Yurenok