Pacific Coast Open

I'm back from the USA and suffering from jet-lag. However, there's a million things to do after being away for 3 weeks and on top of that I am going back to work on Friday, for the first time after 10 months of sabbatical! I'm so glad that BT gave me this opportunity to take the sabbatical as I think I had the best 10 months ever despite some low points at some chess tournaments.

My Pacific Coast Open tournament ended fairly well as I got 3.5 points out of 6 (including a half-point bye) drawing last two games against stronger opponents. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to win one of those games with an extra pawn! And I ended up half a point behind a large rating prize. I don't know why in the USA they have very large rating prizes - it was larger than a second place prize! Nevertheless, I'm happy to add another 9 rating points to my FIDE rating despite a slow start to the tournament. My partner IM Simon Ansell did very well by getting a share of the second prize. You can see the final standings here: http://www.chesstour.com/pco10r.htm I didn't have any exciting games to show although I haven't had a chance to analyse them in detail and may yet find something worth showing at a deeper level. I bought a new laptop in the USA so I hope my Rybka will now run even better and faster! J 

New FIDE ratings have come out at the beginning of July and I'm back to over 2000 mark at 2062. ECF ratings have come out as well and I am now rated 178 - a bit higher than a year ago but lower than I believe my current strength is. Unfortunately, ECF ratings are published only once a year and can be a bit misleading for an improving player. British Championship has started on Monday and will keep me entertained for the next 2 weeks. The top seed GM Mickey Adams is the favourite to win the title. Unfortunately, there are only 3 women participating (I decided against playing because of going back to work) so I hope ECF would do something to encourage more women to play in the British.

I haven't got any firm plans for my next chess tournament but I am considering playing my next tournament at the Berks & Bucks congress during the August Bank Holiday weekend. It's a 6-round FIDE-rated tournament. I'll just have to see how tired I'll get being back at work and if I need my weekends to recover rather than play chess! I am also hoping to play in the 9-round FIDE open at Cap D'Agde in the South of France in October.

America!

My partner Simon didn't win millions at the main event of WSOP poker tournament and I didn't win millions at Las Vegas casinos. However, I managed to break even on roulette and won $200 in 10 minutes at craps! I think that was beginner's luck as I'd never played craps before. After that Simon wisely kept me away from craps tables so that I didn't lose my winnings!

One week in Las Vegas is more than enough unless you are a hard-core gambler. After you've seen several shows, looked inside many grand hotels and did a bit of shopping you kind of run out of things to do. At the end I decided not to be left out with all the poker around me and played in my first ever live poker tournament at the Venetian hotel. I was a bit scared as I'd only played a little poker with my friends and online. I mean, do you remember how scared you felt playing in your first ever chess tournament? I was worried I'd make some silly poker rules mistakes while everyone at the table was watching me. I did make mistakes but nothing serious, not as bad as a woman next to me who showed her cards prematurely and was penalised for a whole round! I lasted for a couple of hours before getting knocked out and now I'm not that scared of live tournament poker. J

On the last night in Vegas we went to a private party hosted by "Poker Stars" which was headlined by Snoop Dogg's performance. He's one of the most famous rappers and even though I don't follow that kind of music his performance was great. I was very amused by his diamond-encrusted microphone and hair bands. J It was also the night after Spain won the football World Cup and Snoop Dogg was wearing Spanish football shirt! Who said Americans didn't care about football?? Well done to Spain by the way!! Here is somewhat blurred Snoop Dogg in case you don't believe me. J

After Vegas we went to explore San Francisco for a few days. It was nice and cool but sunny after unbearably boiling Vegas. Walking up and down the hills of San Francisco was very tough, it reminded me just how unfit I am and that I should start going to the gym again! Looks like this San Francisco's sea lion is encouraging me to exercise by demonstrating some press-ups. J

Now we are playing chess in Agoura Hills near Los Angeles. The tournament is called the Pacific Coast Open and consists of only 6 rounds. So far I'm on 2 out of 3. I had a slow start drawing two games against lower-rated opponents while missing available chances. However, I bounced back with a win in the third round against a higher-rated opponent. I always find that if I haven't played for a while I need at least one game to get my brain into the "chess mode" and use my time appropriately. I think playing a bit of blitz or rapidplay games before a serious tournament helps to minimise the adjustment period. I've taken a bye in the 4th round as I decided to relax this evening rather than play two rounds today. I can't see any results posted on the internet so no results link this time I'm afraid. Tomorrow we have two more rounds at the end of which I will get to see my parents and my sister for the first time in 1.5 years. J I wonder if I'd be too excited for serious chess playing!

Endgame Example

I've had some kind of flu for the past few days - how annoying in this great weather! I just had to stay in bed watching mainly Wimbledon. I think I've had sports overload as I've also watched enough football to last me a lifetime. Since England is out of the football World Cup I'm now supporting Andy Murray (British) and Vera Zvonareva (Russian) in Wimbledon. Thankfully, I seem to be on the mend - about time as I'll be flying to the U.S.A. on Saturday and I'd better start packing! This trip will be more of a holiday as I'm going to have a look around World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and then visit my parents and my sister in California. Don't worry, I haven't suddenly decided to take up poker instead of chess! I hardly ever play poker and keep forgetting the rules :) But my partner IM Simon Ansell is playing in WSOP so it will be fun. Despite this intensive schedule we are still hoping to play in a small 4-day chess tournament in California. And when I get back from the States my sabbatical will come to the end and I'll have to go back to work. Even though I've been to Las Vegas and to California before, I'm really looking forward to the next 3 weeks!! I'm really not a gambler but maybe I can turn my $10 into a million on a roulette table?? What do you think? Never know! :)

I thought you might be interested to see one of the endgames that I won recently in Italy, including my thought process during the game. I really had to win this game with black to have the best odds of meeting a titled player in the last round which was necessary to acheive WIM norm. The opening was a double-edged variation of Timanov Sicilian where white castles queenside and black often doesn't castle for a long time. So when the queens came off I wasn't overly happy as I thought I might have better chances of winning in the middlegame. However, I assessed the following endgame as slightly better for black even if my advantage is very minimal. I had no choice but to make the best out of what I had.

Claus Seyfried (2087) - Maria Yurenok (1984)

Round 8, 11 June 2010 

1st Open Di Roseto

18.Bg2?! -  It maybe tempting to put the bishop on the big diagonal but it's not straightforward to push f4 to free it up. I was convinced that 18.Be2 was a better move as I can't really stop Rhf1 and f4, so I was happy to see that white chose the alternative.

18...Be7 19. Bd4?! - again, it's tempting to put the bishop on the big diagonal, but it's not necessarily better placed there. It would have been more consistent to continue with the f4 plan by playing something like: 19. Rd2 0-0 20. Rg1 Rfd8 21. f4 Bxg2 22. Rgxg2 and the position is pretty equal.

19...0-0 - the other alternative was 19...f6 which was probably a slightly better move as the king will go to f7 staying a bit closer to the centre for the endgame, followed by active play with h5. Even e5 or g5 may become a possibility at some point controlling f4 square and stopping white's f4 plan.

20. Be5 - the move looks good in the first instance as it's with a tempo and e5 seems like a nice place for the bishop, but on the second thought it can be pushed back with a tempo via f6 later and this move isn't helping white's main plan of f4 push.

20...Rbd8! - I was very pleased when I found this move. I think it's a good move because it's not obvious as it's more natural to want to put the f-rook on d8 square, so for that reason I considered 20...Rb7 first. My move is also good because it's prophylactic, stopping 21.Rd2 due to Bxa2+ 22. Kc1 winning a pawn.

21. b3 - white decides to stop my Bxa2+ trick but it's weakening the pawn structure around the king and it's a little concession that I can hook on to.

21...a5 22. Rd3 - I didn't quite understand this move as it appears that white has given up on the idea of pushing f4. I think it was still worth continuing with the original plan: 22. Rd2 a4 23. f4 axb3 24. axb3 Bxg2 25. Rxg2 Rd5 giving better chances for black but probably defendable

22...f6 23. Bd4 a4 24. Rg1 - it appears that white wants to push f4 again but that allows my black-squared bishop to become active giving me another little concession to accumulate on.

24...axb3 25. axb3 Bd6 26. h4 Rf7?! - probably not the best move from me while 26...g5 would have been better. I made my move because I wanted to give myself an option of moving d6 bishop to f4 without having a threat of white's Bc5. Besides, rook on f7 has a chance to double up with the rook on d8. However, clever Rybka suggests that white can untangle himself by sacrificing a pawn for initiative and compensation with: 27. g5 hxg5 28. hxg5 fxg5 29. Bh3 Bf4 30. Re1 =

27. Bh3?! - my opponent was close to time trouble. This move is a bit pointless after my response.

27...g5 28. h5 Bf4 - now my position is quite a bit better as white's white-squared bishop is rather bad, white has no counter-play on the king side while his king is a bit weak and my pieces are generally better placed. Apart from all that I had more time than my opponent who was in time-trouble. As I didn't have a great amount of time myself I decided to try improving position of my pieces without committing myself to changing the position significantly (e.g. not changing pawn structure), so that I don't lose my advantage by the time we've passed the 40th move time control. Since it's a closed position it's possible to make some non-committal manoeuvring moves waiting to see if the opponent takes any action. I thought that since my pieces are positioned quite well, I should have a good response to any attempt of activity by white.

29. Rgd1 Ra8 30. Bf1 Kg7 31. Be2 - finally, the bishop has arrived to where it was supposed to be initially!

31...Rb7 32. Bb2?! - this gives my rook a7 square - another concession from white as he seemed to be a bit stuck trying to find a useful move with little time left on the clock. 32. Kb2 is better with the idea of 33. Ra1.

32...Rba7 33. Rd4? - decisive mistake, white is trying to activate the pieces but missing tactics. It was necessary to stand still, for example, by moving the rook backwards and forwards along the 1st rank until the end of time trouble as I'm not exactly threatening anything immediate. Although even then he has to be careful with his rook placement since he would lose to my Be5 if he places his rook on h1 or g1.

33...Be5 34. Rxb4?? - this just misses checkmate in two

34...Ra1+ 0:1

This game was an interesting lesson for me as it seems that sometimes waiting is the best strategy. Over the years I've observed just how many games strong players win by making a few waiting moves, as weaker players crack and start making significant changes in their position (e.g. pawn structure, exchanges) without realising that they are making things worse for themselves and it was better to stand as still as possible. I've made that mistake many times myself! You may have noticed that this tends to happen even more in time trouble when, for example, selecting a variation of exchanging several pieces allows to make several moves without spending much time. And you realise too late that those exchanges were best avoided.

Italian Chess Festival "City of Roseto"

Can you believe it, this chess adventure turned out to be even more successful for me than the one in Thailand. I played in the Masters section which was reserved for players above 2000 rating but they let myself and another girl in as an exception, even though we were just below 2000 rating. They probably think that they made the right decision as I got 5 points out of 9, gained my first WIM norm with a round to spare and drew with a GM for the first time! My rating performance was 2311 against the average opposition of 2268 which included two GMs, two IMs and an FM, gaining me 47 rating points. You can see the final rankings table here which shows that overall I came 14th despite being seeded second from the bottom (37th) at the beginning of the tournament. I didn't get a cash prize despite being the best performer in under 2200 rating section because rating prizes were reserved exclusively for Italians. However, I was given a big 2kg Italian cheese which tastes fantastic! I was also the best woman performer. Apart from all that I got to play against the legendary GM Evgeny Sveshnikov who originally came from Chelyabinsk in Russia (like myself) but now lives in Latvia. Long time ago back in Russia I even attended his 2-week chess school once, when it had a joint session with GM Panchenko's school. He's best known for his theoretical developments in the Sveshnikov Sicilian and in the c3 Sicilian. Here is a photo of me with the GM Evgeny Sveshnikov J

The tournament itself was very well organised. I thought it was great that in the Masters section most boards were electronic, transmitting games live on the internet. I also really enjoyed living very close to the sea, near a very nice and shallow sandy beach with beautifully clean water. Even though the weather was up to 30 degrees Celsius on some days the water was quite a bit colder than in Thailand, but once you got in - it was very enjoyable. You only had to walk a few minutes along the beach to reach an area with no one around. It was also quite easy to get to the resort as there were direct flights from London Stanstead to Pescara with Ryanair, and the resort had a complimentary pick up/drop off service for the airport. It was also great to have a kitchen in our small bungalow and a shop nearby, which meant that I could get up late and make my own breakfast and lunch whenever I wanted! Of course, there was a restaurant as well which we used for dinner. I think I would recommend this resort especially for chess playing families as there seemed to be a lot of things to do for children. Hiring a car would give a lot of additional options to explore beautiful countryside with mountains and national parks nearby.

Now, more detail about my performance at the tournament. The time control was 1.5 hours for 40 moves plus 30 minutes to finish, with 30 seconds added after each move. I was white in the first round against an Italian FM Carlo Barlocco rated 2156. I couldn't prepare for the first round as there wasn't enough time after the pairings came out. However, I was lucky to get a Nimzo-Indian position which I discussed with my coach GM Chris Ward only three days before. After playing quite well I got into a bit of time trouble at which point my opponent who had about half an hour more decided to trap his own queen. I didn't mind that at all as it netted me a knight and I won soon after!

In the second round I was again playing white against one of three girls in the tournament - Maya Porat from Israel rated 2182. My preparation paid off this time as I got the position I was looking for against the Benoni Defence. In fact this was probably my best game as I thought it flowed very nicely from the beginning to the end netting me a point. I will aim to publish an analysis of this game in my next post.

In the third game I was black against a young Italian IM Axel Rombaldoni rated 2436. We went down a long theoretical line in the Taimanov Sicilian. My opponent was clearly under pressure to win and sacked a pawn for not enough compensation. However, the position was far from straightforward and I got lost in complications losing a point. Later, GM Sveshnikov told me I should have won that game. Even though I never had a decisive advantage it was enough to pose serious problems for white.

In the fourth game I was white against a Phillipino IM Virgilio Vuelban rated 2369. This felt like it was my worst game as I didn't play that well in the opening and made positional mistakes in the middlegame. I eventually lost this game after giving up too many pawns for an attack.

After losing to two IMs in the previous rounds I was surprisingly paired with the Latvian GM Evgeny Sveshnikov in the fifth round, rated 2493. He didn't have a very good start to the tournament which gave me this chance of a lifetime to play against him. It was quite funny as he prepared to play with black while he didn't realise he had to play white. It wasn't important at the end as he won by playing e4, c3 variation against my Sicilian. He's made a lot of theoretical developments in this variation and probably knows it better than anyone in the world. I could have played something completely other than the Sicilian but I thought it was a great opportunity to learn something useful from this opening's expert himself. I got some very useful insights including his analysis of a certain position that could have occurred and which he analysed when he was GM Karpov's assistant for his second match against GM Kasparov. All this would make me better prepared next time I face c3 Sicilian.

In the sixth round I had black against an Italian player Amilcare Lauria rated 2116. After a complicated game in the Hedgehog I emerged better off after the first time control. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to convert my advantage after my opponent correctly sacrificed an exchange for a pawn and the game was drawn.

In the seventh round I had white against the tournament's organiser and an Italian player Nicola Pienabarca rated 2097. My opponent surprised me with the Albin Counter-Gambit but I managed to figure it out over the board even though previously it has only occurred in my blitz games. I got a better endgame and my two bishops advantage brought me a point in the end. It was a very important game to win to continue having a chance of a WIM norm. I still needed to be paired with another titled player to get the norm, while those titled players (GMs, IMs, FMs) tended to hang around the top of the tournament table!

In the eighth round I had black against a German player Claus Seyfried rated 2087. This was yet another Taimanov Sicilian for me which gave me a slightly better endgame. I was very happy with how I played the endgame preventing my opponent's plan. In the end my opponent got into time trouble, got himself into a cramped position and made a decisive mistake. Again, this was a very important game to win to have a chance of a WIM norm.

In the final round I was paired with the Russian GM Igor Naumkin rated 2480 (there's a photo of me above during the game). This meant that I achieved my WIM norm already and could just enjoy a rare opportunity to play a GM. I had white and my opponent played the Classical Dutch which I expected. I played very well in a prophylactic way preventing my opponent's plan and got a better position. I chose to force a draw but was told by my coach GM Chris Ward and by my boyfriend IM Simon Ansell that I should have tried to win. I'm looking forward to my training session with Chris next Tuesday to get a deeper understanding and analysis of the position.

Now I'm back to England taking it easy for a few days before getting back to chess training. Tournaments like this are quite tiring but this time I felt more relaxed during the tournament. That's probably because I feel that I'm making much better moves than before (Rybka and Chris agree J) and have much more confidence when playing strong titled players. Finally, you can have a look at my WIM norm certificate on the right. It has a couple of small errors (like place of birth and number of titled players) which will be corrected by the tournament Arbiter before he submits it to the FIDE.

When I originally published this post I completely forgot to mention that the tournament was won by the ex-Soviet chess legend GM Oleg Romanishin from Ukraine. He got 7 points, half a point ahead of the top seed GM Vladimir Epishin from Russia and IM Misa Pap from Serbia.

Puzzle and News

Well, I'm now booked to play in two Open tournaments: Reykjavik in Iceland towards the end of February and Bangkok in Thailand in April! It's great as I've never been to Iceland. And even though I've been to Thailand 3 years ago, I am also really looking forward to it because it will be a lot hotter than wintry England! IM Simon Ansell is also going and we will stay for a few extra days in each country to look around and explore.

I played a game on Tuesday for the 2nd Hackney team in the London League. I was actually playing on the first board, which is quite unusual for a woman! But I lost... I thought I was doing quite well, I played as white against the Queen's Indian for the first time. I seemed to get a good position out of the opening despite not knowing almost any theory on this opening. However, I blundered a pawn in the time-trouble and it was the end of it, especially since my opponent was playing quite fast and had a lot more time. He didn't have ECF rating, but his FIDE converted to ECF was about 193, so quite strong for me. The match is still on-going as one game was adjourned (yes! adjournments still happen in England!!!) with an extra pawn in the rook ending on my team's side. If we win that game we would draw the match, so it's a very important game. However, rook endings are notoriously hard to win.

This weekend I'm playing in a local London tournament in Barnet, not FIDE-rated. I thought I might as well get some practice since Barnet is fairly close to where I live. I will play two games on each of two days, so it's quite intense but good practice for clock handling before more serious Uxbridge all-play-all tournament in mid-February. And on Monday I'll be playing in the London League again, this time for the 1st Hackney team.

Here is a fairly simple puzzle for you from one of my games in Hastings, black to move. Can you find the winning continuation? Let me know if you can and I will post the solution in a couple of weeks.

G. Moore (1902) - M. Yurenok (1968)

3 January 2010, Hastings

Finally, I've had a training session with my new GM coach Chris Ward on Tuesday and it went well. I will be an expert in 1.d4 openings in no time, so watch out!!

Thoughts about Openings

Since I came back from Hastings I haven't done much chess because of some health problems, but I'm now nearly back to normal. Over the weekend I played two games in the British team league 4NCL and got 1.5 points. I was happy with a quick draw against a stronger opponent on Saturday and managed to win against a weaker opponent on Sunday despite feeling very unwell, so it was a good result. My team Betsson.com lost one match and won one. The next 4NCL weekend is in a month's time and my team needs to try winning both matches because later in the year the two pools in our top division get re-arranged into different two pools according to teams' performance. Last year we were the winners of the bottom pool, so this year we need to do better and get into the top pool instead.

I've had some interesting e-mails from readers of my blog, thank you very much for those. I do enjoy reading your own stories about chess and happy to answer your questions. So please keep e-mailing me at myurenok@btinternet.com and let me know if there are any particular chess topics you'd like me to cover in my blog.

I was recently asked how I develop my openings repertoire. Some of it evolved over the years and some of it was more intentional. For example, against 1.e4 my dad taught me the Taimanov Sicilian many years ago and I still play and love it as an opening. Against 1.d4 my dad taught me the Benko Gambit. Even though I still like that opening I decided to learn something more solid once I re-started playing chess after the university, so I chose to learn the Slav towards the end of the nineties. In hindsight, it was a very good decision as this opening suits me very well. Besides, my coach IM Simon Ansell plays it too and I can learn a lot from him! Another advantage of the Slav is that against 1.c4 I can play 1...c6 and after that white often chooses to transpose into the Slav anyway. I've also recently learned the Dutch Stonewall which is a handy alternative to the Slav not requiring a lot of theory knowledge. Besides, I can also apply it with reversed colours as white. At some point soon I'd also like to learn an alternative opening against 1.e4. I already decided what it should be but will keep it a secret for now.

Strangely enough I had a lot more problems with my white openings. I used to play 1.e4 as a junior, but after several years absence from chess my dad suggested that I play something that doesn't require a lot of theory knowledge - The Torre Attack. And that's what I played since I finished the university. I got really fed up playing it for so long (about 10 years!) since it's not as varied as main lines and I wasn't happy with my white results either. Now I have started playing main lines 1.d4 and very happy with the variety of interesting positions that I get out of it. Playing the Torre Attack earlier helped me with understanding some of the main line 1.d4 structures, so it's not all totally new to me. I've also found a new coach who can specifically help me with 1.d4 main lines for white and if all goes well the training will start next week.

Of course, I consider other things when choosing opening lines. For example, even main line 1.d4 has many options for white to choose from. I tend to choose those lines that are most suitable to my style, so that I feel comfortable with resulting positions. And if I'm preparing for a specific opponent I sometimes learn something totally new either to surprise or to avoid something. If my memory was a bit better I would happily play a large variety of openings because I would enjoy new types of positions and plans. I may do that sometime in the future anyway, just for fun. But for now I have a specific aim to get my rating up as soon as possible and for that I think I need to learn a limited number of openings very well. The basic idea behind a limited openings repertoire is to get a familiar position with a familiar plan to preserve the time early on, so that there is time available for complicated decisions and calculations in a critical moment later in the middlegame.

Hastings Tournament

Happy New Year everyone! It's been very quiet on my blog for a while because I've been playing in Hastings - the oldest chess tournament in the world. The current venue is a large sports centre, that's why you can see basketball rings on the photograph below.

I wasn't able to play the first game and had an average performance in the rest of the tournament gaining 2.5 points out of 8 rounds and losing 10 rating points. However, I had some interesting games and will present those to you in a few days time. The tournament was won by four GMs on 7 points: Howell, Hebden (both English), Edouard (French) and Istratescu (Romanian). Here are the two of the four winners playing each other in round five: Howell - Istratescu ended in a win for Istratescu.

Hastings is a pleasant sea side resort in the summer, but in the winter the weather is quite miserable. There was a lot of heavy rain in the first few days and it turned into snow towards the end of the tournament. When it snows in England you can be sure that public transport stops normal operations. I guess many foreign chess players had trouble travelling back home because several airports were closed and trains were operating reduced service. There is still snow in England which has turned into dangerous ice on many footpaths and roads. This is set to continue for the coming days, creating the longest freeze in England for almost 30 years and causing all sorts of chaos across the country. I did go out for a walk around Hastings on one of the rare sunny days, however it didn't help me with my chess! Here are the ruins of the ancient Hastings Castle.

I was late for my first game (which for me was in the second round) by 20 minutes because I got lost trying to get to the venue despite leaving the hotel 15 minutes before the game. I've been to the Hastings tournament before, I think in 2001, but back then I had a car and getting around was very straightforward. This time I had to use my feet and my very wet and quickly disintegrating map in the cold Hastings rain. The streets in the centre of Hastings are quite complicated and many of them don't have signs, making it difficult to figure out where you are at any point in time. Even some Hastings residents couldn't point me in the right direction! Needless to say that Hastings is not the kind of place where you can easily flag a passing taxi. I was getting very worried, because default time was 30 minutes. Eventually someone helped me with the right directions and I arrived to my game red-faced and out of breath from all that quick walking. I eventually lost my game. Here I am once I'd calmed down a bit, seemingly not having it as tough as the chess player next to me - Petr Marusenko.

In the evening before the last round I participated in a themed blitz tournament, which was a part of The Killer Dutch DVD launch party. The DVD is presented by the very talented English GM Simon Williams who's been playing the Classical Dutch all his life. He has a very engaging presentation style and I thoroughly recommend for anyone to buy it. I've bought one! You can find more information about the DVD and how to buy it on Simon's website: http://www.gingergm.com/ The great thing about the blitz was that every game had to start with the moves 1.d4 f5 even if you've never played those moves before in your life! There were lots of fun Dutch-themed prizes like cheese and Advocaat liqueur. Even I got a prize for being the top woman in the blitz despite getting only 2.5 points. That reminds me that I should go and taste my prize, because I got some lovely Dutch peach schnapps! :) The winner of the blitz was GM Danny Gormally, but not before the play-off against my coach and good friend IM Simon Ansell. Here is a photo of their first play-off game.

Since my tournament chess isn't going as well as I was hoping, I've decided not to go to Moscow or Gibraltar in February and train instead. My next tournament will be in mid-February and local to London. It's a bit less serious than my recent Opens, but it's still an all-play-all and FIDE-rated Uxbridge International. I will be playing in the "Challengers" section against 9 players of roughly the same strength as myself. And if all goes well I may go to the Reykjavik Open at the end of February. I've never been to Iceland and fancy checking it out!

The London League

Yesterday I won my game for Hackney in the London League against an opponent of the same ECF rating as me. It was especially nice to win because I was on the white side of Benoni for the first time in my life, without any preparation. Basically, I'm fed up with boredom playing the Torre Attack or other similar non-main lines with white. I've only been playing those because I haven't been spending any time on learning chess in the past 6 or 7 years. Now that I'm being serious about chess - it's time to play more ambitious main lines! So, my coach Simon Ansell told me just to play d4 and c4 and not to worry about not knowing the theory. It turned out to be a very good advice as I managed to figure out the first 12 moves of theory anyway at which point my opponent deviated from the theory by making an inferior move and made a losing mistake the move after. Maybe my memory isn't as bad as I think if I remember how to play Benoni without ever learning it. Unfortunately, my team lost but I'm sure we'll win next time.

What really puzzles me about the London League is why it is still possible to adjourn the games. Chess has speeded up and we need to keep up with the current trends to allow our players to get used to the faster time limits to be more competitive in the wider world. Probably only in England we still use adjournments while the rest of the world has got rid of that rule a long time ago. Perhaps I should start a campaign to abolish adjournments in the London and other English Leagues! While I'm on the subject of time limits for a game, I also think that 4NCL games should be speeded up to at least 2hr for 40 moves + 1 hour to the end, abolishing additional 30 minutes. And if 4NCL could obtain enough electronic chess clocks, then we should move to the incremented time limit like most international tournaments.

Bob did bring me whole 4 books about the "mystery" opening that I'm going to learn. Simon's advice is the same - just play it and learn from books afterwards... That may not be very scary with white, but with black there is more chance of getting into serious trouble! So, perhaps I'd test it out on the ICC and in the rapid plays before using in a long play game.

I'm currently making plans for my future tournaments. My next tournament would be the women's invitational alongside the London Chess Classic in December, and at the end of December I'm off to Hastings. Beyond that I'm struggling to make my choice as I have several options. I could go either to Gibraltar or to Moscow. There is the Moscow Open starting at the end of January which is directly followed by the Aeroflot Open. It's a rather good deal because I'd have two tournaments and would fly to Moscow only once. But I haven't experienced Russian winter for 16 years and might not enjoy the cold weather... The other dilemma is whether I shouldn't be playing so much chess and should be training instead. I think I'll see how my November training is coming along before deciding what to do about February.

Home at Last!

I'm so happy to be back to my lovely home in London! And very happy to be re-united with my cat who is expertly using psychological extortion to get as much tuna from me as she can possibly eat, because she knows I feel guilty for leaving her at the cattery for a month. I arrived on Saturday but still feeling jet-lagged. Despite that I have been very productive - I couldn't wait to get on with things! It was very nice to see my grandparents and other relatives in Russia. I nearly got into a very embarrassing situation as my granddad nearly beat me at chess. He's almost 80 years old and always very keen to play when I come to visit. At the end I managed to win but had to think very hard for it!

Last night I went out with my friend Laura to the Green Day gig at the Wembley Arena. It wasn't appreciated that Transport for London decided to close down all tube routes to the Wembley Arena for engineering works, but hey - I'm not as easily confused as a tourist! The gig itself was just amazing, one of the best gigs I've ever seen! Billie Joe Armstrong doesn't just sing great live, he entertains the audience all the time as well. And they did that for over 2.5 hours without a break - so that must have been the longest indoor live performance I've seen by a band. I wonder what these guys are on and if it's legal ;) The sound quality was brilliant as you'd expect in the Wembley Arena. The only slight disappointment I had was that I felt the music wasn't loud enough for me because the seats were at the back of the Arena. Although, that was probably a good thing for my ears. I should have got closer and more expensive seats, as this gig was worth two gigs of any other band. Actually, seats were pretty useless this time as I ended up standing pretty much throughout the gig. I was also a bit surprised to see a little girl on the seat next to me, she was about 10-12 years old. Billie Joe certainly gave her an alternative English lesson which demonstrated that a certain four letter word should be used no less than 3 times in every sentence! As I was writing this I got an e-mail advertising that Green Day will have a Wembley Stadium gig in June. Should I get the tickets or shouldn't I? What if I end up going to some chess tournament at the same time? Hmmm... I think if you haven't been to a good live gig - you haven't lived! It's so much better than listening to the music at home!

Back to chess. My next game is for Hackney in the London league on Wednesday. I always have a quick dinner with Simon Ansell beforehand, so it would be good to catch up on the news from the 4NCL. And our Hackney captain Bob Eames is bringing me some useful chess books from his very extensive library, since I decided to learn a new opening. Not telling you which one :) Maybe I'll manage to surprise someone with it!

Chigorin Memorial Tournament Part 1

After a couple of days at home I went to St. Petersburg for my next tournament. You can see the current tournament table here. For some reason I can’t connect to the free wireless at all and had problems connecting to the chargeable cable access in my room, but it’s ok now except that it’s quite expensive! The hotel is a very nice 4 star and I have a lovely room on 14th floor with a great view :) It’s discounted to 30 pounds per night for the chess players, so I definitely recommend coming here next year if it’s held in the same hotel.

I have 0.5 out of 4 so far, which is not as bad as it sounds. The tournament is very strong for me, so for the first two rounds I had much stronger opponents. I was quite happy with my play in the first game against 2399 until I encountered a mental block and just gave up a pawn in one move. I didn’t manage my time very well either – this always seems to happen in the first round with shorter time control. In this tournament I have to play with 1:30hr + 30sec after each move for the first 40 moves, as opposed to 1:40hr +30sec in Winterthur. In the second round I played against an unrated player and lost with a horrible blunder. It’s hard to know what his real strength was as there are a lot of good unrated players in Russia. Today I played against someone with a similar rating as myself and accepted a draw in an equal position. It was a little hard to refuse as I still had to make 7 moves in 2.5 minutes and didn’t want to blunder.

There are several players at the top on 3.5 points. Of course, I’m supporting grandmaster from Chelyabinsk – Igor Kurnosov, who is one of the leaders at the moment. You might remember I said in an earlier post that we went to the same school, although at different times. Now we figured out that he lives in the neighboring block of flats to my gran. I think that’s what GM Plaskett would call a coincidence! I am visiting my gran after this tournament, so shouldn’t be surprised if I see Igor in a local supermarket. I’ve made several new friends here. Just like back home many chess players seem to be obsessed with poker. Even I played a little for the first time in many years although I could hardly remember the rules! I should have asked Simon to teach me back in Winterthur.

Unfortunately, I still haven’t got round to exploring St. Petersburg as a tourist, but fully intend to do that tomorrow. I’ll have to wrap up warm as the current weather here is like winter in England. I just hope it doesn’t rain!! One of the organisers was taking photos today, so in the next post I hope to show you some photos of myself and of St. Petersburg.

Winterthur Tournament Part 2

The tournament has come to an end and I'm flying home tomorrow. GM Ulybin won it as expected. Simon got 5.5 out of 9 and ended up just outside the prizes. I expected to get a better result than I did, but at the end only got 2.5 out of 9 and lost 11 rating points. It's not a major disaster and all part of the learning experience. I do feel that I'm playing better than 2 months ago, so just have to keep learning and practicing. This was an interesting tournament for me from the openings perspective because several times I was made to play variations that I haven't played in years. I had one particularly interesting game where I lost a piece for 2 pawns but had a big compensation. Apparently, my opponent prepared that far before the game and failed to correctly assess his position. I was close to winning that game but it ended up as a draw. I will publish it on my blog once I had a chance to annotate it.

On Thursday I woke up feeling very unwell, so much so that I wasn't sure I'd be able to play a game that day. I felt so dizzy as if I was on a boat with 10 foot waves. And no, it wasn't alcohol-related! I get this dizziness sometimes and have no idea what causes it. Thankfully, I was feeling a bit better by the afternoon and Simon did a very good job of preparing me against 5.e4 gambit in the Slav. After 14 moves by the book I could see that my opponent wasn't sure what he was doing, so being a pawn up I offered a draw which was accepted. If I was feeling better I would have definitely played for a win there.

The next day it was Simon's turn to be ill. He might have got some food poisoning, though we were not sure where from. This meant that I had to go to the chocolate shop on my own without Simon as the translator. I was a bit worried, as not many people speak English here and my German is non-existent. But it all worked out fine and I ended up with lots of chocolate that tasted totally out of this world!

On that day I played a game against a very annoying player. He often wasn't writing his moves and I was getting really fed up with telling him to do that before he pressed his clock. Once he didn't write about 5 moves on the row! The arbiter got involved at some point and one of the FIDE rules was brought to my attention. Apparently, if I make a move, my opponent doesn't have to write it down until he made his move and pressed the clock. Can anyone explain to me the reasoning behind having this rule? All chess players are taught to write moves as soon as they are made, doing it any other way gives an option to unsportsmanlike chess players to play stupid psychological games, especially in their opponent's time trouble. Of course, tricks like that shouldn't affect me, but I'm human after all. I lost the game after something like 107 moves - I bet he was exhausted from all that writing by then!

On the final note, I'd like to say big thank you to the organisers. The tournament was organised very well and all the hotel staff where we lived and played were very friendly. The organisers gave me a very nice present - big book about Switzerland with lots of photos. It will remind me of all the lovely cheese and chocolate that I've had here and many beautiful places that I'll have to see some other time. Simon and I are going to see Zurich tomorrow before the flight home and we hope it won't rain like today. I'm off to St. Petersburg on Wednesday and will update you on my chess from there.

Winterthur Tournament Part 1

Finally, I’ve found some time to update you about my progress in Switzerland. I couldn’t connect to the wireless from my laptop, but IM Simon Ansell managed to fix it for me, so I’m back to the world of internet! I’m not doing great - I have 0.5 out of 3 with two black losses. In the lost games I managed to get myself into slightly unfamiliar positions out of the opening and didn’t come up with suitable plans. Now I know better! Anyway, I’ll have plenty of opportunity to fight back with 6 rounds to go. Simon is doing very well, he has 2.5 out of 3 and playing on the top boards on the stage. Here is a photo of me taken by the tournament’s photographer while I didn’t even see him.

I have spoken to the two Russians in the tournament. FM Alexander Bakin from Chelyabinsk remembers me when I was small. He remembers my dad too, but that’s not a surprise – my dad has a striking personality which cannot be forgotten! Unfortunately, I can’t remember Alexander at all. However, I do remember GM Ulybin from Ekaterinburg who is the top seed in this tournament, because he was at GM Panchenko school and came to the Isle of Man tournament a few years ago.

Simon and I have explored Winterthur a bit but there isn’t much going on here. The trouble is that the games start at 1-1:30pm on most days (far too early compared to most tournaments), so it’s almost impossible to find time to go to Zurich or the mountains. I've found a chocolate shop on Sunday, but it was closed and I have to come back another day. I’m also spending more money than I hoped because food is rather expensive here. In a strange way, Winterthur reminds me of Chelyabinsk because it has trolleybuses. I don’t think I’ve seen trolleybuses outside of Russia before. We also found a big chess set in the town centre, so here I am playing even more chess!

My hotel looks like something from a 70s film and about 20 mins walk from the centre, but I suppose it has everything I need. The small flat-screen TV in my room looks rather odd in the surrounding 70s décor! One other slightly annoying thing is the clocks. There seem to be at least three near the hotel which I can hear ringing every quarter of an hour. And this morning some church bells were ringing for about 15 mins at 6am! I hope that won’t happen tomorrow as we’ll have two games, with the first one starting at 9am. I’ll need a good sleep!

A Small Step Forward

It's one month exactly before my sabbatical starts. I'm counting the days as you can see :)

It's been quiet on my blog as I played in the FIDE-rated Berks & Bucks congress over the bank holiday weekend. It was held in Twyford and I didn't think it would be too far to travel from London, but I ended up spending 4 hours on travelling each day for three days on a row. Probably not a wise idea as I also had to play two games of up to 5 hours each day! So I won't be doing that in the future and stay in B&B instead.

Here is me playing in the first round against Liam Varnam. We both ended up in a mad time scramble in a tactically complicated position where I lost in what looked like a better position for me.

Despite all the travelling, I managed to perform a little above my rating at 2055 and gained 3 rating points. Much better than in Kavala, so I'm making some progress. My ECF performance was 177, which is also above my current rating. Apart from losing in the first round I drew all the other five games. I wasn't trying to draw, it just so happened! The good thing is that before zeitnot I was probably losing in only one game out of six (need to analyse to confirm), but I didn't convert my advantage in some other games. So basic learning points for me: don't get short of time and learn to convert the advantage! It's not as simple as it sounds though...

The interesting fact is that by move 12 in the last round I had exactly the same Slav position as Simon Ansell in his round 3 Kavala game that he published here: http://www.gingergm.com/2009/08/05/bishops-part-one/#more-1040 But unlike Simon, I was on the black side of it. I remembered Simon's advice to put black's rook on 12...Re8 and keep my queen on d8-h4 diagonal to avoid getting mated like his opponent, so I easily equalised and drew the game. It was quite handy, as I was rather exhausted by then!

As you probably know, FIDE has just moved to bi-monthly publishing of ratings. On the September rating list and for the first time ever I've dropped below 2000 at 1981 because of my earlier poor performance in Kavala. That sort of hurts my pride - another reason to work hard at chess and get better!

Just as I expected

If I want to take chess seriously - I have to play it! So I went to my first international tournament in 3 years. Where to I thought? Why not go to the sunny Greece in the middle of summer, especially since a couple of my friends are going as well? Kavala Open turned out to be rather strong for my rusty chess and a bit hard to adjust to the time control (1:30hr for 40 moves followed by 30 min + 30sec after each move). After all, I've been mainly playing in the 4NCL in the past few years where they do give you a lot of time to think!

I started with 0 out of 4 - I think a real record for me! I had it all - blunders, time trouble, positional errors and trying too hard to win. I kept reminding myself that Shirov sometimes has very bad tournaments, so nothing to worry about, I'm just out of practice. However, after getting only half a point in another two rounds I was in tears! Time to call my parents. They are great motivators - I should have talked to them earlier. My dad reminded me how he got 0 out of 9 in Chelyabinsk town championship. I certainly hoped that wasn't going to be the case for me, so I finished with 2.5 out of 3! In those last rounds I even had time to walk around and observe some of the grandmasters' games which I found rather entertaining. One of those Russian GMs even looked kind of cute... :) Of course, it's important to switch off from chess once in a while if you don't want to become too crazy for the outside world! Though I should proabbly stick with chess to keep safe as I managed to scrape my knee while swimming in the warm Aegean Sea. At least I didn't drown, I suppose!

I still lost 30 rating points, but now I have to concentrate on improving chess rather than worrying about rating. It WILL rise if I train. During the tournament I certainly refreshed some of my openings knowledge and had some helpful advice from my friends IMs Simon Ansell and Adam Hunt. I also feel I had a valuable practical experience in Kavala and I'm sure I'll do better next time, especially since I now make sure that I analyse my games.

Just to prove that I was in Kavala, here is a token picture of me playing chess, taken by one of the tournament photographers (I'm in a blue top in the background):

And I did actually write a short tournament report for the ECF website. See it here if you like:
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=322:18th-kavala-international-open&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=50

Till next time!