Historic chess game played at Ballarat tournament over the weekend just gone. Round 2, board 5 saw 9 year old Reyaansh Chakrabarty become the youngest Australian, and 8th youngest ever, to beat a Grandmaster in a long, classical, game of chess.
Tasmanian Chess Championship Day Two saw me win two games and draw one to take the lead by half a point from my friend. We play tomorrow morning and that result will go a long way to deciding the title.
Today is the last day of the chess site chess24. It has been the premier chess event broadcasting site for the past 5+ years.
While websites come and go, it is sad that this one was swallowed by the chess behemoth, chess.com which is trying to dominate the online chess world, much like meta is trying to dominate the online social media world.
Catching up with the chess after having family here for the past couple weeks.
What a tournament Wijk aan Zee is turning out to be this year. With one round left, five players are equal first, and two just a half point behind. It's going to be an amazing finish today. I'll catch up looking at some games today.
I'm not passing judgement, but FIDE, the World chess governing body has announced that the Candidates Tournaments (final qualifying stage of the World Championship) will have different time controls for the Open and Women's only events, the women's tournament having shorter time controls.
And although the events are being held concurrently, and both are final stage eliminations for the respective World Championships, the Women's only event offers half the prize fund than the Open event does.
The issue of whether there should be separate events is another thing...
The chess world is in a funny spot at the moment. We have the final qualifying tournament for the World Championship coming up in April and it should be making all chess fans drool at the prospect. But without Carlsen, the World number 1, the World Championship seems like just another event rather than anything special. And that belittles the Candidates tournament in April.
Two players with something to prove this year will be Wesley So and Anish Giri who missed out at the last moment on Candidates places rather unluckily. In fact, many believe they would have strengthened the tournament with their participation.
Giri currently leads the Tata Steel super tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands ahead of World Champion Ding, and five of the players who will take part in the Candidates event.
Looks like we have a new Australian Chess Champion. Rishi Sardana drew his game today, but his nearest competitor, Frederick Lichfield, lost which leaves an unassailable 1.5 point gap with only one game to go.
Sardana has dominated the event and is a worthy winner.
Thanks to @lichess for providing the broadcast of the event.
Rishi Sardana beats Stephen Solomon to all but wrap up his first national title. He is a point clear with two rounds left, and has played all his nearest rivals. Only FM Frederick Lichfield can overtake him and they have already played. A great effort by the young Indian born International Master!
Australian Chess Championship looking very good for Rishi Sardana now. He is a point clear with just three rounds to go, after drawing with the dangerous second seed Trevor Tao. He now has another danger game against ex champion Stephen Solomon, though Solo has not been in the best of form over the last 6 months.
Rest day at the Australian Chess Championship today. Rishi Sardana is clear first scoring a fantastic 5.5/6 in week 1. Sammy Asaka is having an excellent tournament sitting in second on 4.5, and then comes a big group on 4, including Gary Lane who has worked his way back into contention.
Rishi Sardana is finally halted at the Australian Chess Championship. FM Frederick Lichfield is having an excellent tournament and holds Sardana to a draw, though he had good winning chances, so the top seed would have been happy to escape with a draw in the end.
Australian Chess Championship starts today. I qualified to play, but couldn't make it due to other commitments. Oh well, maybe next time. Live games are being shown on @lichess
Well it's an open field. None of Australia's top 5 players are competing, and no Grand Masters. When I last played there were 3 GMs and a bunch of strong IMs, a couple who would become GMs.
In round 1, the only seed to lose was IM Gary Lane, a previous winner of the event. It's too early discount Gary yet but he'll have to work hard to catch up.
Won by timeout in the sloppiest weirdest game of wtf just happened Ive played in a while. I need a cigarette. If this had been I shag I'd have been properly rogered.
This was sloppy and brutal and the only reason I scraped by was slightly better time management. But that's the fun thing about rapid chess; you're not just playing an opponent, you're playing a clock.
5 minutes of this and I have enough adrenaline pumping for the rest of the morning, no caffeine necessary.
I thought this was kinda risky just leaving my king like that... if they hadnt taken my pawn fxe4 it could've gone differently. But they should never have permitted my queen to hang out in their territory the whole game... once rook on 7th it was game over.