Missellany (erk!)

When I have been able to, I have been working on various chess tactical excersises as much as possible as the main "preparation" for my participation in the upcoming 2005 Boris Kogan Memorial chess tournament. I would say this has been about 75 to 80 percent of my total workload so far. As I mentioned in a previous post, my friend David Guild and I have yet to meet OTB ("over the board") at a chess tournament, and there seems to be a strong possibility that we finally will at this tournament. Therefore, I wanted to have something up my sleeve to spring on David in case we did meet OTB. So I have been using the remaining "prep" time this past week or so in trying to devise something for the opening.

I have made my decision on what to play against David if I draw the White pieces, and I have a variation or two to try that he will likely not be familiar with. I should have decent chances in the opening against David as White.

I have not been too concerned if I draw Black, either. Despite my aforementioned knowledge that David is for the most part predictable in his opening choices to date, even if he did decide to deviate for our game I do not see any "major" deviation. I do not see him going for Bird's Opening (1. f4), or the "Orangutan" opening (1. b4) or some equally unusual or uncommon opening as White. However, David could decide on 1. c4, leading to the English Opening. In addition, this opening is rife with transpositional possibilities. Therefore, I felt the need to be somewhat prepared for this possibility. The few times I have encountered the English, I have always played what is known as the Symmetrical Variation. In other words, up to a point, Black just apes White's moves. However, there comes a point where a deviation will occur...since White has the advantage of "first move", then White will be the likely one to make a move that Black cannot just imitate without being at a disadvantage...in fact, the move itself may be very bad for Black. In this instance with David, I wanted to find an early deviation made first by Black that would produce (with ideally best play by both sides) at least an equal game for Black. I have come up with a couple of candidates that I am going to analyze with Joseph Frady at the chess club meeting tonight. Between him and my new Fritz 8.0 chess program, we should be able to find a promising line to work with. Joseph really enjoys going over the myriad possibilities of deviating from normal opening lines, as do I...so it will at least be fun...until we finish the evening off by playing some blitz. Joseph has been recently crushing me at games under five minutes. Blargh! Back to tactics!

The funny thing is that if either David or myself (or even both of us) do reasonably well at the tournament (i.e. win all of our games), we may also end up having to play Joseph, as he has told me that (for once) he is "playing down" into our section for this tournament. As he is nearly at the rating cap, he will be the highest or one of the highest-rated players in the section. Unlike David, I have a slightly more extensive opening repertoire. I really don't see Joseph investing so much time in opening preparation in this tournament. It would not make sense. As a "semi-student" of mine, I have already advised him that in this tournament he should just stick with practicing tactics and that should get him through all of his games. Odds are he will finish near the top of his section already. Against a player closer to his rating, tactics will still decide the game...here it will be more of who makes a mistake last, so Joseph needs to stay sharp and be patient and wait for his opponents to slip up where he can then pounce on them. Joseph is sixteen, but only started playing competative chess (at my urging) this past year...he is a great "natural" player with strong tactical abilities, but still makes a lot of "rookie" mistakes that I have been trying to help him with. He has a lot of potential if he continues working at it. That is yet another reason why I need to keep working on tactics...I will need it if I come across Joseph OTB!

It appears that after ten rounds the FIDE World Chess Championship being held in San Luis, Argentina is firmly in the grasp of Vesalin Topalov of Bulgaria. He needs to only draw (i.e. make sure he does not lose) his remaining games and he will win the title. There is a very interesting point to note, and that is when Topalov wins the World Championship, Bulgaria will be the home country of three World Chess Champions:

* World Women's Champion: GM Antoeneta Stefanova (2005 winner, defending her title in March, 2006)

* World Senior Champion: GM L. Spassov (recently won this title)

* World Champion: GM Vesalin Topalov (2006 champion)

I was personally rooting for Judit Polgar and Alexander Morozevitch, but this has not been their tournament. "Moro" has suddenly hit his stride and is now on a "hot" streak with three straight wins followed by a hard-fought draw with the Black pieces against Topalov, but too little too late. For poor Judit, this has got to be the worst tournament performance of her career. But you have to give her credit, she is still fighting in every game. Because of this, I think that she will not be in the cellar when the tournament ends. Then it will be time for her to take a rest, spend time with her family (including her now-toddler son), and regroup.

The lineup for the "A" Group of the 2006 Corus Chess Tournament at Wijk ann Zee, Netherlands has now been announced at their official site. The tournament will be held as usual in January, from the 13th to the 29th.

Per Mig Greengard on his "Daily Dirt" column at his ChessNinja website: "A powerhouse group as always. Only current top tenners not there are Svidler and Polgar. Aronian and Bacrot get their elite credentials checked. Karjakin gets to show if he's ready for prime time. Top-rated American Gata Kamsky will play in his first supertournament in ten years. He was rock-solid in the Continental Championship a few months ago and will have to kick it up another notch here. An even score in this crowd would be a major achievement.

A Group: Topalov, Anand, Leko, Ivanchuk, Kramnik, Bacrot, Aronian, Adams, Gelfand, Tiviakov, Sokolov, Kamsky, Karjakin, van Wely. Nothing about the B and C groups yet. The B group has steadily become a very strong and interesting tournament in its own right. After his amazing play in San Luis (yes, I know the tournament is still going), will anyone pick against Topalov until he shows he's human?"

Indeed, young Sergey Karjakin will get to play with the "big boys". This will be the strongest event he has ever played in. He has this opportunity because of his impressive win in the "B" Group last year. Corus always invites the "B" Group winner back as part of the "A" group the following year. A strong finish here will make many take notice. I happen to largely agree with GM Nigel Short, who has gone as far as saying (indirectly) that Sergey is a "future world champion". I feel that at his current rate of development he will most definately be a top contender in about ten to fifteen years.

I am also excited for Gata Kamsky, the current top-rated player in the USA. I am surprised he was invited to play in the "A" group so soon after his return to competative chess. I just hope that he does as Mig Greengard says and "kicks it up a notch", as I think that he is still a bit rusty. If he at least plays solidly, he should have a respectable showing in the tournament, but IMHO at this level of competition relying on "solid" play alone will not WIN chess tournaments!
I am rather peeved that Hikaru Nakamura has not been invited to play, but that may be premature, as "B" and "C" Group lineups have yet to be announced. I think that young Hikaru is good enough to play in "B" Group and at least hold his own, but we will have to see. Stay tuned!

Through The Looking Glass...Not!!

The most bizarre thing happened to me at work yesterday.

I have been wearing my eyeglasses for the past few weeks instead of my contact lenses to give my eyes a bit of a break, and late yesterday afternoon I had taken them off to clean the lenses a bit...nothing out of the ordinary, right?

Well, in the midst of cleaning them, the frames just suddenly snapped in two! What's worse, it is not repairable...the frames are made of metal, and it just sheared right off...and the location of the break, on the bridge but very close to the left lens frame, and due to the curvature of the bridge, makes it impossible to "tape up" even temporarily.

So, here I was, less than thirty minutes before I was to go home from work, and I was going to be blind! I ended up driving home with one hand on the steering wheel, and one hand holding the opposite side half of the frame up to my eye so that I could at least see with one eye! I made it home OK! I went ahead and put a fresh pair of contact lenses in immediately afterward.

I had already noted that the last time I had worn my eyeglasses in between contact lens sessions that the prescription on them, being older than the contact lenses, was also weaker. I had more trouble focusing clearly on distant objects while driving (severely nearsighted I am...just about legally blind). This time around, the eye strain had caused some whopper headaches for several days until I got used to the glasses again.

The irony in all this is that as a result of all this I had decided it was time to get new eyeglasses...new prescription, new frames, the works. However, I saw no sense in doing this if I thought I might soon try the new Lasik laser eye surgery in the not-so-distant future. Now that I don't have a pair of eyeglasses in reserve, I am in a bit of a bind? Do I risk not having them in reserve and go without in order to try and have the Lasik procedure done at as yet undetermined time in the (hopefully) not-so-distant future...or do I just suck up and trash that notion indefinately and get the eyeglasses now? Although eyeglasses are still a lot less money than Lasik surgery, it would be a long-term savings, and as it is, even eyeglasses, new frames plus new lenses, are not cheap anyway. It isn't as if I had a lot of available money lying around to pay for any of this anyway.

On the chess front, the 2005 FIDE World Chess Championship being held in San Luis, Argentina is now at the halfway point, and Vesalin Topalov of Bulgaria has just been steamrolling everyone he encounters over the board, going undefeated with but one draw and a score of 6.5/7.0, a full two points ahead of the pack! Unless something equally radical happens and he nose-dives, "Toppy" should have the WCC in the bag. If he keeps up this pace, he can easily break some records...best rating performance ever in a tournament (already over 3000 ELO) and would also likely not take the top rating spot in active FIDE ratings afterward, but also likely overtake Garry Kasparov's last rating of 2812 (highest-ever on record up until now)...although Garry is now retired from chess, he will remain active on the rating list for a little while longer. Maybe this would be enough to bring him out of retirement? Ironically, Topalov was the the last opponent Kasparov had right before he retired, and he also happened to lose that game!