Simon Lyall's Blog

Over Queen’s birthday weekend ( May 30th – June 1st ) I played in the Waitakere Licensing Trust Open. The tournament is held in Lincoln Road in West Auckland which is a dreary area of light industrial buildings, big-box retailers, fast-food and everything else that West Auckland prides itself on. I bought some breakfast at a small bakery along the road and when I mentioned that the shop next door had been broken into I was told that it was the 8th time that month. However this post is about the chess rather than urban design.

The event itself consisted of an A,B,C and Junior tournament with approx 32, 22, 25 and 33 players in each. I successfully applied to get into the “B” on my recent performance tournament even though it was for 1400-1700 rated players and I’m currently on 1274 so I was the lowest rated player in my grade.

Game 1 – White vs Dean Zhao ( 1555 ) – Sicilian c3

I had a fairly good opening, missed a couple of moves but by move 12 I had an advantage and black was very much pushed back and tied up. However I couldn’t find the best continuation and  my opponent managed to swap off my attacking pieces and then get a little ahead in the endgame. He then used an advantage of a couple of pawns to beat me. So I was very much outplayed.

Game 2 – Black vs Andrew Michael ( 1502 ) – Slav

A pretty even game for the first 20 moves or so. White was pushing a bit but no major fireworks. After that I slowly edged the position in my favour and threatened to win some material around move 28 and got a rook for a bishop and 2 pawns. However in a series of bad moves I missed a discovered check (lost my Knight) , the reply that would have won back the material and a few moves later ( after I was two rooks against a rook and two minor pieces) a chance to get a rook and a bishop for a rook. Finally I blundered into a fork and lost a rook and resigned. I was really disappointed with my play here, my errors were under time trouble (that was my fault) but I was still ahead and lost the game.

So after the first day I was on zero points and not very happy.

Game 3 – Black vs Ron Collingwood ( 1533 ) -  Slav

Another Slav although this transposed in so wasn’t very tidy. I was also worried about repeating some bits I didn’t like in the last game. White got a nice attack down the C file with both his rooks which had me in a bit of trouble, after he transferred his attack to down the F file I was lucky and was able to win an exchange by threatening mate. With two rooks vs a rook and a bishop and 6 pawns each I then got my rook behind his pawns, swapped off a rook and then slowly (50 moves) and carefully took his pawns until I had a king and 5 pawns against a king and he eventually resigned. My first win cheered me up.

Game 4 – White vs John Francis ( 1560 ) – c3 Sicilian / Advance French

As has happens sometimes my c3 Sicilian transposed into a Advanced-French. My 8 Bg5 and 9. Nh4 were not a good combo though and black punished me with a kingside pawn advance.  However I pushed back and he retreated which was not the best line. After 25 moves we had just a rook and two minor pieces each plus a solid wedge of pawns in the centre and queenside. A miscalculation on my part allowed him to get a bishop behind me which won a pawn but after swaps we were left with a drawn position and agreed to a draw.

I was a lot happier that night since I was on 1.5 points and only needed a little over 1 to play to my rating.

Game 5 – Black vs Brett Rider (1649) – Centre game / Danish Gambit

An unusual opening here ( 1. e4 e5  2. d4 exd4 3. Bb4 Nc6 4. c3 dxc3 5. Nxc3 Bb4 6. Nd2 Nf6 )  which my opponent sacrificed a pawn for not a lot of compensation. However I feel into a trap and white gained a pawn an an attack a few moves later. I managed to defend fairly well and things even up before white miscalculated an attack and game up a rook for three pawns. However he still had a strong attack didn’t try a perpetual check and continued to attack. I missed a counter attack and eventually made a mistake in a cramped position which resulted in me losing my queen and a pawn for a rook. I was unable to defend after that and lost.

Game 6 – White vs Helen Courtney ( 1393 ) – Scotch

My opponent had trouble with the opening and used a lot of her time and made a couple of incorrect moves, so I was a bit ahead after about 10 moves and the queens and one knight were gone.  After black start a pawn push against my queenside-castled king a saw a trick which backfired when she found the best reply. I then spent over 20 minutes working out what to do but found the best move and my opponent didn’t press her attack so I was a little lucky. A few messy moves later during which we both miscalculated some tactical tricks I emerged a bishop ahead and soon afterwards an additional rook ahead when a trick paid off. A few moves later I won on time.

Overall I am fairly happy with my performance although disappointed a couple of the games, especially Game 2. I played to a 1465 rating which is almost 200 above what I am on but probably close to my “real” ability. Definite room for improvement for improvement in my endgames ( openings were not too bad) and time control and moving under time pressure. Probably a few more actual online games will help and well as keeping up the study. I’m still missing simply tactics so plenty of room there.

See the previous post for background and first few games.

One thing I noticed about central Wellington is that nowhere at all does a show sell any sort of can or bottle of soft-drink for less than $2.50 , I suspect it’s some sort of cartel of shopkeepers agreeing not to compete on the price. Anyway back to the chess..

Game 5 – White vs Lawrence Farrington ( 1603 ) – French – advance variation

Looking at this later I was probably a bit better off during the game than I thought I was at the time. I got a little tied up on the Queen side and black play c4, Bd7 and threat of Nb3. I spent a bit of time shuffling around pieces to deal with that and in the meantime black attacked on the Kingside. After some swaps of material he tried a king side rook attack but after a moved my king over and we swapped down to a King, Rook and 7 pawns each we agreed on a draw since his king side attack was stuck. However looking at it in the computer it looks like I could have started a Quuenside push which would have been very hard to stop. Still I was happy with the result at the time especially against a stronger player.

Game 6 – White vs Simon Ward ( 1717 ) – Sicilian Alapin with 2 ..d5

This was one of the first times I’ve played this opening in a competitive game and I managed to follow the right moves until a deviated on move eight. I was fairly even after a few swaps ( 2R+B+N+6P each ) but then wasted some time trying a king side attack with a rook along the 5th rank. There was then a bit of heavy manoeuvring in the centre with my opponent getting ahead and me into trouble. before things swung a bit my way and things were probably a draw with scatted pawns and a minor piece each. However I looked at my clock and it had run out ( either I forgot to press it or it hadn’t registered the press) and I had lost. I was pretty disappointed since I almost certainly had a draw against a higher rated opponent.

That night ( Easter Sunday) we went to a little middle-eastern sort of place. Nice enough but a bit short of menu options due to the weekend. We also had a coffee and cake afterwards.

Game 7 was a 1 point bye for me which put me on 3 points ( 2 draws, 1 win , 1 bye and 3 losses )

Game 8 – Black against Bill Forster ( 1953 ) – Petrov 3 Nights

My opponent played a weak move in the opening but I didn’t really take advantage of it and things were fairly even until I got a pawn up around move 13 and then picked up another fending off a queenside attack although I missed a move at the end which would have left me another pawn better. After a few swaps we each had 3 pawns on the king side plus a rook and I had a extra “b” pawn. However I blundered and let my opponent take a couple of my pawns for nothing. I was pretty lost when my opponent totally blundered and gave me a rook for nothing! and then resigned a few moves later.

So overall in my 7 actually games I got 3 points against an average strength of 1788 and played to a rating of 1731 or 457 points above my actual rating. I definitely had a bit of luck in the last game though. My 4 points for the tournament but me in the middle of the field at 14-equal and half a point behind the “C grade” winners.

Overall I was fairly happen with my tournament. I still have lots of room to improve in several aspects of my game but being able to play okay games against 1600-1900 players shows that getting to that sort of rating is not beyond my grasp.

As far as the tournament itself I liked the venue but can’t say I was too impressed with the organisation at times. The full official results still don’t appear to be up but I did a little post to the Auckland Chess Centre website summarising the results of the ACC players.

Over Easter 2009 I went to the North island Chess Championship in Wellington. The event was 8 games over 4 days ( Friday to Monday ) and a single Swiss draw of 31 players. The field was fairly strong with the top 7 players in the field being in the top 20 in New Zealand. I was ranked down the bottom at 28th on a 1274 rating.

I took Thursday off and flew down first thing with my partner. During Thursday we wandered around Wellington ( Checking the buses to the venue ) went to some shops and went to the Terracotta Warriors of Qin which was pretty good. That evening I went to Wellington Thursday Night Curry.

On Friday the games started. Things were a little disorganised ( which the Wellington players joked about ) but we eventually got goine. Games were at 9:30am and 2:30pm each day.

Game 1. Black vs Ross Jackson ( 1972 ) – Exchange Slav

I was fairly equal for most of the game and eventually got an endgame where material was even but I was much better and was winning. However I wasn’t sure how to win so I offered my opponent a draw which he accepted.

Game 2 White vs Nathan Goodhue ( 1897 ) – Double fianchetto opening by Black

The unusual opening by black confused me quite a bit and I was in a bit of trouble. The game was fairly even but after we swapped off most of the pieces I played the endgame badly and ended up losing.

Unfortunately my girlfriend picked up a sour throat / cough in Wellington so was stuck in bed most of the weekend, we went to one of the Malaysian places near Cuba St for dinner though. It was fairly nice.

Game 3 Black vs Han Gao ( 1268 ) - Petrov’s Defence – Cochran’s Gambit

I got into a bit of trouble at the start. Cochran’s Gambit gave my opponent a pretty good attack and since I didn’t defend properly I was even but very low on time. However it turned out my clock was setup wrong ( see organisation problems above ) so I got an extra 15 minutes added to my time. I was able to win an endgame with bishop and 5 pawns vs 8 and 8 pawns.

Game 4 Black vs Quentin Johnson ( 2109 ) – Slav

I made a mistake in the opening which put be on the back foot pretty quickly. I made lots of little mistakes after that and my opponent’s position just got better and better until my position was completely lost and I resigned

That night went out to Indian Malaysian with some friends followed by some tea from and Asian tea place ( which is strangely much less asian than the ones in Wellington). [ to be continued ]

As part of my chess goal for 2009 I’m am working on entering as many tournaments as possible. My first one was a 6 round 25+5 at The Manukau Institute of Technology on the Saturday after Waitangi Day. The venue is close to the Otara Markets so my partner dropped me off and went shopping and I caught a rid back into town afterwards.

The tournament was divided into 4 grades ( A-C plus a Junior under 14 years and under 1300 rating ) with  97 entries fairly evenly divided into each. In the previous tournament I went into C grade ( 1400 and below ) but I decided to go up a grade into the 1400-1700 grade ( my rating is 1314 but I’m a little underrated) since I would get better games, have a better chance to increase my rating and also be upstairs with the “adults” rather than downstairs in the same room as the noisy juniors (and their parents).

Since the time control is fairly short and I forgot to bring a pen I only recorded part of two of my games.

1. I was white against Phillip Logo (1568) , ended up a bit behind and eventually lost
2. I was Black against William Li (1371) and was going fairly even until he missed a pin at the end of an exchange I I ended up a Bishop ahead.
3. White against Philip Mukkattu (1298) who is a bit underrated, this was fairly even and I was a pawn up towards the end of the middle game. However after an endgame with a Queen and a bunch of pawns each Phillip captured more of my pawns before forcing a queen swap and won.
4. Black against Vivian Smith (1582), I played pretty weak here, got myself all cramped up and made weak moves and eventually Vivian ended up a rook ahead and I resigned.
5. White against Gary Judkins (1409) was interesting, I ended up with an interesting opening and got a little ahead with a good attack on the king side. He then gave me an opening to attack and after I thought about it for something like 15 minutes I did with the e-pawn and then sacked my bishop against h6 for a very strong attack. He got out of the attack but ended up behind in material and eventually I finished him off with only a little time on my clock.
6. Black against Thomas Gothorp (1296), I was going okay but he made a strong queen side attack which I didn’t defend well against and he got ahead. However he captured in the wrong order so we ended up with a fairly even endgame. However he made a blunder and I got a piece ahead and won after a few close calls.

Overall I ended up getting 3/6 or 50% and playing to a 1420 or around 100 points over my current ranking and playing okay in every game except the one against Vivian Smith. Still I need a lot more practice to get my rating and ability over the 1700 mark.

The tournament itself was pretty good though, nearly 100 players and nice surroundings makes it a good start to the year and the A-grade especially was quite strong.

It’s around 11 months since I started playing chess again so I thought I’d do a bit of a review and some goals for 2009.

I’ve found I enjoy playing quite a bit both at the club, tournaments and online as well as doing study both by myself and with others. So I’m definitely going to keep going this year.

In the last rating list my rapid rating went from 1276 to 1314 but my normal rating only went from 1261 to 1274. The main reason for this is that I am still losing the odd game to very low ranked players though carelessness. My actual rating is probably closer to 1400 in both rapid and normal going against my results against players in the 1400-1500 level.

Goals for 2009

1. Get my Rating to over 1700
2. Play in NZ champs in early 2010 and do well in under-2000 grade.

1. Keep playing at the Club
2. Enter as many tournaments as possible.
3. Play in over-1400 grades when able
4. Train 10-20 hours per week
5. Keep going to fortnightly coaching

1. 10-20 hours
2. 500 problems on tactics server ( 4 hours )
3. 20 Blitz games on FICS each week ( 4 hours )
4. 10 Standard games on FICS each week ( 4 hours )
5. Study Openings repertoire and practice it ( 4 hours )
6. Play though annotated games ( 4 hours )

I’m using a little area in the spare room going as a study space. For a computer I’m just going to use my Eee ( with external keyboard, screen and mouse ) but keep it off the network most of the time to cut the urge to browse. But for now just a board and a few books but thats enough for a start.

After my dumb loss in round 1 I was being extra careful the on Saturday in rounds 2 and 3.

In round 2 I was white against William Zhang. I was playing a little passively but got a bit ahead before my opponent my an error on move 22 I I won the exchange (  I won a rook for a bishop ) and then a few moves later lost a Knight. After that it was just a case of cleaning up.

Round 3 was against a Monish Santhosh who is a young guy ( 7 I think ) playing in his first tournament ( he had a bye in one round for a point which is why he got matched with me ). Easy win although I did look at a position for a whole two minutes before I noticed my Queen was en prise.

Round 4 and 5 were on the Sunday.

First up I had white against Stefan Kolev. Stephan was on a provision 1200 rating but is probably a little above that. I was a little disappointed with this game, I lost a pawn early on and gradually got a worse position by making inaccurate moves. Eventually my opponent had a passed pawn on a2 which completely tied me up and allowed him to capture a bunch of my King side pawns until he had a won endgame and I resigned.

Round 5 was against George Trundle and was short but fairly interesting. White played a sort of Stonewall Attack although he didn’t really get a chance to develop it correctly. He brought out his queen a little early and I ended up winning a Knight when the queens were swapped off. I was then in quite a cramped position while he pushed up some pawns and made a queenside attack. However after he made an error and allowed me to swap off some of his attacking pieces he decided that his attack had run out of steam and resigned.

So after 5 rounds I was now 3 wins and 2 losses out of 5 games. Unfortuneately all my games had been against players rated lower than my current rating ( let alone what I hoped to be on) so it didn’t look like I was going to lose ratings from the tournament.

Over Labour Weekend I was in the Merv Morrison Chess Tournament at my local club, The Auckland Chess Centre. I was in the under 1700 rating division. I thought I’d post a little about it. It also gives me the excuse to test the Chess by Blog plugin for wordpress.

The Tournament was 6 rounds over 4 days ( 1 game Friday evening at 18:30, then 2 games at 09:30 and 16:00 on Saturday and Sunday plus one game at 09:30 on Monday) with 90 minutes for each player plus an additional 1 minute added for each move.

There were two divisions, a over-1700 ( NZCF rating points ) with 11 players and an under-1700 with 21 players.

The New Zealand ratings are due our at the start of November so I was hoping for a good result to push up my rating a little. I’m currently at 1261 by I’m probably playing closer to 1400.

My first game was against Bella Qian, who has a 650 rating against my 1260 rating, which means I should beat her 90-something percent of the time. However I wasn’t being careful ( silly really considering the fairly long time control ) and completely blew the game. You can follow the game below and my comments below.

[Event "Merv Morrison 2008, under 1700"]
[Site "Auckland Chess Centre"]
[Date "2008-10-24"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Bella Qian"]
[WhiteElo "646"]
[Black "Simon Lyall"]
[BlackElo "1261"]
[Result "1-0"]
[JsCom "startply 0"]

  1.      e4      e5
  2.     Nf3     Nc6
  3.     Bc4     Bc5 
  4.     Nc3     Nf6
  5.      d3     O-O
  6.     Bg5     d6
                { I probably should have played Be7 here to prevent the bad pawn structure after Bxf6 and gxf6 }
  7.      h3     a6
                { Na5 was a better way of attacking the Bishop on c4 }
  8.     Nd5      b5
  9.     Bb3     Nd4
                 { This is a bad idea, I should be swapping this Knight for the Bishop , not White's inactive Knight }
 10.    Nxd4    Bxd4
 11.   Nxf6+
 11.     ...    gxf6
 12.     Bh6     Re8
                { I'm down but 12 ... Bxb2 13 ... Bc3+ at least gets a pawn and forces White's King to move }
 13.      c3     Bb6
 14.     Qh5
 14.     ...     Be6
                { This move loses the game, The rest is a force mate by white }
 15.    Bxe6     Kh8
 16.    Qxf7     Rg8
 17.     Bf5     Rg6
 18.    Bxg6     Qg8
 19.    Qxf6+  
                { and I resign, Mate next move }
       1-0 
 

In the past this blog has been mostly a tech orientated one with around 2/3s of the posts I make being about computers and the Internet. With the new software I’ve decided to split things a little so I can post on some other subjects. Wordpress makes it fairly easy to provide alternative feeds on a per-category basis so I’ve split things as follows:

1. Tech is anything Computer or Internet related, benchmark here is stuff that I think people on somewhere like planet.linux.org.au might be interested in. ( I’ve asked the maintainers of that planet to switch their feed to this)
2. Chess is chess related stuff
3. Misc is general stuff not in the above two categories like what I did last week, posts on random junk etc, the sort of stuff random family and stalkers might be interested in.
4. Everything just covers every post andis what the old RSS feeds redirects to.

I spent a couple of ours doing a mock up of a possible new website ( sorry not online) for the Auckland Chess Centre (link is to the old site) using wordpress.

I must say I was fairly impressed the 5 minute install really does only take about 5 minutes and everything else is pretty easy. The only hard bit was finding a good theme since most of those out there are blog based rather than designed for fixed websites but I ended up picking the deLight theme which looks okay.

Overall I’m pretty impressed with Wordpress and it took just a couple of hours of playing around to get the site to 95% of what I want. Depending on the feedback I might be able to go live in a few days.

Throughly recommended for small sites. END

As usual I’m a bit behind in stuff but the excuse this time is that around 6 months ago I started playing chess competitively again ( previously was when I was still at school) so I’ve been spending a bit of time at it. Right now it involves going to the club ( site being redone soon) one evening a week, the odd tournament and some study and practice on sites like this .

I’m now ranked 332nd= in the country but I think with a bit of work I could be in the top 200 in a few months if I keep at it.

Other stuff that is happening is that a proposal for a Sysadmin Miniconf has been submitted to Linux.conf.au 2009 in Hobart. More details to come.

Some links:

A good paper at Usenix 2008 on Handling Flash Crowds from your Garage PDF version with the diagrams .

…and an interesting article on How long will we be trapped in this mobile hell hole? panders to my dislike of mobile applications.

And finally a Watchmen Trailer / Heroes Mashup video: