THOUGHTS OF A CHESS ADDICT

On 25 Jan Kasparov was an invited guest to the TATA Steel GM tournament and held a press conference there. Here he discusses the "Contractgate" issue that was featured in the Sunday Times. Viewers can fast forward to 20:02 for his take on the matter.

It was business as usual but owing to some entries that came in after closing date causing some confusion, the tournament start was delayed by 20 minutes. Eventually we managed to close the gap in between rounds to finish at 6pm regardless. For the Seniors section we have Lee Qing Aun, Edwin Lam, Shawn Yong, Osric Mooi and Jimmy Ng while Alexander Chan, Marcus Chen and Jeremiah Xie were the top seeds in the Juniors section. A good mix of adults and children. The Thomson Chess Club Championship is unique in that we do not offer cash nor trophies as prizes, but used chess books. This is to entice the good habit of self-learning amongst chess-players. I vividly remember the days where chess instrruction was only available if you go to chess clubs and well-meaning seniors show you a thing or two if they chose to. Hence my fondness for collecting good chess books, which I now offer to the next generation so that they too can benefit. 8 prizes out of 40 participants per Section meant 16 happ...

Till date we have 82 registered players for the Championship, meaning as of 2014 January we have now 82 members of the Club. Welcome! This Sunday's event starts 10am and we do not impose zero-start. However, we are also not encouraging players to go on byes as we do not award points for byes requested prior to the competition. If the pairing during the competition indicates a bye for the player owing to odd number of participants that is fair. Parking is free on Sundays at the Shunfu Rd carpark for blocks 312-318. Many asked about the prizes. For those who've participated before, we do not give trophies. I am only giving away used chess books as prizes for both sections. Hence, during prize giving, we will announce the Champion first who gets first pick of the books laid on the table. They are from my private collection and should be worth something. Lastly, this tournament is not rated in any way. See you all Sunday!

I can only sum up last night's SCF meeting with training vendors under the caption above. The chess training community presently provides chess-trainers to schools and local individuals wanting chess lessons, comprising no more than 3-5 chess schools and several freelance trainers.   The SCF President opened the floor to stress that it is not in the SCF's interest to vie for the chess-training jobs in schools. This is mainly a commercial matter best left to supply and demand amongst the training community.  Key trust of the meeting was the news of chess in schools receiving a boost owing to the visit of Garry Kasparov. Garry  managed to convince some members of the cabinet to give chess a chance to develop young minds in the schools program.  Hence the relevant ministries are surveying the potential of expanding chess training in the schools, currently from the 30 to 40 (as indicated from the GEBIZ tenders) to larger numbers. In that regard, SCF wished to work with t...

Before I continue, best to read this first. I am revisiting this issue again after 3 years because once again I have to deal with it. 2 of my students have just enrolled in the National Junior Squad. I have not fixed what they should play as black, but I see disturbing signs such as this. PGN There were many such examples. My suspicion is that they were asked to play the Sicilian Defence during the first training day. As I have stated my viewpoint on choosing openings which should be, in Mark Dvoretsky's words : " Your choice of openings should be made primarily in accordance with your own tastes and style of play. This rule may sound obvious, but all the same it is quite easily broken,even by strong players" For those new in chess, Mark Dvoretsky is the world's top chess trainer. Having groomed world junior champions like Arthur Yusupov and Valery Chekhov, Sergei Dolmatov and Zvagintsev, I won't even dare challenge his views.   Forcing players to go against thei...

Last night was a good turnout, with about 14 players showing up. Glad to see undergrads like Kwok Foong, Gabriel lending support to spar with the younger boys. I am in the process of gathering players for the 1 hr standard league games starting next week, It will last till end March so any member can play anyone present so long as they've not met. I will try to place the Adults in one section if we can get about 5-6 committed players.  The juniors will start off on the endgame league instead. 1 famous endgame position will be played out and each player gets to play the position with both colours. Solutions will of course be revealed at the end of the league.  Hopefully with such activities we can persuade more to come and play for development or just fun without the gruel of competition. 

It is time to grow new seedlings for the next training cycle, so here are the new seedlings. Among the new students this year, like Peng Zheng and Chloe Soh (who have not played yet), the others took part in the New Generation Tournament at the Serangoon this year. I wanted to get a feel of their mannerisms at the board and so encouraged them to sign up.  Isaiah was usually quiet and sometimes very passive in making his moves. He started the tournament without recording his moves and soon got checkmated. After advising him to take his time to slow down, writing his moves and using the thought process he learnt, he soon settled down and started his wins. I was impressed when he ended his last game downing Hoo Jun Ming by winning his Queen early in the game and converted the game promptly after that. He managed to win a pawn endgame by Queening his pawn - a sign he's understood his lessons. The future holds bright for this student if he's able to grow in time by more diligent pra...

I decided to take a break by visiting  this tournament in Penang, having played at the 2nd edition back in 2006 with a friend. Penang has always been fond memories for me, besides chess, as the food and hospitality there is always a talking point. What's enjoyable about this trip was that I detached myself from the chess and focused on meeting friends and having great meals with them!  KK Chan and Hamid have been old friends of mine since the days we worked together at the Asian Teams back in Genting back in 1998. Together with Quah Seng Sun and Chuah Soon Peng, both from Penang, we made a beeline for the famous curry-fishead meal at LineClear in Little India (Penang). What a fabulous meal it was and we even joked who'd be taking the front seat after the meal :-) There were also others like Michael Yeap and Mr Goh who treated the Singaporeans to the famous Penang char kuay teow at Jalan Selamat. The McAlister area in Penang is certainly laden with the best Penang fare and ever...