Chess SA seeks managers and coaches

We have just received the following documents from Marcelle Agulhas, the General Secretary of Chess South Africa. The closing date for all applications is Sunday 15th March.

1.  2015 Team Managers Application Form for International Tournaments.

2.  2015 Team Coaches Application Form for International Tournaments.

The documents contain a list of ten international events in 2015 where South African chess players can be expected to participate. This is an astonishing number of events when you consider that Chess SA is currently in arrears with FIDE. Some amounts have allegedly been outstanding since 2011.

In early December 2014, FIDE published a notice that Federations more than 6 months in arrears would have services suspended and players from those Federations would not be able to take part in any FIDE rated events. FIDE then published the names of the Federations affected on its website:

Federations in Arrears

Wednesday, 31 December 2014 09:36

In accordance with decisions of Presidential Board in Sochi, FIDE publishes the list of Federation in Arrears. Until the arrears have been paid off, players from these Federations cannot participate in any FIDE events that are under the aegis of a) the World Championship & Olympiad Commission or Events Commission, b) Continental competitions that provide qualifiers to any of the aforesaid competitions. The list will be regularly updated. (South Africa was one of the countries listed.)

World Youth - under 18 team

Kenyon Padayachee scored 5 pts

Randall Varden scored 4 pts

World Youth - under 16 team

Kyran Appanna scored 4 pts

Caitlin Chetty scored 4 pts

Duncan Podmore scored 4 pts

Genevieve Pillay scored 4.5 pts

Keyana Padayachee scored 4.5 pts

Saiyuri Naidoo scored 5 pts

Yashkar Balmakhun scored 4 pts

World Youth - under 14 team

Ananta Reddy scored 4 pts

Liam Moodley scored 4.5 pts

Shivar Gopaulsingh scored 5.5 pts

Tarendra Moodley scored 4 pts

World Youth - under 12 team

Aaron Jude Naidu scored 3.5 points

Dayaan Parthiephal scored 4.5 pts

Chad Millard scored 4.5 pts

Cailin Chetty scored 5 pts

Santham Moodley scored 4 pts

Sachin Reddy scored 4 pts

Rahul Heeralall scored 3.5 pts

Naseem Ahmed Essa scored 5.5 pts

Mayilan Chetty scored 4 pts

Eli-Jordan Govender scored 4 pts

World Youth - under 10 team

Joshua Bezuidenhout scored 5 pts

Jaedon Naidu scored 4.5 pts

Priyasha Naidoo scored 5 pts

World Youth - under 8 team

Aarti Datharam scored 5.5 pts

Charlotte Millard scored 6 pts

World Youth - stalemate discussion

There has been some discussion on the ChessBase website about the unfairness of stalemate resulting in a draw. I cannot agree with that sentiment. Stalemate should remain a draw! Centuries of endgame theory would be overturned if stalemate was not a draw, as the basic position of K+P versus K with the defending King in front of the pawn would no longer be drawn.

Consider the following diagram, from round 8 of the World Youth under 14 boys, with White to move. White has been defending a Bishop ending a pawn down, and has just swapped the dark squared Bishops, because he knows the pawn ending is drawn:

This is drawn because of the variations 1.Kc4 b3 2.axb3 axb3 3.Kxb3 Ke5 4.Kc4 Kf4 5.Kd5! f5 6.Ke6 swapping all the pawns, or else 4... f5 5.Kd3 Kf4 6.Ke2 Kg3 7.f4 Kxf4 8.Kf2 is a book draw, because of stalemate at the end. Yes, I know that 7.Ke3 also works.

Stalemate usually occurs through carelessness, or through a very clever defence. I saw an example of each case in round 8. In a game on one of the lower boards they had K+R vs K. The final position was wKh1 vs bKh3, with bRg3 causing a stalemate draw. That was extremely careless.

Here is an example of a very clever defence, with Black to move:

Here Black played 1... Re8 threatening Rh8# so 2.Qc7+ is forced, met by 2... Kg6 renewing the mate threat. However, after 2... Kg6 we see that the Kh4 has no legal moves, so White can sacrifice his Queen to achieve stalemate. Unfortunately White blundered and played 3.Qh7+?? Kxh7 4.Kh5 Re1 and had to resign.

Notice that any one of 3.Qb8, 3.Qc8 or 3.Qd8 would be a very clever defence to the mate threat! For example, 3.Qc8! Kf7 (3... Rxc8 is stalemate) 4.Qb7+ Kg6 5.Qxe4+ Rxe4 results in a pretty stalemate.

World Youth - at the half-way mark

So far we have completed 6 of the 11 rounds, with today being a welcome rest day for the players and officials. At the half-way mark, our leading KZN player is Shivar Gopaulsingh (from Chatsworth) who is playing in the under 14 boys section. Shivar reached 3.5 points from 6 games with a win over Endre Machlik, rated 1902 (from Norway). In the Durban GM open, being held alongside the World Youth championships, we have 5 players on 3 out of 6, namely Qobo, Subke, Xulu, Moodley and Zuma. I will give some photos and games from the boys under 14 section, where I am an arbiter.

Birds eye view of boards 11 to 49 in the under 14 boys section

Kevin Schroeder (2250) from Germany, he lost this Bishop ending
 in round 6 vs his Lithuanian opponent Paulus Pultinevicius (2026)

but won this position with the White pieces in round 4. Black is forced to play
42... Kb6 after which 43. Qd8+ Kc5 44. Qc8+ clinched the game (of course,
he saw the simple trap 43. Rb2 "winning the Queen" is met by Qxb2+ here)

Paulius Pultinevicius of Lithuania, successful vs Schroeder, but this
photo is from his loss against Aram Hakobyan (Armenia) in round 4

Adham Fawzy (2119) from Egypt had a 70-move battle versus fellow Egyptian
Adham Kandil (1927) in round 6, with Kandil winning in the end

Top seed Roven Vogel (2434) from Germany has been battling to beat his lower rated opponents

Carlos Dias (deputy chief arbiter) and Giuseppe Buonocore (section arbiter, boys under 14)
meet about a defective clock, Salikh Ayupov (1489) from Kazakhstan just ignores them

To end off this report, here is an exciting game from round 6:

World Youth - a marathon day

Day 2 was an exhausting double round marathon. The time control for this event is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes to complete the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move 1. Many games took almost 5 hours to complete, with one round 2 game going almost 6 hours after the players got into the notorious Rook and Bishop versus Rook ending (drawn after about 125 moves because of the 50-move rule).

The World Youth is divided by age group and by gender, from under 8 up till under 18. The top 10 boards in each are using DGT boards so that moves played on these boards can be seen by spectators outside the playing hall. Strictly no spectators are allowed inside the playing hall! There is a complicated system of coloured lanyards in place to enforce this. My photo ID has two coloured dots, giving me access to the playing hall and to the arbiters room. If you see somebody with all the colours of the rainbow, then you know they are a numzaan.

In between the rounds I was able to chat to several of the visiting international arbiters. I was shown the following position that was reached in one of the under 8 games, with White to move. White accepted his opponent's draw offer, thinking that stalemate was inevitable:

After the score sheets had been signed, Black confessed that he knew White has a forced win! His winning line went 1.Kf3 g4+ 2.Ke3 g3 3.Kd2 g2 4.Kc2 g1=Q 5.Qb2#. I improved on that with a mate in 3, which you might like to calculate. So, even the under 8's are capable of gamesmanship!

After 3 rounds our local KZN players are struggling to get to grips with players from the rest of the world. Only Aarti Datharam (in the under 8 girls section) still has a plus score (2 points out of 3). Our KZN players seem to be doing better in the Grandmaster open which is being played alongside the World Youth. In the GM open we still have 4 players on a plus score, namely Jason Subke, Lindokuhle Xulu, Joseph Mwale and Jerry Zuma, all with 2 points.

For more information and detailed results, go to the chess-results (RSA) server.

World Youth - first day impressions

Round 1 got under way a few minutes late but nobody seemed to mind too much after the rousing dancing exhibition. I was present as an arbiter for the under 14 boys division, with boards 11 to 18 being my responsibility. Boards 1 to 10 were played on DGT boards in a separate section of the hall, so I didn't see much of those games. The top seed was rated 2434 and the ratings of the 11th to 18th seeds ranged from 2312 to 2215 on my boards.

Table 11: Burri (France) versus van der Lingen (South Africa)

I watched the board 11 game with great interest. On move 14 Burri sacrificed a Bishop for a strong attack. It seemed to be an intuitive sacrifice, as he played his next 2 moves quickly before starting to think on his 17th move. My computer says both players missed some chances in what followed. Here is the game with light notes:

World Youth opens with dance

Opening ceremonies can be quite boring with all the obligatory speeches, but the organisers livened up their ceremony with a Zulu dancing exhibition. As an arbiter for the under 14 boys group, I was lucky enough to have a front row seat for the dance!

The dancers arrive on stage, creating a buzz

Were they doing the locomotion?

A challenge is laid down as Winston and Gunther look on

I'm not sure how to interpret this look

Dignatories on stage, from left: Lewis Ncube (FIDE Africa), Ravi Govender (Master of Ceremonies),
Emelia Ellapen (FIDE Board), Winston Dalpat (Chessa), Gunther van den Bergh (Chief Arbiter)

World Youth - Beach Launch

World Youth starts in 2 weeks

Congratulations to the following KZN players who will be participating in the 2014 World Youth Chess Championships, which starts in Durban in two weeks time.

BOYS
under 08: none
under 10: Joshua Bezuidenhout, Jaedon Naidu
under 12: Cailin Chetty, Mayilan Chetty, Naseem Ahmed Essa, Eli-Jordan Govender,
                Chad Millard, Aaron Jude Naidu, Sachin Reddy, Rahul Heeralall
under 14: Ananta Reddy, Shivar Gopaulsingh, Liam Moodley, Tarendra Moodley
under 16: Kyran Appanna, Yashkar Balmakhun, Duncan Podmore
under 18: Kenyon Padayachee, Randall Varden

GIRLS
under 08: Aarti Datharam, Charlotte Millard
under 10: Priyasha Naidoo
under 12: Santham Moodley, Dayaan Parthiephal
under 14: none
under 16: Keyana Padayachee, Caitlin Chetty, Saiyuri Naidoo, Genevieve Pillay
under 18: none

For more information on the players, go to the Chess-results server (RSA).

1st Durban Open GM tournament announced

CHESS SA has announced that the 1st Durban Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament will be held in Durban, from 20th to 29th September 2014, at the International Convention Centre. The event will take place at the same time as the FIDE World Youth Chess Championships at the same venue.

Details of the event can be found on the World Youth Chess Championship website or you can download the Durban open information brochure. Players should enter online before 15th September, here is the link to register to play in the tournament. All South Africans who register and pay before 5th September qualify for a 25% discount on their entry fees.

Here is a link to the tournament website on Chess-Results.com.
For more information, contact Bridgette Burger.

World Youth - 50 days to go!

The 2014 World Youth Chess Championships starts in Durban in 50 days! The venue will be the International Convention Centre, the same venue that we used for the 2013 SA Junior Chess Championships in December 2013.

For more information, go to the 2014 World Youth Chess Championships home page.