English Chess Forum

International Round-up 10/1/12

Hastings International Chess Congress 28 Dec 2011 - 5 Jan 2012
http://www.hastingschess.com/2012/SMWSite/index.html
http://www.hastingschess.com/?page_id=11

The highest placed English players were grandmasters Glenn Flear, Mark Hebden, David Howell, Nick Pert and Simon Williams who all scored 6/9.

David Haydon drew with Nick Pert and beat IMs Pavel Simacek and Jovanka Houska but a last round loss meant he missed an IM norm by half a point. He had a 2421 performance though and gained over twenty rating points.

Other notable English results included Sam Franklin beating Glenn Flear with black in round 3 and Bob Eames beating Keith Arkell with black in round 6. Amy Hoare drew with one player 200 points above her and two players 250 points higher.

37th Seville Open 7th-15th January 2012
http://www.fsajedrez.com/
http://www.chess-results.com/tnr63295.a ... ilen=99999

Stewart Haslinger is on 3/3 whilst his brother Gareth is on 2.5 and his father Mike 1.

XXII Krakow Open, Poland 27 Dec - 4 Jan
http://www.chessarbiter.com/turnieje/20 ... _z$81.html
http://www.chessarbiter.com/turnieje/20 ... laces.html
http://www.mzszach.l.pl/

Ian Thompson finished on 4.5/9.

14th Schachfestival Basel 1-5 Jan 2012
http://www.schachfestivalbasel.ch/

David Garner scored 4/7 and Nathan Alfred 4.

Northern California International Jan 2-8 2012
http://dotq.org/chess/Standings
http://dotq.org/chess/
http://adamhuntchess.blogspot.com/

Adam Hunt scored 4.5/9, Richard Lobo 3/8 and Sabrina Chevannes 0.5/2. Sam Collins, from Ireland, scored 5/9.

CCF New Year LP Congress (inc. FIDE Open) 7-8 Jan 2012
http://www.ccfworld.com/Chess/Results/2012-01-08_LP.htm

Francis Fields, 13 year old Matthew Grattage and Michael White shared first with 4/5.

Future events:

4NCL Hinckley Island & Wychwood Park 14-15 Jan 2012
http://www.4ncl.co.uk/index.htm

The weekend’s fixtures include the clash of the two highest rated teams; Wood Green and Guildford on the Sunday.

74th Tata Steel Chess Tournament: 13 - 29 January 2012
http://www.tatasteelchess.com/tournamen ... 12/group/3

Matthew Sadler will play in Group C. Sadly Luke McShane was unable to take his place in Group A because of work commitments.

Golden State Open California 13-16 Jan 2012
http://www.goldenstateopen.net/
http://www.chesstour.com/gso12.htm
http://adamhuntchess.blogspot.com/

Adam Hunt will play.

2012 Queenstown Chess Classic, Queenstown, New Zealand 15th-23rd January 2012
http://www.newzealandchess.co.nz/queenstownchess/
http://www.newzealandchess.co.nz/queens ... tries.html

Gawain Jones, Ingrid Lauterbach and Malcolm Armstrong are all playing.

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 24 Jan - 2 Feb 2012
http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com
http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/w ... asters.htm

Michael Adams, Nigel Short and David Howell are playing along with Adam Hunt, Craig Hanley and Jovanka Houska.

In addition to the individual websites the latest international chess news can be found at
the following link: http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic896.html

I encourage players to send me details of events they or others are playing in abroad and I will do my best to include them in my round-up. There is a list of international tournaments at home and abroad listed here: http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=3795

Lawrence Cooper,
Director of International Chess 10/1/12

While looking at some of the above links, I found this regulation in New Zealand's competition:

"Short Draws on top 10 boards: For games on any of the top 10 boards each day, agreed draws under 30 moves are banned. This ban includes tacit advance agreements to draw (i.e. deliberate repetitions) and pre-arranged draw agreements. The aim of this rule is to encourage a competitive, fighting tournament, and we trust all players will adhere to this in a sportsmanlike manner. Genuine draws by repetition are allowed. Penalties: For infringements of this rule, the following prize money penalties will be applied to both players: 1st offence, a deduction of 50% of any prize money won; 2nd offence, a deduction of 100% of any prize money won."

Regardless of the merits of Sofia rules, it seems bizarre to impose them on some boards in the tournament but not others. I don't see why it's desirable to have different players in the same tournament playing to different rules.

Alex Holowczak wrote:While looking at some of the above links, I found this regulation in New Zealand's competition:

"Short Draws on top 10 boards: For games on any of the top 10 boards each day, agreed draws under 30 moves are banned. This ban includes tacit advance agreements to draw (i.e. deliberate repetitions) and pre-arranged draw agreements. The aim of this rule is to encourage a competitive, fighting tournament, and we trust all players will adhere to this in a sportsmanlike manner. Genuine draws by repetition are allowed. Penalties: For infringements of this rule, the following prize money penalties will be applied to both players: 1st offence, a deduction of 50% of any prize money won; 2nd offence, a deduction of 100% of any prize money won."

Regardless of the merits of Sofia rules, it seems bizarre to impose them on some boards in the tournament but not others. I don't see why it's desirable to have different players in the same tournament playing to different rules.

The Queenstown Classic is held every three years. The same rule has applied in the previous two events, in 2006 and 2009.

It doesn't seem bizarre to me.

Towards the end of the event in particular:

1. The players at the top end;

a) may well be receiving conditions;
b) have had a reasonably successful tournament;
c) will be in contention for prize money
d) may be playing on boards being transmitted live

and have an obligation to give value for money, so to speak.

2. The players lower down:

a) may well have spent a lot of money going to the event
b) have had a disappointing tournament
c) can no longer win any prize money.

If they both prefer to call it a day after 12 to 15 moves and to go and visit some tourist attractions instead, is that so wrong?

Looking at the prizes though; there are many. There are prizes down to 15th place. There are rating prizes for the best U2200 (and at 100-point intervals working down to 1600), who is currently ranked 41st on the list of entries. There are Senior trophies and Junior trophies. There's even an automatic Olympiad spot involved.

There could be a battle for the minor placings in the last round that straddle the board 10 cutoff, which means players in contention for prizes are playing under different rules.

In particular, the highest-rated New Zealander is ranked 21st, with 5 more in the next 12 seeds. So there's a high possibility that New Zealanders competing for the automatic Olympiad birth could straddle the board 10 cutoff. So players directly competing for the same prize are playing under different rules.

While I appreciate the issues I've mentioned, the above seems to be a more fundamental problem.

Another interesting thing that they do is that titled players get free entry but if they win a prize then the entry fee is deducted. I hadn't realised this had happened until Gawain pointed out that I'd just received a prize for £0 in the rapidplay

I thought the rules on draws were quite good albeit it could create a dilemma for anyone who needs a draw for a norm but is in line for a good prize.

While looking at some of the above links, I found this regulation in New Zealand's competition:

"Short Draws on top 10 boards: For games on any of the top 10 boards each day, agreed draws under 30 moves are banned. This ban includes tacit advance agreements to draw (i.e. deliberate repetitions) and pre-arranged draw agreements. The aim of this rule is to encourage a competitive, fighting tournament, and we trust all players will adhere to this in a sportsmanlike manner. Genuine draws by repetition are allowed.

1. d4 d5 2. c4 dc 3.e4 Nf6 4.e5 Nd5 5. Bxc4 Nb6 6. Bb3 Nc6 7. Nf3 Bg4 8. Ng5 Bxd1 9. Bxf7+ Kd7 10. Be6+ Ke8 etc

Is this a "genuine draw by repetition" or a "tacit advance agreement to draw"?