English Chess Federation

4th European Union Youth Chess Championship U14, U12 & U10

Mureck, Austria, 8-17 August

Day Three

8:57 a.m. Most of the Team Mates are in the coaching room. They have been up for an average of 0.8 hours. Sadly, the coaching room is being used for a (non-Boggle-related) party later today so the coaches are waiting in the backup coaching room, wondering where the Team Mates are. As a result, the Team Mates have failed this morning’s task (should have paid more attention to Mr Chips, shouldn’t they!) and will therefore have nothing to eat for another 23 minutes.

Most everybody has had a good night’s sleep, except for those with rooms at the western end of the hotel. They were woken as the sun rose by the gentle thwock of highly-strung tennis racket on well-struck tennis ball. It was Mark limbering up before breakfast against the hapless postman. A rather one sided result: 6-0, 6-0, 6-0. “I always like to administer a good thrashing before breakfast,” admits Mark. “Anyone for afters?” Gideon looks uncertain, says something rapidly in Japanese or German, and heads off to interpret for Gill who is having trouble getting Rudi the barman to understand that there is always beer in real English breakfast tea. Adam is able to say - hand on heart - that due to Boggle coaching duties he cannot play. That leaves yours truly (intrepid or just foolhardy?), never one to shirk his duties, never one to shy from a challenge, never one to face death without just a soupcon of self-recrimination, doubt and regret, never one to… [ENOUGH! - ed]

Anyway, seriously folks, you want to know what it is like here don’t you? It is hard to describe but I’ll give it a go (after all, I’m never one to… [Stop now, don’t go there, I will not be held responsible etc – ed]).

The tournament is being held in Mureck, a small town (large village?) 50 kms from Graz and apparently right on the border with Slovenia [What’s with the “apparently”? Why don’t you put down that drink, get off that bar stool, take a look around you and establish that as fact or fiction? - ed]. Personally I thought the Sloveens were the ones who took over parliament in one of the earlier episodes of the Christopher Ecclestone Dr Who series, but ok, I’ll go check it out. Although I may wait until tomorrow.

Living quarters for the England Team Mates is in the Guesthouse Fabiani, a family-run chalet-like problem-like Maria. The rooms are good, the welcome is warm, the beer is cold and the guesthouse also lays claim to 2 indoor and 2 outdoor tennis courts, a table tennis table, badminton lawn, numerous bicycles to hire and a large covered outdoor verandah which immediately becomes base camp.

Mere members of the public who wish to partake of a quiet drink in the shade are driven away by the rapid-fire clacking of pieces being swapped in loud games of Exchange Chess. In fact, apart from the Danish team (consisting of the team manager and two players), the England party (a total of 33 x Team Mates, Responsible Adults, Sibilants and Coaches) accounts for pretty much the whole of the accommodation. Inside, the restaurant is dominated by two long tables that seat all 33 of us and the GuestHouse Function Room is taken over as the coaching room (and general storage area for ping pong bats, books, biscuits and spare Boggle sets etc). Except today that is. As I believe I mentioned earlier.

The Guesthouse, which also has caravanning and camping facilities, is a mile or so outside Mureck, set away from the main road and just about as central as is possible to ascertain in Nowhere. But it makes for a relaxing and natureful sojourn, with a surprising amount to do for Team Mates, Sibilants and indeed the more active RAs. Mark of course takes it to an altogether higher level: 4 tennis matches against different opponents, a quick run into Mureck, a swim in the icy waters of the municipal pool and a refreshing sprint back, with just 3 or 4 hard fought ping pong matches to follow. The rest of us watch in astonishment, as we struggle to raise yet another grosse bier glass (although they seem to get lighter the more you drink out of them - what’s that about?). Bikes are hired and used to follow well laid out and sign-posted cycle paths, criss-crossing the region. Mind you, quite a few people are walking like cowboys today.

So that about sums up the accommodation and playing location. Just one thing though: the logistics of travelling to and from the venue. Rosemary who runs the guesthouse also runs a 7 seater taxi! So with a shuttle run of 3 or max 4 trips run with military precision (I think I’ll get away with it) she can get all the priority people (basically the Team Mates) into Mureck in under 30 minutes, start to finish. A number of Sibilants and RAs will use bikes, or walk if the weather is good. Getting back is a little less disciplined, but still more structured than free-style skedaddling. Basically, as players finish their games they review them with the Coaches (more on that tomorrow) and then once enough are mustered and ready to return to the Guesthouse, Mr Chips uses his mobile phone to call Rosemary and literally within minutes she is there, picking them up and bringing them home. It quite makes you want to shed a little-house-on-the-prairie tear.

The Sibilants set new standards in beer mat reproductions of the world’s greatest wonders. After yesterday’s Great Pyramid, today they faithfully reproduce Rome’s famous gladiatorial stadium but unlike the Romans, the Sibilants actually finish it. What next we all wonder? And given the recent scandal and ensuing demotion of Lazio, who will actually play their home games there?

And then the taxi hour arrives: first shuttle is at 14:20, and it’s off to Mureck we go…

So now the chess bit:

Day 2, with 4½ points out of a possible 12, brought everyone down to earth with a bump but the Team Mates are up for a better round today. Thankfully again there are no Team Mates paired against each other, but that doesn’t make things easy. Saravanan is on Board 1 in the U12 section, playing the top seed from Belgium. Callum on Board 4 of the U14 section is also facing a tough game.

The Team Mates’ results of Round 3 are as follows:

For the second day in a row, Patrick is not the first out proving that lightening does strike twice, just not very often. If he gets another of those ice-creams as pay-off then pretty soon he’ll need de-icing. In the event it is Daniel who is first out with a win, and over the following two hours a mixed bag of results emerges, but an overall points total of 6½ points out of 12 puts the Team Mates at over 50% for the round again:

The Team Mates’ results to date:

The game of the round:

The game of the round annotated by Callum himself, is well worth playing through at home:

Callum, Kilpatrick (ENG) v Razik Azad (AUT)
Result: 1-0

1.e4 And so the immortal game begins! 1...c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Bb3 b5 8.Bg5 Be7 9.Qf3 Qc7 10.0-0-0 These Bg5 lines have been played by Nisipeanu and are very tricky for the unprepared Najdorf player. 10...Nbd7 11.e5! Bb7 12.Qg3 dxe5 [12...Nxe5 is probably best, following the game Nisipeanu-Karjakin 13.Bxe6 fxe6 14.f4! Kf7! We had found an improvement on Nisipeanu's play in our preparation so I would have been happy to see this.] 13.Bxe6! fxe6 14.Nxe6 Qc6 The best square for the Queen 15.Nxg7+ Kf7 16.Bxf6 Bxf6 [16...Nxf6?! 17.Nf5 This looks horrible for Black, Qg7 and Qe5 are both serious threats] 17.Nf5 Now our preparation had ended! Adam and I decided this was winning for White. At this stage in the game I had 1:38 minutes! And we started with 1:30. My opponent, however, was in a completely different state.

17...Nb6 18.Nd6+ Ke7 [18...Kf8 19.Nce4! Here I couldn't see anything for Black. Qf3 is also coming and the loose Bf6 must be dealt with] 19.Rhe1! Simple with the threat of Rxe5 19...Qxg2 20.Rxe5+ Kf8 21.Rf5! [21.Qf4 Qf3 22.Rf5 Should still be good but Rf5 is much better before Qf4] 21...Nd7 [21...Qxg3 22.Rxf6+ Ke7 23.Rf7+ Ke6 24.fxg3 Bc6 25.Rf2 White is two pawns up and the King is still in the middle of the board] 22.Nxb7 Qxb7 23.Rxd7 Qxd7 24.Rxf6+ Ke8 25.Qe5+ Kd8 26.Rd6 Re8 27.Qf6+ Kc8 28.Rxd7 Kxd7 29.Ne4! In the spirit of the game White makes one more sacrifice... 29...Rxe4 30.Qf5+ Re6 31.Qd5+ Black resigns. One of my favourite games and an impressive piece of opening preparation. Cheers Adam! 1-0

Round 4 Pairings

The pairings for Round 4 arrive on the fax machine later than they go up on the internet, at the official Tournament site: so whilst we continue to rely on the increasingly ever-vigilant Mr S [All our a’s have gone now, sorry - ed] to nip behind the bar and pick up the precious sheets as they are printed off, I suggest that if you are interested then go to the excellent official site (www.jugendschach.at) for prompt results and pairings, and from where you can also download all the games (running a round behind) in pgn format and play along with your favourite Team Mate!

In any event, the pairings for Round 4 reveal the first Eng v Eng pairing, in the U12s where Samuel and Patrick face each other. Both have the same coach – so that’ll be interesting! Even better though, Saravanan stays on Board 1 in the U12 section on account of having beaten the top seed from Belgium in Round 3, and Callum is relentlessly clawing his way towards the top board in the U14 section…

And finally, for my younger readers…

Message from Prtrchess@hal.con on Thu, 4 May 2006 17:11:28 EDT

To: XXXXXXXXXXX
Subject: Re: Certificate

Good evening

I think Shelly is an inspiration to us all. He doesn't like to talk about it but he and his brother Ed escaped from Stalinist Russia when his parents were rounded up in one of the notorious purges. They were sent to work in a salt mine and just ........ it's too painful for me, I can’t go on! Ed has made a real success of his life. He was in the Financial Times today, he's rumoured to be attempting a tackover of the Stobart transport empire. I'll let you have more details later, it is confidential at the moment.

Cheers
Peter

***** End of Message *****

Interesting Fact #3:

There is a connection between the Fibonacci Sequence and Snails, although no one here is quite sure what it is.