Linares

Yes, folks... it's been that time of the year again where everyone focuses their attention on Linares.

So far, Svidler and Leko were the quickest off the blocks and have +2.5 lead after 3 rounds. Topalov is unfortunately having a slightly slower start since his opening loss against Svidler.

There's a couple of new chess news out and I'll have hopefully a brief analysis done on one of the Linares rounds.

On the personal side, the last week has been an exercise in frustration. Someone hit my car and it's now in the repair shops for a week. My car insurance company is dragging their feet and I've been ringing their line for the last 2 days. Not a happy gent at the moment.

Still Trying To Defeat My Brother-In-Law

It's not enough to get beaten by my BIL (brother-in-law) OTB but it's also important I get beaten by him online as well. :)

He had called up in the evening and I took this opportunity to play a few rounds of chess with him. He had been playing a couple of 5-minute blitz games before that and for the first game, his play was simply atrocious (be it a warning to everyone. don't play too many fast blitz games) and it's shocking that he could blunder into 1-move mistakes. So we restarted again and I promptly lost (yes, the story of my life).

More importantly, I found out why I lost. I haven't been paying attention to my prawns (or rather pawns) and the pawn structures in the games I lost were shocking. I'd really need to be more careful of how I sacrifice pawns to gain the initiative and learn how to position my pieces to protect my pawns.

After about an hour of playing, I had to go off as it's rubbish throwing time (ie. time for me to take out the garbage) and I forgot about thanking my BIL for a very good game (where are my manners! ouch!)

North Sydney League Club And Ryde Eastwood League Club Chess

It takes forever to get things going. Stuff has been pretty hectic at work and the sweltering temperatures in Sydney haven't helped! :)

On Tuesday, I headed to the North Sydney Leagues club and watched a few games before Norm Greenwood started the Lightning Competition. Seeing as I was new and not taking part in the competition, a very nice gentleman came over and asked if I was interested in a game.

He turned out to be Ludwig Wolf (and as I exchanged pleasantries later, I learnt he had been playing chess for over 30 years). All I remembered of the 4 odd matches we played, Ludwig won the first 2 and I won the next 2.

I can't remember much for the first 2 games, other than the fact I was well and soundly beaten. *grin*. I'd remembered when I played Black, I was beaten when I played the French Defence and Ludwig outmanoeuvred me. In White, I got caught playing a wrong move in the Italian opening and everything was downhill from there on.

I must remember to bring my scoresheet the next time so I can record my games (I had forgotten to bring them).

On Wednesday, the Ryde-Eastwood League club was having a Rapid competition so I stayed and watched them. I'd noticed that the Rapid games tended to end in much the same way. Players were pretty much cautious, putting too much time not to make mistakes in the beginning but as the time limit ticked down to 5 minutes, play got unnaturally faster and people made more and more mistakes and outright 1-move blunders. It's really such a shame that games had to end in this way because some of the games were highly complex and intriguing and it definitely deserved better treatment but alas.... such was not meant to be.

The Corus Chess Competition had ended with Anand winning the tie-break. Speaking of more chess news, the Cuernavaca Young Masters had just started and try as I might, I could not give it the sufficient time and merit amidst shuffling between work and play.

I need a vacation........