Sunday, March 29, 2009

2009 Box Hill Chess Club Autumn Cup

The 2009 Box Hill Chess Club Autumn Cup was played over the course of several weeks at Box Hill Chess Club (3 Rochester Road Canterbury). It is the first big event on the calender for BHCC. It was a 7-round swiss tournament with $1,000 in prizes. The top seeds were Samuel Chow (2328), Geoff Saw (2276) and Christopher Wallis (2153).

The final results are:
1st/2nd
Eugene Schön (1931), Geoff Saw (2276) on 6/7, with Eugene having the higher countback and achieving the title of BHCC Autumn Cup Champion.
3rd/4th Bobby Cheng (2085), Marcus Raine (1883) on 5.5/7

You can find the final crosstable to the 2009 Box Hill Chess Club Autumn Cup by clicking here.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

2009 Brighton Chess Cup - Victorian Secondary Schools Open Teams Championship

The 2009 Brighton Grammar Chess Cup was held on the 26th of March, as part of a larger Victorian Secondary Schools Open Teams Championship (organised by Chess Victoria). The venue was Brighton Grammar School, and it has been one of the strongest tournaments held at the school. Scotch College won the tournament.

The placings were:
1st Scotch College
2nd Melbourne High School
3rd Brighton Grammar

Individual placings were
:
1st/2nd Eugene Schön (2094), Nicholas Liu (1536) 7/7
3rd Zhigen Lin (2200) 6.5/7

Sunday, March 22, 2009

How to achieve a FIDE rating

I want to talk about how one goes about to achieve a FIDE rating. Many players do not have FIDE ratings and are a bit confused about how to get one. In Australia, ACF ratings are used the most prominently, but they do not count towards achieving any chess title. FIDE ratings play a major role in achieving FM, IM and GM titles (and the female equivalents, and I guess Candidate Master too, but that has less to do with rating). It could be argued that FIDE ratings matter and an ACF rating does not, although there's probably something bad about having an extremely low ACF rating.

Here is a brief rundown on FIDE ratings:

FM title - must be rated 2300+ and must pay FIDE a sum of money
IM title - must be rated 2400+ and have 3 IM "norms" (norms are achieved through set performance level in a 9-round tournament)
GM title - must win either the World Junior Championship or World Senior Championship; otherwise must be rated 2500+ and have 3 GM norms

Now, how do you get your first FIDE rating? One often needs to be a quite strong "club player" in order to achieve a rating. I was rated 1819 ACF before I got my first FIDE rating. Although nowadays, the FIDE "rating floor" (lowest rating possible) is lower, so weaker players can achieve a FIDE rating more easily, which may or may not be a good thing.

To achieve a FIDE rating, you must:
1. Play in a FIDE-rated tournament. There aren't that many around, so you have to pick and choose. Here are some usual ones that crop up: Australian Junior Championships (u18), Australian Open, Australian Championship, Ballarat Begonia Open, Doeberl Cup, Sydney International Open, Elwood Bendigo Bank Chess Championship. The Box Hill Chess Club in Melbourne runs a FIDE-rated tournament every year. State Opens are typically FIDE-rated too. For juniors, many world or Asean tournaments are FIDE-rated, e.g. the World Youth Chess Championships. Perhaps I am forgetting a few tournaments.

2. I'm not totally sure about this next detail, but over the course of two years, you must achieve at least 2.5 points against 9 FIDE-rated players. After two years on inactivity, the provisional rating is probably erased.

Please note that:
a) Only games with rated opponents are counted.
b) If you lose the first game in a "block of games", the first game will be disregarded. This is probably the same if you continue losing all your games.
c) If you score 50% against your 9 opponents, then your initial rating will be equal to the average rating of your opponents.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Coming Australian Grand Prix Events

The following are events that are coming soon. These events are part of the 2009 Yulgilbar-Think Big Grand Prix, a large chess competition with prizes (all strong events are normally part of the grand prix).

See below for results to the Ballarat Begonia Open.

Event Place Class Start Finish Contact
Begonia Open Ballarat, Vic 3 7/3/09 9/3/09 Club website
South-West Open Bunbury, WA 1 7/3/09 8/3/09 CAWA website
Tasmanian Championships Burnie, Tas 1 7/3/09 9/3/09 TCA website
Dubbo Open Dubbo, NSW 1 28/3/09 29/3/09 NSWCA website
Dubbo Open Dubbo, NSW 1 28/3/09 29/3/09 NSWCA website
The Croydon Khalifman Melbourne, Vic 1 4/4/09 5/4/09 Club website
O2C Doeberl Cup Premier Canberra, ACT 5 9/4/09 13/4/09 Tournament website
O2C Doeberl Cup Major Canberra, ACT 5 10/4/09 13/4/09 Tournament website
O2C Doeberl Cup Minor Canberra, ACT 5 10/4/09 13/4/09 Tournament website
Sydney International Open Parramatta, NSW 5 14/4/09 19/4/09 Tournament website
Sydney International Challengers Parramatta, NSW 5 14/4/09 19/4/09 Tournament website

2009 43rd Ballarat Begonia Open

The 2009 43rd Ballarat Begonia Open was held from the 7th-9th of March and the venue was the historic Old Gaol building. This tournament was FIDE-rated and a Category 3 Grand Prix.

The following ratings are ACF ratings. The event was won jointly by FM (soon-to-be IM) Igor Goldenberg (2376) and FM Erik Teichmann (2240), both on 6/7 with Goldenberg having the higher countback.

3rd-5th were Christopher Wallis (2124), IM Mirko Rujevic (2217) and Bobby Cheng (2133).

Click here to see the final crosstable for the 2009 43rd Ballarat Begonia Open.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

2009 43rd Ballarat Begonia Open Begins

The 2009 43rd Ballarat Begonia Open will be held from the 7th-9th of March (during the long weekend) and the venue is the historic Old Gaol building. The top 10 boards play in "elevation" which is lower than the normal boards, referred to as "the pit" (sorry if that explanation seemed strange). This tournament is FIDE-rated and is a Category 3 Grand Prix. The top seed has not been officially announced.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

March 2009 ACF Ratings

The March 2009 ACF Ratings are out now. The new list includes top rankings for age divisions and a list of top Australian players.

The top 5 are:
  2605!    0  NSW  Rogers, Ian [GM]
2602! 0 NSW Zhao, Zong-Yuan [GM]
2520!! 10 ACT Smerdon, David C [IM]
2479! 21 NSW Wohl, Aleksander H [IM]
2419!! 19 QLD Solomon, Stephen J [IM]
Finally, my own rating has increased to 2200!

You can see the March 2009 ACF Ratings by clicking here.