Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

[Simon Ong]

The top 3 boards of the Canadian Junior Chess Championship are being broadcast live on the following link. The first round starts at 10:00 am MT.

http://www.calgarychess.com/2012CJ.html

[Normand Arsenault]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

The tournament seems very weak. Both Mr.Roman and Mr.Loren decided it seems to not attend.

It will simply be a race between Mr.Keith and Mr.Shiyam. Mr.Richard does not have the necessary experience to win the tournament in my opinion; maybe in a few years.

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

The tournament seems very weak. Both Mr.Roman and Mr.Loren decided it seems to not attend.

It will simply be a race between Mr.Keith and Mr.Shiyam. Mr.Richard does not have the necessary experience to win the tournament in my opinion; maybe in a few years.

Experience? LMFAO... It doesn't matter who has the most experience. It matters if Richard beats Shiyam and Keith and seeing as he's 2300 CFC, he's definitely good enough to do so. Before the tournament I woulda wagered that Loren had the best chance of winning but yes it does look very weak. Nonetheless, it's pretty much a 3-way race.

I hope I didn't sound too condescending, but experience only matters in heads-up matches with the very best players in the world. Everything else hinges heavily on how well they play during the tournament and how lucky they are. Luck is a gigantic factor. Just look at Nakamura's past couple losses. His game today was nothing like his first 6 games where he went 5/6 with a 3000+ performance. He got easily outplayed today with white in a petrov and now it's a close race again.

[Jean Hébert]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

I hope I didn't sound too condescending, but experience only matters in heads-up matches with the very best players in the world. Everything else hinges heavily on how well they play during the tournament and how lucky they are. Luck is a gigantic factor. Just look at Nakamura's past couple losses. His game today was nothing like his first 6 games where he went 5/6 with a 3000+ performance. He got easily outplayed today with white in a petrov and now it's a close race again.

Bindi,
I don't quite get it. Is that supposed to explain or prove how "luck is a gigantic factor" ? To me, "experience" is certainly a significant part of general chess strenght, even though it is only one component among several others. And generally speaking, experience comes with at least one downside : advancing age. "Luck" on the other hand, the way I understand it regarding chess, is unrelated to chess strenght and more or less evenly spread among equally deserving players. When we say that good players are "lucky", don't we actually say that there is no such thing as "luck" in chess ?

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

Bindi,
I don't quite get it. Is that supposed to explain or prove how "luck is a gigantic factor" ? To me, "experience" is certainly a significant part of general chess strenght, even though it is only one component among several others. And generally speaking, experience comes with at least one downside : advancing age. "Luck" on the other hand, the way I understand it regarding chess, is unrelated to chess strenght and more or less evenly spread among equally deserving players. When we say that good players are "lucky", don't we actually say that there is no such thing as "luck" in chess ?

People who say there's no luck in chess are just fooling themselves. There were times where I was just a half point off a norm or not even close to a norm even though I felt I played extremely well. Then there were times when the norm comes out of the blue when I least expected it and everything just clicked. Luck comes in many shapes, sizes and forms such as opponent fatigue, personal fatigue, improper use of openings, prepped an opening and the opponent played a different opening, gotta go take a dump when playing on the increment, etc.
While experience is a factor, I don't think it's as significant as you make it out to be. One recent example that can be used is Loren Laceste winning the U18. While I'm sure he played quite a bit in his home country before immigrating to Canada, it's fairly safe to assume his competition were the top U18 juniors in Canada and they were fairly experienced, and to most people's naked eye, more experienced than Loren. While it's not fair to characterize his win as luck-based, as he recently got his FM title legitimately and is obviously a pretty strong player, I don't think anyone would say that he was on their radar as a pick to win the U18 section. In fact, when I looked at the results I was very surprised that he managed to win it while playing almost all the top competition.
Even though at the end of the day, the luck would even out and be distributed among the players with a significant sample size, when we're talking about 1 tournament, there's significant room for any one player to have a fantastic tournament and another to have a terrible tournament.

[Vlad Rekhson]

Canadian Junior games file

To view all the tournament games you can visit: http://albertachess.org/12CanJr.html

[Simon Ong]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

It will simply be a race between Mr.Keith and Mr.Shiyam. Mr.Richard does not have the necessary experience to win the tournament in my opinion; maybe in a few years.

Very exciting three rounds so far...NM David Zhang made an upset victory against NM Keith Mackinnon in Round 2. NM Richard Wang made an upset victory against FM Shiyam Thavandiran in Round 3. Looking forward to the results of the remaining rounds :)

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

Calgary? It's a dry warm. The players who stayed away just couldn't stand the thought of winter sunbathing. :) Ghad, it's even warm in Grande Prairie. Oops, sorry, wrong thread.

Spaceley Sprockets is blaming the Calgary Chess Club for the modest turnout, but one might first look at the method of competition and at the weakened provincial chess associations. Both of those go back to the CFC. I think that the laissez-faire approach works well enough with players who are young enough (CYCC) that they have to be accompanied by parents anyway. But under-20s are young adults with their own appreciation of how to spend their own money. When the entry fees were nominal and it was about representing your province, different emotions applied.

[Vlad Rekhson]

Pictures from the Canadian Junior

https://picasaweb.google.com/vrekhso...dianJunior2012

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

Results (formatted) after 5 rounds

#	Name	ID	Rtng	Rd1	Rd2	Rd3	Rd4	Rd5	Tot
1	David,Zhang	145883	2227	W11	W6	W4	W2	D3		4.5
2	Richard,Wang	142949	2306	W8	W12	W3	L1	W6		4.0
3	Shiyam,Thavandiran	127431	2479	W5	W4	L2	W6	D1		3.5
4	Kevin,Li	152422	2238	W9	L3	L1	W7	W8		3.0
5	John,Doknjas	141225	2063	L3	L9	W12	D11	W7		2.5
6	Keith,Mackinnon	133701	2349	W7	L1	W9	L3	L2		2.0
7	Jason,Cao	149413	2053	L6	W8	W11	L4	L5		2.0
8	Jeff,AnthonyDeGuzman	146402	1992	L2	L7	W10	W12	L4		2.0
9	Brendon,Lee	139350	1869	L4	W5	L6	L10	W11		2.0
10	Chenxi,Zhao	149934	1413	U—	L11	L8	W9	W12		2.0
11	Diwen,Shi	145882	1783	L1	W10	L7	D5	L9		1.5
12	Zachary,Lintott	144353	1359	B—	L2	L5	L8	L10		1.0

Results of round 6 are not yet published, only broadcasted games:
John Doknjas 0-1 David Zhang
3 Shiyam Thavandiran 1-0 Jeff Anthony De Guzman

[Nicolas Haynes]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

Bindi,
I don't quite get it. Is that supposed to explain or prove how "luck is a gigantic factor" ? To me, "experience" is certainly a significant part of general chess strenght, even though it is only one component among several others. And generally speaking, experience comes with at least one downside : advancing age. "Luck" on the other hand, the way I understand it regarding chess, is unrelated to chess strenght and more or less evenly spread among equally deserving players. When we say that good players are "lucky", don't we actually say that there is no such thing as "luck" in chess ?

"luck" is a useless word when it comes to chess. People use it to discount their own shortcomings. Another common use is when players don't understand why someone blundered. For example, they might say that they got unlucky when they blundered or their opponent was lucky that they blundered.

That's not really the case though, luck has nothing to do with mistakes in chess. Absolutely nothing. People seem to forget that consistency is part of the game, at every level, and sometimes players who otherwise play well, make bad moves. It has nothing to do with luck and everything to with skill. Playing consistently over the course of a game is a skill, maybe one of the most important ones in chess.

It makes no sense to talk to attribute blunders to luck, that is a completely destructive attitude, why bother learning if you can't control luck? On the other hand if you take the approach that consistency is part of the game, and work to improve it, then you will improve you play. Or you can talk about luck all you want, and see how much that will improve your chess.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

It has nothing to do with luck and everything to with skill. Playing consistently over the course of a game is a skill, maybe one of the most important ones in chess.

Chuck's mistakes are skills, yeah? Even the best players made mistakes - some call them blunders some call them luck.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

Chuck's mistakes are skills, yeah? Even the best players made mistakes - some call them blunders some call them luck.

Sometimes players make a habit of choking in important games. I remember such a player from many years ago. He doesn't play anymore.

I suppose choking happens in most sports. Personally, I like watching "Tin Cup" when it's on TV. It deals with the topic in a humourous manner but still comes down to a good player losing to a lessor player in a critical situation.

[Jean Hébert]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

Even though at the end of the day, the luck would even out and be distributed among the players with a significant sample size, when we're talking about 1 tournament, there's significant room for any one player to have a fantastic tournament and another to have a terrible tournament.

Having a "fantastic tournament" or a "terrible tournament" still doesn't sound like "luck" to my ears. What you call "luck" relates to people having good and bad days (or games or tournaments). On that topic of games based on luck or skills, I suggest reading this magnificent book from David Shenk : The Immortal Game, A History of Chess or, How 32 Carved Pieces on a Board Illuminated Our understanding of War, Science and the Human Brain. Got it from Amazon at 15.88, postage included.

[Paul Leblanc]

Re: Canadian Junior Chess Championship- live broadcast

I became aware of Loren Laceste when, as a 1900 player he captured clear second in the 2011 Grand Pacific Open, ahead of a GM, IM and several FMs. Then he won the CYCC U18 a few months later and last fall at the Portland, Oregon Centennial Open he tied for first with IMs Georgi Orlov and Bindi Cheng. The others are "lucky" that he decided not to play in the Canadian Junior.