Back in Oz

Well, we made it back safely and hassle-free on Tuesday afternoon, though work the next morning was a killer. The jetlag is compounded by the unbelievable mental exhaustion I’m feeling. It’s a bit lame, considering I only played two classical games, but I think the lead-up has a bit to do with it. For two weeks before leaving Australia, I was working 9 hour days and then putting in around 5 hours of chess study a night – no wonder these guys go pro!

Finally, a world cup prediction of mine has proved successful: Gashimov has made it through to the round of eight. While noone is talking about him as a title contender yet, I’m going to stick by my choice (for now!). His blitz skills are exceptional, and his openings are thorough and flexible. The only thing that might count against him is a bit of inexperience at the 2700 level – this probably explains the downfall of most of the younger contenders, including So and Caruana.

Speaking of predictions, one that wasn’t so hard to make (but that I nevertheless got right) was the potential of young Australian junior Bobby Cheng. I’ve just heard that he won the World Under 12 championship that just finished  in Turkey. You may think that the under-12s division doesn’t count for much, but you couldn’t be more wrong. Most of the current world elite became professional before their 15th birthdays ; some, like Karjakin, Radjabov and even Carlsen hadn’t even hit their teens. Chess, despite its non-physical focus, is a youngster’s game, and many of Bobby’s rivals will go on to become grandmasters and take up professional chess.

Given the lack of professional chess in Australia, this makes Bobby’s achievement all the more commendable. Commendations, too, are due to his coach, grandmaster Darryl Johansen. Darryl has been unlucky in his professional career as a chessplayer, always living somewhat in Ian Rogers’ shadow, and probably never reaching his full potential. But I can tell you, from the few coaching sessions I’ve had with him, that his knowledge and intuition in the game is unbelievable, and I think we might see a lot more success coming out of the Cheng/Johansen team.

While the under 8s is a bit of a different story, we shouldn’t take anything away from Anton Smirnov’s (=2nd) performance in this division, either. Any medal at a world junior is an amazing result, and while there’s a long way to go before we can make any predictions about this likeable young fellow, his skills relative to his age group today are even more outstanding than his dual mastery of English and Russian.

And now to blowing my own trumpet: a while ago, in an interview (http://chesschat.org/showthread.php?p=246309#post246309), I named Bobby, Anton and Emma Guo as three of Australia’s most promising young players. While this might not be that surprising a prediction to make, the fact remains that, given their respective successes at the recent world youth and junior championships respectively, I finally got one right!