The highlight of anyone’s chess career is to represent your country at the highest level, the Chess Olympiad, which takes place every two years. Australia first participated in 1964 and has sent both a men’s team and a women’s team to just about every Olympiad since then.

One of the more unusual Olympiads took place in 1976 at Haifa, Israel. The event was boycotted by both the Arab and Communist nations but never-the-less attracted a strong field with the USA being one of the favouri...

Chess Nightmare!
Last night in Melbourne it was terribly hot, around 20 degrees, and it was very hard to get to sleep, particularly after four hours solid coaching the Chess Kids Elite group that afternoon. My mind was still all abuzz with chess. I tried eating chocolate (Lindt of course), I tried a cool icy-pole, I tried counting sheep but nothing seemed to work. Finally my mind turned back to Jammo’s Chess Puzzle number 16 where Black dropped a rook but had all these extra pawns trying t...

The 2010 Australian Junior Championships will be played in Tasmania, for the first time in 35 years, in January 2010 and Chess Kids is sending a team. This leads me to cast my mind back to the 1975 Australian Junior Championships in Hobart when everyone expected our up-and-coming junior Ian Rogers to dominate the event. He did not. The tournament was won by a diminutive 15 year-old boy, with long blonde hair, from New Zealand of all places. His name was Murray Chandler and he, like Rogers, ...

The largest chess tournament ever held in Victorian was held at Monash University on Monday. 481 players from 82 schools competed in two Divisions.

See the Primary Results – well done to Mount View, 2009 Premiers!

See the Middle Years Results – well done Brighton Grammar, 2009 Premiers!

Photo Gallery of the day

The last 7 days have been hectic, but very enjoyable! There is nothing better than seeing the culmination of a year of hard work and effort on the part of some 850 kids around Australia.

Monday 19th October

I was in Launceston for the Tasmanian State Finals. The standard of play keeps getting better and better in Tasmania. Look at at the Nationals – we’re going to see a Tassie National Champion school one day soon! Well done to Calvin Christian College (Secondary Premiers) and S...

Here is a position from the game E.Parr v P.Johanssen 1995 and, as you can see, Black is in a bit of trouble. White is threatening 1.Qh8 mate and 1.Qh7 mate. Black could play 1…Qxh4 giving up his Queen for a Rook but that would just leave him hopelessly down on material. Does he have a sneaky defence that will blunt White’s attack and force him to take a perpetual check …. or does he not? That is today’s puzzle.

Does Black to play have a defence?

Canada is the latest in a string of countries to adopt chess as a curriculum subject. This time for year 12 students!

After 20 years of research, proposals, paperwork and jumping through hoops Arnie Nermo (B.Ed.) Robert Bateman Sec. School, Abbotsford, BC and Luke Campbell (Language and Technology Department Head at Mount Boucherie Senior Secondary) have finally had their chess course approved by the School Board and the Ministry of Education.

Now any school can use their template a...

Parr is a famous name in Australian Chess. Peter Parr has run a chess business in Sydney for over 40 years and captained Australia’s Chess Olympiad team on six occasions, but Peter is not the only famous chess player in his family. His father, Frank Parr, was a good player also and competed in the British Championships for 55 years from 1936 to 1991.

Today I want to talk about Peter’s older brother David. David Parr was not a titled player but played internationally for England for som...

From Teacher Magazine, October 2009.

Conflict-based play reduces violence

This position is from the game Vinay Lakshman v IM James Morris in the recent RJ Shield Tournament. White entered the rook endgame a pawn ahead but has allowed Black counter-play and now the game is in the balance. It probably depends on him finding the correct plan in the diagrammed position.

8/8/1k6/1p4RP/2p5/P5P1/1r6/4K3What would you play as White?

46.h6 Rh2 47.Rg6+ Ka5 48.g4 Ka4 49.Ra6+ Kb3 50.g5 c3 51.Rc6 c2 52.g6 Rxh6 53.g7 Rxc6 54.g8=Q+ Rc4 55.Qg3+ Ka2 56.Qg2 Kb1 57.Qg6 Kb2 58.Qg...

At the moment, whenever I have some spare time, I’m using the iPhone App. “Chess DB” to play through some chess games.   The application claims to have over 500,000 games on file and you just select the player whose games interest you.

I’ve chosen Bob Wade, and English IM (originally from NZ) who died recently aged 87 and who was one of the most important figures in world chess in the last century.   He persuaded Batsford to publish a series of chess books in the 1970’s and 80’...

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the finals of the Secondary Interschool Championships at Brighton Grammar and was pleasantly surprised by the high standard of play.  The Melbourne High boys in particular dominated the event and occupied all the top boards at the tournament.

Chui v Tanner

I recorded some of the games on my iPhone (using Shredder Classic – a very good app.) and noted in particular the game between Willian Chui and Michael Tanner.  William (white) had been bui...

There has been a complaint. It seems that not everyone is able to solve “Jammo’s Chess Puzzles” even with the occasional hints that I offer. Failure, rather than spurring readers on to improve their chess skills so that these puzzles will no longer be a mystery, (and delighting at seeing the unimagined solution), means there is a grave danger that repeated failures at puzzle solving will discourage our budding chess champions.

The message has therefore come down from on high that I s...