World Junior Championship

[Mick Norris]

He has lost again, which makes 3 on the bounce

He's obviously very talented, but seems to have tournaments where he puts together lots of consecutive wins, and others where he has lots of consecutive losses - I wonder what the reason is, seems a bit more than just confidence

Would someone like this be of help to him?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tomfordyce/2 ... edals.html

[LozCooper]

He has lost again, which makes 3 on the bounce

He's obviously very talented, but seems to have tournaments where he puts together lots of consecutive wins, and others where he has lots of consecutive losses - I wonder what the reason is, seems a bit more than just confidence

Would someone like this be of help to him?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tomfordyce/2 ... edals.html

Mick,

I think the World Junior has to be viewed seperately from other tournaments. Last year he sat down for the last round knowing a win would win him the title and being on 6/6 with white he went for the win, when with hindsight a draw would have sufficed as board 2 was drawn. By his standards he played a horrible game and lost. Having been there as his coach (ridiculous I know, given I'm 300 points below him!) I know how much he wanted the title. There was always a danger if he lost a key game as he has this year when on 6/8 of an adverse reaction. Rather than being able to stabalise and have a decent tournament I think he was so desperate to be first that he was unable to adjust to the task of playing for rating points, trying to finish 4th, 5th etc He seldom takes quick draws which may have been the prudent thing to do just to steady his tournament.

I think the tournament in Belgium was just a bad tournament after his success at the British and the Staunton so I don't think it's anything more than inconsistency. When a player plays to win in every game there's more chance of lots of wins and losses so a more solid player would not have got 9/11 at the British and wouldn't have had the reverse side in Belgium. But he bounced back from the World Junior to have an excellent Olympiad last year and I see no reason why he won't bounce back this time.

[Matthew Turner]

Mick,
Over the last couple of years I think David has toughened up mentally and he has gone to Argentina to win. In order to win big events, you cannot fear losing and sometimes you have to take risks. Obviously this means sometimes having a bit of a disaster, rather than settling for an averagely good performance. In my opinion, all this event proves is that the standard is awesomely good out there.

[Leonard Barden]

All that said, it would have been more realistic to go solidly for a draw as Black against the top seed Vachier-Lagrave, as hinted at in my previous post before the game, and then aim for 3.5/4 in the remaining rounds, possibly with White against Zhigalko. The choice of the Bird Defence to the Ruy led to a lost position within 20 moves.

The four draws in the first six rounds also had a negative influence later, with too little margin for further error.

It all shows how hard it is for even our best players to win the World Junior. We still have Miles as our only gold medallist. Nigel was second to Kasparov in 1980, equivalent to gold in a normal year, but then failed in his further attempts when he was favourite. Mickey did not manage a medal. A near-miss on a previous occasion, as David had last year, also creates a psychological burden for later attempts.

Of course David will be back with future successes, though I stick to what I wrote after the last Hastings when I disagreed with those who said here that he would go to 2700 within a couple of years. I think at present he has a barrier, technical and psychological, in the low 2600s. Let's see what happens when he plays at the next Hastings and in the very strong Corus Wijk B group.

[Matthew Turner]

I don't have any particular objection to going for a draw with Black against the top seed and maybe that was what David was doing. I know it is sometimes much easier with hindsight, but the decision to play the Bird's Defence seems very strange to me. I imagine that a 2700 would expect never to lose to a Bird's Defence, so seeing David play it, must have given Vachier-Legrave a confidence boost.

[Carl Hibbard]

I imagine that a 2700 would expect never to lose to a Bird's Defence, so seeing David play it, must have given Vachier-Legrave a confidence boost.

Do we have the moves for that game?

[Matthew Turner]

Carl,
This is the game
1.e4 e5 2.Cf3 Cc6 3.Ab5 Cd4 4.Cxd4 exd4 5.O-O Ac5 6.Ac4 d6 7.d3 De7 8.f4 Cf6 9.f5 Cd7 10.Dh5 Ce5 11.Ag5 Df8 12.Cd2 Rd7 13.Ae6+ Rc6 14.Ad5+ Rd7 15.Ae6+ Rc6 16.Ad5+ Rd7 17.f6 g6 18.Dh3+ Rd8 19.Dg3 c6 20.Ab3 Rc7 21.Af4 De8 22.Axe5 Dxe5 23.Dxe5 dxe5 24.Cf3 Ad6 25.Cg5 Ae6 26.Cxe6+ fxe6 27.Axe6 a5 28.a4 Af8 29.Tf3 Rd6 30.Ab3 Rc5 31.c3 Ah6 32.cxd4+ Rxd4 33.Rf1 Ta6 34.Ac4 Tb6 35.b3 Tb4 36.Re2 b5 37.axb5 cxb5 38.Txa5 bxc4 39.Td5+ Rc3 40.dxc4+ Rc2 41.Txe5 Txb3 42.Txb3 Rxb3 43.Rd3 Tf8 44.Tb5+ Ra4 45.e5 Af4 46.Re4 Axh2 47.Tb7 h5 48.f7

and it is available here
http://www.chubutdeportes.org/MUNDIAL-S ... o-game.htm

I hope David or Nigel will write a report after the event and it will be interesting if they discuss the reasons for choosng the Bird's. It is stupid to think that there is a 'safe' way to play against a 2700, but I think most players would consider this to be a strange choice of opening.

[Michael Bennett]

That site is blocked for some browsers, but Chessbase have a PGN of the available games, on this page:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5880

[Mick Norris]

Loz/Matthew

Thanks for your comments

I certainly wasn't criticising David, and am happy to hear he has a tough mental attitude and is trying to win every game

It may be that with some extra help, he could break through to the next level, and given the success of the cycling team, it is worth chess looking at this, as I think it could have a more dramatic effect in a mental game rather than a physical sport

[Matthew Turner]

My comments are merely a matter of opinion and others may disagree. I think the last big problem for David's game is the prevalence of serious time trouble and maybe a sports pyschologist could help here. However, one also has to accept that there is a big challenge because there are an awful lot of very strong players out there.

[Jonathan Rogers]

The Birds' is indeed mainly a surprise weapon, in so far as it is a weapon at all (there are not exactly many tricky tactics at Black's disposal - so taking White out of his book is all that he is claiming to achieve). It has surprised people in the past - most notably Nigel Short himself, whom I seem to remember having an opening catastrophe against Ivanchuk in Linares '89 I think (no doubt people with Chessbase or similar will confirm). Also Khalifmann surprised Kasparov some six years ago in a rapid play event and had much the better of the draw.

But these opponents were caught on the hop. Ivancuk lost a grisly game a couple of years later against Kamsky (Tilburg 1991?), and I don't recall him playing it since. Khalifmann repeated his experiment against Kasparov in the same event and was destroyed the second time around.

My bet is that Short and Howell noted that VlG had either not faced it before, or had gotten away with playing an unconvincing line against it; and Short - who always values surprises in the opening - thought it would be worth a punt. But events proved otherwise. To put it mildly.

[Leonard Barden]

there are an awful lot of very strong players out there.

Only 5 of the top 20 juniors, as shown on the just issued November Fide list, are participating at Puerto Madryn.

Those that aren't, all 2600+, are Carlsen, Karjakin, Wang Hao, Caruana, Wesley So, Kuzubov, Nepomniachtchi, Le Quang Liem, Negi, Edouard, Nguyen, Andriasian, Khairullin, Sjugirov and Kovalyov.

So at the moment this is a highly competitive age group.

[Mick Norris]

My comments are merely a matter of opinion and others may disagree. I think the last big problem for David's game is the prevalence of serious time trouble and maybe a sports pyschologist could help here. However, one also has to accept that there is a big challenge because there are an awful lot of very strong players out there.

My view is that the issue is to maximise David's talent - if there are better players and he doesn't become world champion, so be it - the benefit will be better performance for the England team

Personally, my time trouble problems were solved with advice from Nigel Davies, for which I (and more particularly my team mates) have been thankful ever since - at David's level, the sport's psychologist might do the trick

[John Saunders]

There have been some interesting posts here and much food for thought. It seems to me that the World Junior Championship may almost have become a millstone round the neck of English contenders (not just David Howell) since Tony Miles' success back in 1974. Somewhat reminiscent of football's 1966 World Cup win, perhaps, which was great at the time but has become a psychological burden ever since for all the teams that have tried to emulate it.

As regards the World Junior, sadly we don't have Tony Miles to ask about it - but we do have the man that went with Tony to the Philippines as his second - Bernard Cafferty. Bernard has been reading these exchanges on the forum and I've exchanged a few emails with him on the subject. He prefers not to post directly to the forum himself but has kindly allowed me to quote him. He doesn't presume to offer David Howell any advice, by the way - these are by way of historical comment and general observations.

The history of my recruitment to go to the Philippines [in 1974] is that Leonard Barden thought the Marcos-run country (after a coup to replace an anarchical situation) might be awkward, so I was pressed into service with the backing of a Slater subsidy. I had already been Tony's second in a European Junior at Groningen where he came behind Romanishin.

I was dinner companion and an adult Tony knew well, but I had little or no technical input - I was merely an admiring audience for his play and his post-mortems.

Some Soviet players had failures in the World Junior, often when they had a coach selected for them (designated for them, imposed upon them?) by the Soviet Chess Fed. I recall someone called Tomson who had had good results in Moscow events yet who played very badly (1960s?). It certainly was the case that when Tony won for England, the Soviet rep. - Kochiyev of Leningrad - was accompanied by GM Vasyukov, quite an amiable fellow, who thrashed me in five-minute games, and was not hyper-suspicious of me as a Russian speaker, as some Soviets were, but it remains a fact that Leningrad and Moscow were apart and rivals.

A quick summary of my position is that I first saw Tony in the flesh when he came to the old B'ham club (of Midland Institute fame) as a talented primary school champion aged ten, and he was my club mate from then till the mid-70s when his many appearances abroad meant that we saw little of him.

I forget how many times I was his second, perhaps only twice, Groningen and Manila, but I recall being at the Teesside junior team event where Bob Wade and I were helping with the team that included Tony, Stean etc.

Some interesting comments from Bernard... for my own part, building on Bernard's observations, I am wondering whether David Howell and Nigel Short might have done better to work together for some days/weeks before the event at one of their homes, rather than have Nigel travel as David's second in Argentina, when I would have thought there was relatively little time to do any in-depth chess work. Perhaps having what Bernard calls a "dinner companion" or "admiring audience" might have been a better counter to some of the psychological pressure that David was under. Thereagain it may simply be a matter of taste: Tony Miles tended not to take technical advice from others whereas perhaps David felt more comfortable having a chess mentor with him.

[Leonard Barden]

Given the impressive dominance of Vachier-Lagrave and Zhigalko, a 2700 and a 2650 and both unbeaten with 10.5/13, I think David would not have done better than the bronze medal even if he had reduced the four draws at the start, chosen other than 3...Nd4 against V-L, and proved more resilient after a defeat.

Fact is that this was a vintage world junior even with 15 of the 20 top-rated possibles missing. I repeat that 1990 was an exceptional birth year for high talent, and I would even forecast that in the fullness of time that it will come to be regarded as the best such year in the history of chess. 1989 wasn't bad either.

Objectively and considering David's own strength, his great chance was in last year's final round. He is still eligible in 2010 but so are the rest of the golden 1990 generation.