Canadian Open Report - by GM Kevin Spraggett

This year’s Canadian Open Chess Championship was held in Sackville, New Brunswick, from July 7 to 15. To be more precise, it was held on the campus of the University of Mount Allison (considered to be the top rated undergraduate university in Canada, atleast according to the university’s own web site).

Sackville is a pretty little town of some 5,000 people, most of whom gain their livelihood either directly or indirectly thanks to the university’s presence. In the month of July Sackville is an especially quiet place (dead is perhaps a more accurate description), and even some of the restaurants close down during the slow summer months. In September, I was assured, the town really begins to hop as the 2000 or so undergraduates begin to show up. Judging by the number of bars and pool halls in town, one can reasonably induce that not all of the students spend the whole night studying!

Before I go on, I should point out that while the town’s name (Sackville) may be somewhat unusual to someone who comes from central Canada, there is infact another town with the same name (!) ,even bigger, in nearby Nova Scotia. I learned of this by speaking with a player from Toronto (who I prefer not to name so as not to embarrass him) who had accidentally arrived in the ‘other’ Sackville (Nova Scotia) looking for the Canadian Open Chess Championship. He was somewhat surprised to find out that no one knew what he was talking about! Fortunately, he soon realized his mistake and hopped on a bus to go to the ‘correct’ Sackville.

In all, 169 players took part, including two GMs, Larry Christiansen of the USA and Tony Miles of England. A small number of Canada’s Ims participated: including David Cummings, Tom O’Donnell and Dave Ross. Although very few women took part this year, the Open was honoured to have the participation of the well known German player, Gisela Fischdick, a WIM .

Heavily drawing upon the CYCC held immediately prior to the Open on the same campus, numerous young talents participated in this year’s Canadian Open: Mark Bluvshtein, Danny Goldenberg, Roman Golts, the Lipnowski brothers Mike and Sam, and the Davies brothers Lucas and Noam , the Ramaswamy brothers Kishor and Kiran, the Lawson brothers, HaoYan Wang, Artem Gurevich, Edwin Tsui, Mathew Cooke, and Justin Deveau, just to name a few. (My apologies to those whose names I haven’t mentioned)

It was also pleasant to see many of those attending the CFC’s annual meeting (July 9-11) participate in the Open. Just off the top of my head, the names of Phil Haley, Maurice Smith, Haldor Pallson, Hugh Brodie (who has attended the last 22 or so Canadian Opens—a record undoubtedly), Alvah Mayo, Alick Tsui, John Quiring and John Rutherford stand out. It was a good opportunity for the regular members of the CFC to see in action and mingle with those who organize and lead the chess federation.

A small number of American players also participated (I mean apart from Larry), including the well known chess organizer , editor and promotor from Minnesota, Dale Gustafson. In recent times surprisingly few Americans have bothered to come up for the Open, but hopefully their success this year will encourage an even larger turnout next year.

Dale was mentioning to me that the principal reason not more of our southern neighbours participate in Canadian tournaments is that the Canadian organizers don’t advertise in the ‘states! Perhaps something immediate can be done about this situation, especially since not only is the number of active American chessplayers staggering (in excess of 60,000) but the U.S dollar compares so favourably to our own currency.

The tournament was competently run by Fed McKim (chief director), helped by Maritime Governors Richard Bowes, Charles Graves (arbiter) and Ken Craft. Also helping out with the duties were Esther Deveau and Ghislaine Johnson. Officially the university was responsible for the organization of this year’s Canadian Open, but I will say more about this at the end of my article.

There were daily bulletins available for sale, lectures from several of the titled players, simuls and a blitz tournament. On top of this, every day at 1 a.m. (yes, that is correct) John Rutherford (of Northern Ontario fame ) organized a 5-minute blitz tournament in one of the student residences. This event steadily grew in popularity and many players (especially the younger players) looked forward as much to this blitz tournament as to the daily round of the Open!

The playing hall was spatious and well lit. The top seven boards were roped off from the ‘common’ folk, and a small number of handmade demonstration boards allowed everyone in the room to be able to follow events . In addition, there were vending machines nearby for those who were thirsty or hungry. As well, the CFC put on sale a huge selection of chess books, sets, clocks and other items.

No event can be perfect, and although the team led by Fred McKim tried very hard to cover all of the essentials and deserve our admiration, there were a few minor things that could have been done better. Principally, the top boards (including the demonstration boards) should have had name tags so that spectators would have some idea of who was who. (Near the end of the tournament I understand this was remedied.) And then there should have been a BIG sign (any sign for that matter would have been an improvement) with the words ‘CANADIAN OPEN CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP’ either in the playing hall or on the outside of the building that staged the tournament.

As it was, walking into the playing hall a spectator had no idea of what was going on . For all he could guess, it was merely a meeting of the university chess club! This is not meant as a negative criticism, but it is my hope that future organizers will learn from these comments. ( I understand that the CFC office has a large sign with the words (CANADIAN OPEN CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP) made by the organizers of the 1993 Canadian Open (London, Ontario), that is available for use on request. )

This same criticism is particularly valid as far as the University is concerned: Sackville is a relative ghost town in the month of July and one would think that such a prominent event as a NATIONAL chess championship (and one that brings hundreds of thousdands of dollars to the local economy) should have merited some public signs on the campus to indicate where the Canadian Open Chess Championship was being staged. As it was, not even one small sign could be found anywhere on the entire campus indicating the presence of such a prestigious event! Even when one found the building that held the tournament, there were no physical indications that the tournament was being held inside. Infact, while in the lobby of this building there was a table set out with information….ABOUT CHESS IN NORTHERN ONTARIO (!)… there was not even the slightest indication that a tournament was being held downstairs…

The local newspaper showed up once or twice, and a number of articles were published. The local folk very much appreciated the business the tournament was bringing to the town, and demonstrated this by being very helpful and friendly. Unfortunately very few showed up as spectators; whether this was due to the complete lack of visible promotion is anybody’s guess.

The Canadian Open is a difficult tournament to organize, and every year the CFC encourages organizers from all over Canada to submit bids. There is an unwritten rule that if central Canada holds the Open one year, and the next year western Canada holds it, then the CFC would give preferance the following year to any bid from eastern Canada. The CFC would like to see some sort of rotation in the holding of such a prominent national tournament. Unfortunately, in practice - since there are more organizers in central and western Canada than in the east - it is rare that we ever see the maritimes hold the Open. The only two times that I can remember there being an Open east of Quebec were in 1970 and in 1977. (I stand corrected, there was another Canadian Open held in Edmunston, NB, but I am not aware of which year it was held) I played in the tournament in 1977 (Fredericton), but not in the 1970 tournament in NewFoundland (if I am not mistaken). Hopefully we will not have to wait long to see another Canadian Open out east …

So the organizers of the tournament ( Fred Mckim and his team) should be quite pleased with the turnout of 169 players. They had publically stated their expectations for a 150 player turnout (which I had originally thought was somewhat optimistic) ,but I suspect they would have been happy with 99 players! The cost of players from the west of Canada to play in Sackville is quite high, and this is often the decisive factor in the turnout of the Canadian Open. However, this year numerous players showed up from the west, from as far away as Vancouver. Even Saskatchewan had several entries. It was nice to see.

Larry Christiansen and Tony Miles , not unsurprisingly, out classed the field. Their winning score of 9 out of 10 (!!) was far ahead of the next group at 7.5 points (Cummings, O’Donnell, Ochkoos and Gaspariants, Bluvshtein ) However, as the readers will be able to verify for themselves (I annotate almost all of Christiansen’s and Miles’ games) the road to first place was hardly due to skill alone. Being so much more experienced that their opponents, both of them were able to pull some pretty dicy (read: suspicious) positions from the fire in the 4^th hour!

This made it all the more interesting for the spectators, of which I was one. I heard many kind and respectful comments from the tournament participants about the fighting spirit of both of the GMs, and about their easy and down to earth manner in being willing to analyze or talk with their opponents after the game.

Often both Larry and Tony would ‘hold court’ in the university pub late at night for those who were interested in the day’s happenings. Both players are really wonderful individuals, and the only negative thing I heard coming from Larry’s mouth was the difficulty he was encountering finding a bar that actually sold Canadian Club!

Having taken a close look at the games played here in Sackville I have a number of comments which might interest the readers. First, Canada’s young players are really talented and some are already quite strong. Definitely the CYCC events, as well as ACM’s numerous inititatives, have encouraged the development of many of these young players. But that is not the only reason for the numbers that I see: Canada has been very lucky with large numbers of immigrants arriving these past years. With their arrival they also bring chess culture, and especially we can see whole families who play chess.

All these factors taken into consideration, I feel that Canadian chess is at a turning point: how can we keep the younger generation interested in chess once they get out of their teens? Hopefully the CFC, ACM, local and national organizers will be able to start to organize the types of tournaments (read: international and title tournaments) that will be able to allow these talents to continue to progress and reach the next level. Canada holds far too few international tournaments considering the resources it has available. Without these types of opportunities, our young players may simply give up chess rather than stagnate by playing in endless weekend swiss tournaments.

It is nice to see Quebec start to organize international title tournaments (Andre Langlois is the chief driving force behind them). Ontario should do the same. So should the ACM. At present the CFC organizes the zonal(s) , and this provides relatively easy (one shot titles) chances for a young player to get a title. Furthermore, the new Olympic Team selection rules provide an opportunity for two talented young players to participate on our National Team without first having to establish a high rating.

Next, it is pretty clear to me from observing the play at this year’s Open that many really show that they come from a weekend swiss tournament environment: sloppy opening play (that only works against tired opponents), reckless and irrationally ambitious play when they are near the end of the first time control (that only works against weaker players), very low level of endgame skill (because they often win against weaker players in the middlegame), etc.

The weekend swiss tournament breeds bad habits. To compete favourably in international events our young players have to compensate for this handicap. In many ways, the consistent success of European players over North American players can be traced to this factor. I think that it is important to point this out so that many of the readers start to realize that, essentially, you are what you eat: the average Canadian player needs to play in more one round a day tournament. Opportunities such as the Canadian Open should be taken advantage of.

I now present a selection of the tournament’s games.