Sunday 12 August 2007

The Dreaded Team Clock Simul

The ACT Junior Chess League runs a development squad for motivated players each year. The squad isn't just for the GM's of tomorrow, but also for kids who want to work on their chess, with the expectation of learning more.
The squad consists of small groups (4 or 5 players) working with a coach. There is a morning session, an all you can eat pizza lunch, followed by a short afternoon session, with a practical chess activity to finish off the day.
The chess activity changes for each development squad meeting, with lightning tournaments, team events, and handicap knock outs as part of the mix. But the activity that fills the coaches with dread is the Team Clock Simul.
I'd first read about the team clock simul in Gary Kasparov's Fighting Chess. Each Soviet Republic sent a team of junior players (usually 6) and a coach (usually a GM) to the simul. In a match between republics, each coach would play a clock simul against the junior players in the other team. The points earned by both the coach and the players counted towards the final total.
Apparently it was all very civilized, with a long time control used for the matches.
Unfortunately for the ACTJCL coaches we adopted a far more brutal time control. Although the matches were played over 4 boards (rather than 6), each game was played with a time control of G/15, which meant that each coach had 3m 45 s per game. Over the years some coaches have manage to cope with this, while others have collapsed into blubbering heaps. Nonetheless the kids enjoy it, as this is their best chance to get one over their coaches.
In this years tournament a number of interesting results occurred. The two strongest coaches, Michael Wei (current Australian Junior Champion) and Gareth Oliver (1 IM norm under his belt) managed to win every game, proving that it isn't impossible to do well under this system. The second interesting thing was the position shown in the diagram. I'll leave the identity of the unfortunate coach who had this done to them a secret, understanding that strange things happen when you're short of time!

4 comments:

DeNovoMeme said...

WTF ?!?!?!?!?!?

Anonymous said...

Nice underpromotion. Bet the kids got a kick out of that one.

Anonymous said...

great final position...looks like a helpmate!

Anonymous said...

......at which point, the coach runs screaming into the night. It had after all been a hard day hadn't it Shaun?