I guess it was a bit of a tough draw being Father's Day but a couple dozen people showed up for the lecture portion of GM Charbonneau's visit. About half that number stayed for the simul.

The lecture portion appeared to go much the same as the Edmonton visit. GM Charbonneau started with Q&A and then went over two games from the Olympiad. The first, a win over Hussein of Iraq and the second, his win over Anand. (For me, we could have skipped over the game analysis and just kept on going with the general discussion.)

GM Charbonneau talked about the general Olympiad conditions, his opening preparation for Anand, and the mindset going into a game against a higher rated opponent. He briefly touched upon his chess scholarship, his experience in University, and future plans--to tour the USA winning everything possible. He discussed his chess background and one of his favourite chess books, Tal's, "Life and Games of Mikhail Tal" (which I have on order now ).

One part of the discussion that I wish he would have touched more on was the idea of "chess sense". The ability to intuitively know where pieces belong. Karpov came up as having this sort of natural ability since he is, apparently, notorious for having a poor memory. (I wish that we could have gone into developing this sense. Obviously, there is a lot of experience involved but can it be learned to a certain extent as well?)

GM Charbonneau was presented with a framed set of three pictures during a Canadian Open where IM Krush was playing a simul and he sat down against her and set up a clear winning position for himself. In her intense concentration, she didn't notice GM Charbonneau slip into the simul until she looked at the horrible position on the board.

All of the participants in the simul were given a small medallion commerating the Canadian Champion's visit and then he proceeded to roll through the field undefeated. (We were given a hint to book up on the Sicilian Dragon but from my seat, it appeared that GM Charbonneau alternated 1 e4 / 1 d4 on the boards. Of course, I ended up with 1 d4 and got smothered in a Semi-Slav.)