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Most of the top seeds in the Women’s World Championship won their round one matches without much difficulty, with a few long struggles (Elisabeth Paehtz squeaked through in the seventh Armageddon game) and a few shockers (13th seed Natalia Zhukova was knocked out by 52nd seed Katerine Rohonyan). We bring you results, games, tables and an interview in this big pictorial report.
It was pretty much a rout. The lowest scorer in the Rising Stars team ended up a full point ahead of highest scorers of the Experienced Grandmasters. One must remember that the oldest player in the tournament had completed his third world championship final match eleven years before the youngest player was born. We bring you a big pictorial report with stunning photos by Fred Lucas.
Over the years a number of correspondents have submitted to the Editor of Chess
Notes their photographs of the final resting-places of various chess masters,
including Anderssen, Capablanca, Grünfeld, Morphy and Nimzowitsch. There is even the remarkable case of the two masters who share the same grave. A pictorial record
is presented here.
The Presidents of the World and Russian Chess Federations were there, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and the Kabardino-Balkaria President. But not the Georgian players, and some international participants, who did not attend due to the Russian-Georgian conflict. They lost their games by default. Otherwise most of the top seeds won their first games comfortably. Big pictorial report with video.
How’s this for an unusual chess match: US astronaut Greg Chamitoff, who is currently aboard the International Space Station, is playing against the Ground Stations. The first game was won convincingly by Chamitoff, who is a decent amateur player. Now he is playing six simultaneous games against different Ground Stations. We have pictures and an indepth interview with the astronaut.
Just 46 days to go before the start of the World Chess Championship in Bonn, Germany. The match between Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik will be covered by a battery of online commentators, including GM Yasser Seirawan in English, GMs Artur Yussupov, Dr Helmut Pfleger, Klaus Bischoff in German, GM Miguel Illescas in Spanish. Here are pre-match interviews with the experts.
How do you get Fritz11 to play a game against itself? If you don’t know, it’s easy – and, best of all, you can start the game from a chess position of your choosing. Learn how in the latest ChessBase Workshop.
How does he do it? Chinese GM Wang Yue won all of his first six games, and drew in round seven to take a one-point overall lead with 6.5/7 and a 3034 performance. Second in line is Ivan Cheparinov with 5.5/7 and a 2818 performance. 77-year-old Viktor Korchnoi won a second game for Experienced, and almost won a third which he tragically lost on time.
Report after round seven.
Ivanchuk-Shirov: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 c5 5.Bxc4 e6 6.0-0 a6 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Ne5 Ke7 10.Be2 Bd7 11.Bf3 Nc6 12.Nxc6+ draw. That was it, Vassily Ivanchuk won the 2008 Tal Memorial a full point ahead of his nearest rivals. His performance of 2861 took him to number two in the live world rankings. Final report.
The ongoing Tal Memorial is a very fine tournament, but there’s very little
about the play that would remind us of the man being honored. In his
Wednesday night Playchess lecture Dennis
Monokroussos provides us with a special treat: a vintage Tal game which starts
positionally but in which Tal suddenly switches modes and overwhelms his opponent
with wave after wave of attacks. Enjoy.
The obital flight that took him to number one in the world is over, Alexander Morozevich came crashing down to earth with a second loss, this time with the white pieces against Gata Kamsky. Vladimir Kramnik chalked up a second win, this time against Evgeny Aleckseev, while Alexei Shirov imporve his dismal last-place score with a win against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Express report.
The German Grandmaster Karsten Müller has chosen three further games submitted by readers. They are all tough, if relatively brief, fights and include a loss by a 14-year-old Magnus Carlsen in a display in Norway (where his overall score was +28 –1 =1). Contributions to our Simul Hunt continue to arrive, and more articles will be appearing. In the meantime, enjoy the latest crop of battles.
The 23rd Acropolis 2008 International Open Chess Tournament was won by the Israeli GM Ilia Smirin, for the second consecutive year. He tied for first place with the Romanian GM Mircea Parligras but won on tiebreak points. WGM Anastasiya Karlovich provides us with impressions of the tournament location in Athens and portraits of the players in her big pictorial report.
What a round: four out of five games decided, the only draw a cliff-hanger. Ponomariov beat Shirov, Leko beat Kamsky (with black!), Alekseev beat Mamedyarov. A fine victory by Vassily Ivanchuk over on-fire Alexander Morozevich brought the latter crashing down from yesterday’s number one in the world on the Live List to settle back at number two behind Anand. Sic transit gloria Caïssae.
If Arpad Elo were still alive he would be a hundred and five years old today – three years past the age of 102 that he was supposed to survive to, as foretold by a Budapest gypsy when he visited Hungary in 1970. In reality he died in Wisconsin, USA at the age of 89. A close associate and family friend, Elmer Dumlao Sangalang, looks back at the man who revolutionised chess.
If Arpad Elo were still living today he would have been a hundred and five years old today – three years past the age of 102 that he was supposed to survive to, as foretold by a Budapest gypsy when he visited Hungary in 1970. In reality he died in Wisconsin, USA at the age of 89. A close associate and family friend, Elmer Dmlao Sangalang, looks back at the man who revolutionised chess.
Foros
and the Dortmund Chess Festival are the outstanding tournaments of
this issue of ChessBase Magazine. Whereas in Foros in the Ukraine, the
young star Magnus Carlsen progressed smoothly from start to finish
with his final victory never in danger, in Dortmund the tension was
high for a long period and it looked like a sensation was in the
making. However, in the last but one round Peter Leko wrested the lead
from Jan Gustafsson and held on to it until the end. In the shape of
Carlsen, Karjakin, Eljanov, van Wely and Nisipeanu, we have five of
the participants from Foros taking a look back at some selected games
and explaining to you the decisive ideas and moments. For the first
time, Jan Gustafsson has sat in front of the camera and recorded in
Fritztrainer format his convincing victory over Arkadij Naiditsch. More information…
Remember how hard-fought these contests used to be? Well, in round five of the third NH Chess Tournament that pits Rising Stars against Experienced GMs it was 77-year-old Viktor Korchnoi who scored the first full point for the latter. Otherwise there were nine draws and 14 losses. Chinese GM Wang Yue leads the field with 5.0/5 points and a theoretical performance of 3400.
Big pictorial report.
Two black wins: Boris Gelfand overwhelmed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in a Semi-Slav (Anti-Meran); and Peter Leko was taken to the cleaners by Vassily Ivanchuk in a Closed Ruy Lopez (Chigorin). Ruslan Ponomariov was basically lost after eleven moves in a wildly tactcial Nimzo Indian against Alexander Morozevich, who moves to number one in the world on the Live Rating list. Round six report.
In a rare interview Vladimir Kramnik, who is playing in the Tal Memorial in Moscow, sat down to a cup of coffee and a video interview with Europe Echecs reporter GM Robert Fontaine. The former world champion was very forthcoming about his performance in Moscow, his health problems (now solved!) and his chances and strategy for the match against Anand in October this year. Video and transcript.
She is seventeen, hails from Andhra Pradesh, India, and has just won the Under 20 Junior World Championship, ahead of the international – especially Eastern European – competition by a point and a half. Harika Dronavalli is is one of the nicest and brightest young ladies in the junior chess scene. Her goal: to be like Judit Polgar. Indepth interview by Özgür Akman.
A few days ago former FIDE world champion Veselin Topalov visited the International Alcubeirre Tournament in Spain, where he gave a simultaneous exhibition and spoke to a local newspaper about Kasparov, the Zaragoza Expo, Scarlett Johansson (”I like her more in some ways, but my thing is chess”), his chess career and chess playing computers. Heraldo interview.
Ruslan Ponomariov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov both had drawn all their games so far. Peter Leko was on plus one, Gata Kamsky on 50%. Leko lost a Marshall Gamit to Ponomariov, Kamsky the white side of a Sicilian Scheveningen to Mamedyarov. Morozevich still leads. The round was particularly exciting since we had Levon Aronian commenting on Radio ChessBase. You can watch the rerun.
“Fully realizing all complexity of the present situation for the Georgian chess players,” writes FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, “I am appealing to you for your kind assistance in providing the sportsmen with conditions for smooth participation in the World Championship.” Letter from the President to the President.
Acclaimed as the “Fastest Brain in the World”, Vishy Anand is the world number one and World Champion. Experts rate him as one of the biggest natural talents in the history of the game. Easy-going and humorous, he is also one of the best-loved players. Now he has recorded two ChessBase DVDs on his career, with a total of over eight hours of video comments and annotations. Order now.
After a shock defeat or bad spell in a tournament it is usually advisable to avoid the risks involved in a quick comeback attempt and instead steady your nerves with a rock-solid draw. Vladimir Kramnik did it against Ruslan Ponomariov, and Alexei Shirov used it to score his first half-point against Boris Gelfan. The table remains unchanged with Morozevich by half a point. Round four report.
Four years ago Nigel Short, while winning the Commonwealth Championship, ran into some problems: “In the second round I drew with some 15-year-old boy from some very obscure place, some village somewhere. I think his name was Abhijeet Gupta.” Last week nineteen-year-old Abhijeet won the prestigious World Junior Championship in Gaziantep, Turkey. Interview.
It was a stunner: Vladimir Kramnik played the new move in a Semi-Slav, saw some promising moments and then went down with flying colours in 31 moves to Alexander Morozevich. Peter Leko scored his first victory, against the luckless Alexei Shirov, who has zero points so far. Kamsky had a win against Gelfand but spoiled it to a draw. Round three report.
It was a stunner: Vladimir Kramnik played the new move in a Semi-Slav, saw some promising moments and then went down with flying colours in 31 moves to Alexander Morozevich. Peter Leko scored his first victory, against the luckless Alexei Shirov, who has zero points so far. Kamsky had a win against Gelfand but spoiled it to a draw. Round three report.
Bisik-Bisik is a word from the Malay Archipelago, and means whispering
from one person to another. In a series Edwin Lam seeks to “whisper” to our
readers out there the previously unknown other side of his interview partners.
Today he talks with GM Alexander Khalifman, who in 1999 became the FIDE world
champion in Las Vegas. Today “El Khalif” runs a training web site
and publishes books. Bisik-bisik.
Recently a number of participants in the World Women’s Championship appealed to FIDE to have it moved away from a region of armed conflict. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the ECU and the organizers have appealed to the players not to politicize the event. Now Ilyumzhinov gives further assurances. Here’s his latest message and letters from participants and readers.
The second DVD begins in 2000, when Anand became FIDE World Champion, and it ends with his victory in the 2007 World Championship in Mexico. Anand not only analyses his best games, but casts a look back at the World Championshp in Delhi/Teheran in 2000 and the years before, he discusses the situation in the Bundesliga and Kasparov’s retirement from tournament chess. 4:28 hours playing time. More information…
Recently a number of participants in the World Women’s Championship appealed to FIDE to have it moved away from a region of armed conflict. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the ECU and the organisers have appealed to the player not to politicize the event. Now Ilyumzhinov gives further assurances. Here’s his latest message and letters from participants and readers.
The second DVD beginns in 2000, when Anand became FIDE World Champion, and it ends with his victory in the 2007 World Championship in Mexico. Anand not only analyses his best games, but casts a look back at the World Championshp in Delhi/Teheran in 2000 and the years before, he discusses the situation in the Bundesliga and Kasparov’s retirement from tournament chess. 4:28 hours playing time. More information…
The first DVD with videos from Anand’s chess career reflects the very beginning of that
career and goes as far as 1999. It starts with his memories of how he first learned chess
and shows his first great games (including those from the 1984 WCh for juniors). The high
point of his early developmental phase was the winning of the 1987 WCh for juniors. After
that, things continue in quick succession: the first victories over Kasparov, WCh
candidate in both the FIDE and PCA cycles and the high point of the WCh match against
Kasparov in 1995. 3:48 hours playing time. More information…