Our friends at the Ahuntsic Chess Club in Montreal are again hosting the 90th City of Montreal Open Chess Championship, September 10 – 12, 2010 in Montreal, Quebec. A beautiful new playing venue has been obtained that also provides much more room and is conveniently accessible by bus and the metro, and also provides food service on site.

The prize fund has also been increased by $1,000 this year to $6,000, and Goddesschess is again sponsoring additional prizes in the sections for the top female finishers in addition to providing other sponsorship.

Confirmed players include GM Alex Lenderman, GM Bator Sambuev, IM Jean Hebert, WIM Yuan Yuanling, highest rated female player in Canada and a member of the Canadian Women’s Chess Olympiad Team, as well as many strong Canadian masters.

Informational link to French website / Informational link to English website

Registration form in English – registration available online prior to September 10

Registration will be available on site on September 10 but cash-only.

Rate of Play:

Electronic clocks – 30 moves/75 minutes, followed by rest of game/40 minutes, 30 seconds increment per move

Other clocks – 30 moves/90 minutes, followed by rest of game/60 minutes.

Schedule:

Friday, September 10
Late registration 17:00 – 18:15
Round 1 – 19:00

Saturday, September 11
Round 2 – 10:00
Round 3 – 16:00

Sunday, September 12
Round 4 – 9:30
Round 5 – 15:30

Free registration to GMs, IMs, FMs, reduced rates available to Canadian national masters. Further information available on the Registration Form.

A guide to Montreal accommodations, transportation, the playing venue and other information concerning the Championship can be found at Goddesschess.com

Janet Newton
Goddesschess.com

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

Russian chess has a long and proud history, dating back to the 9th century. The game was once upon a time forbidden by Russian Orthodox Church, which used to view it as a pagan pastime, but even Tsar Ivan the Terrible played chess.

In today’s more relaxed age, Russia’s famous and not-so-famous chess players need not fear the label “heretic” – the label of “geek” may still occasionally get thrown around by those who feel threatened by the intellectual rigour of the game.

Chess in particular is viewed as a good way to develop the minds of schoolchildren, which is why tournaments are held in public schools throughout Russia.

When the weather is warm, chess is played in parks and on benches in the streets. The Shakhmatny Bulvar tournament takes place in Moscow between 24th of June and 5th of September each year.

The tournament is held at Strastnoy Bulvar, near Pushkinskaya metro, Chistoprudny Bulvar, near Chistye prudi metro, and at Gogolev­sky Bulvar, near Kropotkinskaya metro.

Even though the weather is too unpredictable to play outside now, chess lovers refuse to remain idle. Many enroll in a chess school or a club in September, when the chess training season begins.

The Moscow Chess Federation combines 12 clubs and 7 schools, and there are particular ones that are worth checking out:

Children’s chess school for kids aged 4 to 12 – Prospekt 3, Universitet metro.
Phone: (495) 774 14 76

Oktyabrsky chess club – Ulitsa Bolshaya Polyanka 23, building 1, Polyanka metro.
Phone: (495) 238 88 24

Chess club No. 58 – Sirenivy Bulvar 4, sports complex Izmailovo, Cherkizovskaya metro.
Phone: (499) 166 54 26

Tigran Petrosyan chess club and school – Ulitsa Bolshaya Dmitrovka 11, building 2, Kropotkinskaya metro. Phone: (495) 694-60-49

Chess on display

Chess also has its own museum in Moscow, established in 1980, but it is currently closed for refitting and renovation.

“The chess museum may be re-opened soon with a new collection of chess that were discovered recently at a construction site in Moscow during an archaeological excavation,” chief Moscow archaeologist Alexander Veksler recently said at a press-conference at Interfax.

The museum’s collection has unique sets of chess pieces from 18th – 20th centuries, including chess boards made from jade and gems from the Urals, so one can only hope that it will be open to the public again soon.

Address: Moscow, Gogolevsky

Bulvar 14, Kropotkinskaya metro.

Phone: (495) 291-4429

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.f3 c5 5.d5 b5 6.e4 0–0 7.e5 Ne8 8.f4 exd5 9.cxd5 d6 10.Nf3 c4 11.a4 Bg4 12.axb5 Nd7 13.e6 fxe6 14.dxe6 Nb6 15.Be2 Nc7 16.Ng5 Bxe2 17.Qxe2 d5 18.0–0 Qf6 19.f5 Rae8 20.Rxa7 Nxe6 21.Nxe6 Rxe6 22.Qf2 Qe5 23.g4 Rg6 24.Qg2 Rgf6 25.Bf4 Qd4+ 26.Qf2 Qxf2+ 27.Kxf2 d4 28.Ne4 R6f7 29.Rxf7 Rxf7 30.Ra1 h6 31.Be5 d3 32.Bd4 Rb7 33.h4 Bf8 34.Rc1 Nd5 35.Rxc4 Rxb5 36.Rc8 Kf7 37.g5 Ne7 38.Nd6+ 1–0
　
Click here to replay the game.

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

Shirov, Alexei – Kramnik, Vladimir 1-0
Aronian, Levon – Wang Hao ½-½

Standings after 4 rounds:

Official website: http://www.bilbaofinalmasters.com/2010/en/

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

As the whole chess community is aware, on the 29th of September 2010 in Khanty-Mansiysk the FIDE Presidential elections will take place, during the 81st FIDE Congress. There are two candidates – citizens of Russia – the incumbent FIDE President and ex-World Champion Anatoly Karpov. To date, 93 out of 167 National Federations with voting rights have openly expressed their support to my ticket. At the electoral site of my opponent, only flags of 23 countries can be found.

I would like to stress that I have been always a protagonist of chess being beyond politics, for our National Federations to have full freedom in their activities, based on the principles of democracy. At the same time, unfortunately, from the very start, the electoral campaign of Anatoly Karpov and leaders of his headquarters Garry Kasparov and Richard Conn, has become a political confrontation. From the very beginning their actions have been destructive, aimed at the schism of the chess world and National Federations to serve their political ambitions, which have nothing to do with chess life.

We have witnessed this in Russia when before the opening of the Russian Chess Federation Congress, 43 Regional federations openly expressed their support to me, while Anatoly Karpov has had only 5 of the regions to support him. Nevertheless, through an open violation of the Federation’s Statutes, demagogy and even open pressure over the Supervisory Board members, they made an effort to paralyze the work of the RCF. The Chairman of the RCF Supervisory Board A. Dvorkovich has twice informed FIDE on the RCF position in respect of support to me as the FIDE Presidential candidate. However, Anatoly Karpov and his headquarters are continuously misinforming the public, stating that it is Karpov who is an official candidate from Russia.

Such destructive tactics, where “any means to an end”, is used by A. Karpov, G. Kasparov and R. Conn in many countries of the world, including those which officially and openly expressed their support at the forthcoming elections. Especially vividly it is seen in some Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Peru etc), where G. Kasparov and R. Conn have organised open pressure to the local Federations and their Presidents from the part of state bodies. There is an extensive campaign in local media, designed to force the Presidents who are not “disagreeable”, to resign. This looks particularly strange, considering the fact that G. Kasparov feels that he is an adherent of democratic principles. From my side, I would like to assure everyone that National Federations and their respective Presidents will not be left without our support.

For the record, as a Russian citizen, it is not pleasant for me to see and read some interviews of G. Kasparov to foreign media, where he is expressing open aggression towards the country and its leader. Here we mean the country which has provided Mr. Kasparov with shelter and protection during his difficult moments, and which has contributed immensely to his personality growth and professional success. The inept and destructive actions of G. Kasparov in the political arena hugely damage the international chess movement and Russia’s prestige at the world arena.

In the light of above, it is extremely strange that Anatoly Karpov has picked as his accomplice and is expressing the interests of a person with such a record of destruction of all the organisations and projects where he has taken part. The chess world does remember his break away from FIDE in the early 90s, creation of Grandmasters Association, his efforts to create alternative World Championships under “Brain Games” patronage etc. Now Mr. Kasparov once again is trying to split the chess world, bringing chaos and upset into our chess family. As a result, in place of an electoral campaign, aimed at the competitiveness of electoral programmes, ideas of future development of our Federation and chess as a whole, we see and hear a set of populist rhetoric and faultfinding. Their entire electoral campaign is reduced to attempts of political pressure, split of National Federations and personal insults.

I would like to remind that FIDE is not a place for political showdown, and, as other International Sports Federations, we shall not allow any direct interference of state bodies into the matters of National Federations. We shall not allow destruction of our united chess world and we leave a right for ourselves for any appropriate actions!

Gens Una Sumus! We are one family
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
FIDE President

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

Can you tell us a little bit about your chess responsibilities?

I have been President of the Maltese Chess Federation for the last nine years. I am also the General Secretary of the Small Nations Chess Association and of the Mediterranean Chess Association since 2002. Within FIDE I have been entrusted with the role of FIDE Commercial Director following my resignation as FIDE Vice President in 2007 to take up the CEO position within Global Chess, which I hold to this day.

During the last eight years I have been active in the organization of the FIDE Grand Prix series for Men and Women, FIDE World Blitz Championships and assisting the FIDE inspection teams for World Youth 2007, World Cup 2007 and Dresden Olympiad 2008. Together with the main respective organizing federation, I have also co-ordinated the first European Small Nations Team Tournament in Andorra last year and seven Mediterranean Men & Women Championships (in Lebanon, France, Tunisia, Croatia and three in Turkey), as well as three Junior Championships. This year we revived the Mediterranean Junior in Crete thanks to Sakis Kouvatsos and we are holding this in the first week of September with 72 players.

Can you tell us why you are part of Ali Nihat Yazici’s team and your role within the team?

Ali and I go back now nine years and together we have worked so hard on all the projects we have undertaken. It started in 2002 when we first met in Bled during our Zonal meeting. We agreed to form the Mediterranean Chess Association at that time and after that we met again in several tournaments where I helped Ali on media coverage. The most notable being the World Championship in Libya in 2004.

I cannot recall how many times I have been in Turkey since then, but I have been lucky to witness first -hand the growth of the Turkish Chess Federation. Today, Ali and I know each other’s character extremely well; we are passionate in our desire to develop a better European Chess organization and we will give our 200% to achieve what we are promising. I also respect Ali Nihat as a dynamic character, who not only has the ambition to change Europe dramatically, but today has the experience and results to prove that it can be done.

The rest of the team is also fantastic and we have a great spirit and friendship amongst everybody. Our slogan encapsulates the respect and responsibilities we have selected to shoulder “WE R EUROPE”. The WE is of great importance as we believe that we reflect the cultural and political values of all European Federations within our team and our doors are always open to anybody who wishes to work for the benefit of chess.

My role will be that of General Secretary and this will encompass regular and timely communication with the federations. It will mean working with all the federations to establish their goals and objectives, assisting them, and generally sharing in the positive journey we will undertake together.

What do you think are the priorities for European Chess ?

A lot has been achieved these last few years but a great deal needs to be done, and very soon. We cannot afford to stand still for another four years. Europe deserves a team which will give results.

I have been fortunate to have travelled and met a large number of European federations both before and during this election campaign. Whilst we need to sit down and work out individual strategic plans with each federation, there are general areas which require serious attention :

Firstly, Chess in Schools has not been given the impetus it deserves, so unless we all focus on this and start to get a bigger player base and audience, we risk remaining a minority sport. If the base of people understanding and following chess grows substantially, we have the basis for a serious business model. I am very proud to point out, in both chess and non-chess sectors, the excellent developments made by Turkey in the last six years. Is this success exceptional to Turkey? I don’t believe so and with hard work by the federations, faith in their abilities and support by an experienced ECU team we will succeed.

Secondly, substantial marketing sponsorship has to be found to put in place all the critical development programmes that Europe needs. Sponsorship based on a business model, not Government backed sponsorships. Whilst Governments or Regional Municipalities may be fine to organize single events for tourism purposes, we need sponsorship on a Pan-European platform for our Chess in Schools, Academies, and Development programmes.

Thirdly, strengthening the federations. Many federations I have visited are managed by people who love chess and who sacrifice their time and family to organize events for their members. Many of them have to cope with finding venues for national tournaments, then running them, organizing equipment and preparing travel budgets to participate in international events, so, unfortunately, development ranks low on the to-do list. We will support these federations financially, but we will also develop strategic plans and targets with them for titles for Arbiters, Organizers, Trainers and Players.

What can you say about your team?

We have blended all the elements required for a strong team to succeed in developing European chess to the level it deserves. We have the smallest and largest nations represented, as well as professional and amateur chess players. We have experienced Federation Presidents as well as Arbiters, Trainers and Organizers assisting our team.

Let me explain that our team is not solely the five candidates who are running together as a ticket, but all the federations and members in these organizations who support our vision and will work together to help achieve the objectives. Many prefer to remain in the background at this point but their help is greatly appreciated.

Are you a chess player?

Absolutely! Ultimately everybody is a chess player at heart!

I have played in four Olympiads, two World Juniors and two European Juniors apart from a number of international open tournaments. I have a silver medal on board one, obtained in Thessaloniki 1984, and hold the FIDE Master title.

Today, as a result of my travels, I am restricted to playing blitz on ICC and ChessBase, but I love it; this keeps me focused and helps me to retain at least some of my chess form

Web Site: http://www.weReurope.org

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

Official website: http://www.bilbaofinalmasters.com/2010/en/

1-2. Aronian, Shirov 2.0 (5 points)
3. Kramnik 1.5 (3 points)
4. Wang Hao 0.5 (1 point)

Round 4 pairings:

Aronian vs. Wang Hao
Shirov vs. Kramnik

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar