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Two Chinese girls, Hou and Shen, one Russian, one Ukrainian, an Armenian, Bulgarian, Swede and an Indian remain in the Women’s World Championship in Nalchik. Both the high-rated Konsintseva sister were eliminated in round three, reigning junior world champion Harika is out as well, so is Svetlana Matveeva, who eliminated World Champion Xu Yuhua in round two. Pictorial report.
After a furious round four, with all games decided, round four brough three draws – but none of them were your unfought, GM agreements. Anand got into trouble against Magnus Carlsen, dropping an exchange, but escaped with a draw; Ivanchuk-Topalov was a standard Nimzo Indian that was drawn in 44 moves; and Radjabov played another Scotch, drawing with Aronian in 34 moves. Express report.
‘Armageddon game’, ‘Sudden Death’ – these terms may attract the attention of the general public - but what a let-down when they find that no physical violence is involved. John Saunders, editor of British Chess Magazine, looks back at two cases that raised controversy and searches for less frenzied alternatives. Could chess even be the powder-keg for real-life Armageddon? Be very afraid…
There are numerous ways to tweak a chess engine’s performance:
hash tables, different time controls, endgame tablebases, handicap modes. But a little-used performance tweak for Fritz11 is its engine parameters. You can find out more about these variable settings in the new edition of ChessBase Workshop.
When was the last time we saw Anand resign a game in just 25 moves? It happened, in round four of the Chess Grand Slam Final in Spain against Veselin Topalov. Levon Aronian defeated Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen, still ailing from his Moscow bug, defeated Teimour Radjabov. Topalov leads in Bilbao, but Carlsen is now number one in the world live rankings. Express report.
When was the last time we saw Anand resign a game in just 25 moves? It happened, in round four of the Chess Grand Slam Final in Spain against Veselin Topalov. Levon Aronian defeated Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen, still ailing from his Moscow bug, defeated Teimour Radjabov. Topalov leads in Bilbao, but Carlsen is now number one in the world live rankings. Full pictorial report.
The 17-year-old chess player Magnus Carlsen appears to spend his time after school much as any typical teenage boy would. He vanishes to his small, sparsely furnished bedroom at the top of a yellow clapboard house in this suburb of Oslo and settles in front of the computer. “Maybe I spend too much time chatting with people,” he said with a smile. Interesting IHT story.
In each case it was the higher-ranked player who won: Ushenina beat Matveeva with black, Hou Yifan beat Sedina, Stefanova crushed Gaponenko, also with black, Cramling beat Ruan Lufei. Only top seed Koneru Humpy, the only player rated over 2600, was held to a draw with the black pieces by Hoang Thanh Trang of Hungary.
Express report.
On move 21 a clearly out-of-sorts Magnus Carlsen – our Spanish colleagues tell us he brought a bug with him from the Moscow blitz – dropped a pawn, and then was ruthlessly pushed off the board by Veselin Topalov, never someone to let such an opportunity pass. Both the other games were drawn. Express report.
“Hou do you think will win the Championship?” skyped Nigel Short after today’s round. Indeed. The 14-year-old Chinese talent Hou Yifan has won all five games she has played so far and must be considered a hot favourite for the title. In the other games Ushenina beat Matveeva, Hou Yifan beat Sedina, Stefanova crushed Gaponenko, Cramling beat Ruan Lufei.
Full pictorial report.
One rarely associates the Queen’s Indian Defense with sharp and lively play.
But (together with his second, Ivan Cheparinov) Veselin Topalov, a dazzling
player we have been neglecting of late, has detonated many dangerous novelties
on the white side of this opening. In his Wednesday night Playchess
lecture Dennis Monokroussos provides us with an example. See you on the server.
No, it’s not the latest scoring system, but the number of players from different nationalities to qualify for round two of this knockout event. Four Russians, three Chinese, two each Indians and Ukrainians, and one player each from Armenia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Sweden. None of the tiebreaks in round two went into the blitz games, everything was settled in the rapids. Express report.
Two outstanding tournaments in the current issue of ChessBase Magazine are
Foros in Ukraine, where the young star Magnus Carlsen progressed smoothly
from start to finish, and Dortmund, where
the tension was high and it looked like a sensation was in
the making. Of course there is plenty of teaching and training on this electronic
publication. Read
about it and order it now.
All three games were drawn today, and according to the Bilbao rules that gives
each player one point (a win counts for three). The game of the day was the
Dragon between Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen that had spectators on the
Playchess server enthralled. It has an
exchange sacrifice, a piece sacrifice and ends in a perpetual with Black a rook
and a knight down. Express report.
4-3-2-1. No, it’s not the latest scoring system, but the number of players of different nationalities to qualify for round three: four Russians, three Chinese, two Indians, two Ukrainians, and one player each from Armenia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Sweden. Reigning World Champion Xu Yuhua was knocked out by Svetlana Matveeva, 14-year-old Hou Yifan has won all four games. Full pictorial report.
All three games were drawn today, and according to the Bilbao rules that gives
each player one point (a win counts for three). The game of the day was the
Dragon between Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen that had spectators on the
Playchess server enthralled. It has an
exchange sacrifice, a piece sacrifice and ends in a perpetual. Carlsen continues
to lead in Bilbao and regular points. Full report.
The first game of round two in the Women’s World Championship saw 33rd seed IM Svetlana Matveeva of Russia defeat the reigning Women’s World Champion and top seed GM Xu Yuhua of China. IM Elisabeth Paehtz lost her white game against Anna Ushenina, while Chinese wondergirl Hou Yifan beat WGM Bathuyang Mongontuul of Mogolia. Big pictorial report with lots of new faces.
It is one of the strongest chess tournaments ever: six player averaging 2775.6 Elo points, making it a Category XXII event. The games are being played in the middle of the town square, in a sound-proof glass cabin. The scoring system is unusual, with three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss. The prize fund? A cool 400,000 Euros (US $585,000). First pictorial report from Bilbao.
The Super-super-GM in Bilbao started with a bang. Radjabov’s Scotch against Topalov simplified to a drawn ending which was played out to bare kings. Anand had one of his sweating-blood games against Ivanchuk but survived in the end. Magnus Carlsen, the incredible young man from Norway, simply blew away world-class GM Levon Aronian with the black pieces. Express report.
The Chinese grandmaster did what his predecessors failed to do: he won the tournament for a second year in succession. This further cemented China’s position as the leading chess superpower in Asia. There were 112 participants at the Mid Valley City venue in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. With a $24,000 prize fund was the richest ever edition in the series. Pictorial report by Edwin Lam.
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.
A big qualifier with dozens of international stars, then the final with 18 players and an average rating of 2726. The Tal Memorial Blitz Tournament in Moscow was one of the strongest ever held. After the first half Vladimir Kramnik led, ahead of Magnus Carlsen. The second half was all Vassily Ivanchuk – the Ukrainian beat both Kramnik and Carlsen to win the event. Games, photos and videos.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.