The Second FIDE Grand Prix Tournament is taking place in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi, from July 30 to August 15, 2008, with 14 players from ten different countries. The field is dominated by Ukrainian GM Vassily Ivanchuk, who is 37 point ahead of the next highest ranked player in the field. In the first round it was Alexander Grischuk and Teimour Radjabov who scored. Illustrated report.

Russian GM Evgeny Alekseev took a full point from Alexander Onischuk, USA, to join Magnus Carlsen in second place. Cuban grandmaster Leinier Dominguez, who in round nine had good chances against top seed Carlsen, is still a full point ahead and assured at least joint first in the tournament. The final round begins an hour earlier to accommodate possible tiebreaks. Round nine report.

Chess960 is a form of Fischer Random Chess, where the pieces are shuffled (symmetrically) for the starting position of the game. At the Chess Classic in Mainz the Women’s Rapid World Championship Alexandra Kosteniuk, Russia, and Kateryna Lahno, Ukraine have qualified for the final. In the computer championship Rybka and Naum lead. Full reports and games.

What a turn of events! Russian GM Evgeny Alekseev caught the leader, Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez, who had been coasting to sole victory. Alekseev beat Pelletier, while Dominguez succumbed to revitalised French GM Etienne Bacrot. Magnus Carlsen was unable to overcome Alexander Onischuk’s defence. In the tiebreak Alekseev won the second blitz game to take overall victory. Express report.

Does it run on 64-bit machines? Is it optimised for the 64-bit environment? Do we get two engines, one for 32 and one for 64 bit systems? These were the most common questions we received after announcing our new Rybka 3 chess engine. And what are the most important new functions? How do they help with training and analysis? Here are the answers.

Simultaneous events are chess spectacles. Only a few games make it to the textbooks, and the atmosphere is informal and noisy. But Vishy Anand seems undisturbed, concentrating only on breaking a record. He does, finishing with a single draw conceded. The record he broke (four draws in 40 games) was set in Mainz in 1994 – by Vishy Anand! Report on simul and press conference.

An exaggeration? Maybe, but if it is, it’s not much of one. In his Wednesday
night Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos
looks at an unusual game by the great Cuban world champion José Raúl
Capablanca, played in Karlsbad against Czech master Karel Treybal, in which
locking up the board was the key to success. Come watch this impressive game unfold.

He spends an inordinate amount of time taking pictures, selecting and sorting them, giving them proper file names, so that the editors can make proper reports. Somewhere in the middle of it all Dutch GM Sergey Tivikov finds time to actually participate, play his games – and even to win. He took the Politiken Cup 2008 in Helsingør, Denmark on tiebreak points. Illustrated (of course) report.

Shocking: top seed and second strongest female player in the world, GM Koneru Humpy of India, lost her first two games in the North Urals Cup. On the other hand former World Women’s Champion Antoaneta Stefanova won both her games to take the lead in in this strongest women’s event in history. We bring you the games and a spectacular pictorial by Vadim Smalkov.

All three games reached decisions in round six of the Biel GM tournament. Magnus Carlsen defeated Yannick Pelletier with the black pieces, while co-leader Evgeny Alekseev imploded against Etienne Bacrot. Alexander Onischuk got into trouble against Leinier Dominguez, then turned the game into a theoretical draw, only to lose it when his Cuban opponent played on. Exciting games.

“When you see the beautiful eyes of an eight-year-old girl filled with tears, you think to yourself, is chess really worth it? But when she has forgotten her stupid blunder and starts to play against her next opponent, you realize that she may have lost her game, but she has won something that without chess she could never have experienced.” Pictorial impressions from by FM Arash Akbarinia.

Just when we thought everything was settled for a World Championship Challenger Match between Gata Kamsky and Veselin Topalov in Lvov, Ukraine, from November 26 to December 14, with a prize fund of US $750,000, guaranteed by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov – just at this moment Topalov manager Silvio Danialov says nothing has been signed by his client. Breaking news.

Chess is a primordial sport, but children can also play it fairly well. Last week, ancient Persian hosted the 2008 Asian Youth Chess Championship. A large number of extremely talented girls and boys, from the largest and most populated continent, competed in twelve different sections, widely varied, from lively playful eight-year-olds to romantic fall-in-love eighteen-year-olds. Illustrated report.

Is he still smarting over Vladimir Kramnik’s recent attack? “I prefer not to give too much attention to interviews,” said World Champion Viswanathan Anand. And what about the other claims and remarks? “I think analysing his games keeps me fairly occupied these days, I don’t want to start analysing his words.” Anand spoke to Vijay Tagore in this DNA Sunday Interview.

No, we did not suddenly lose interest in bringing you the latest news from the chess world. It was a major computer glitch in our news server, which went down on Friday night. We were able to revive it and display the site, but could not add or modify anything without risking new problems. Now we have things up and running and hope to provide you with uninterrupted coverage.

With 84 participants, seven GMs and four IMs, the Second Leiden Chess Tournament, staged in the Denksportcentrum of the Dutch city, was taken by Roeland Pruijssers on tiebreak points ahead of GM Erik van den Doel. Four GMs were in the follow-up group, and half a point behind we find a Russian FM with an Indian name: Anish Giri, aged thirteen. Striking pictorial by Frits Agterdenbos.

This year Anand defends his title against Vladimir Kramnik, while Gata Kamsky
plays a special Challenger’s Match against Veselin Topalov. So it is conceivable
that we will see an Anand-Kamsky world championship match in 2009. In his Wednesday
night Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos
looks with feverish anticipation at this possibility. Tune in and enjoy.

Recently Vladimir Kramnik spoke about the world championship title which Anand won last year. His interview, says one of India’s most prestigious newspapers, is full of salvos against the title holder. “Kramnik’s stance smacks of double standards and selective amnesia,” editorialises the newspaper, which goes on to deliver its own salvos against the challenger. Let the hostilities begin.