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Playing online with Video Fritz/Playchess Lopez Responds Understanding Chess Strategy Most Instructive Games of Chess SCID Returns More: Another Trip to the Bookstore Tips On Analysis 2454.1 Help Learning With ChessBase CDs 2442.1 Training With "The Brick" More: Understanding PC Analysis Speed Chess Suggestion Dan Heisman Updates His Guidelines Page Carlos Torre Memorial Participants Looking For Strong Play DGT Chessboard Corr. Chess One Year Anniversary of Dan Heisman's Chess.FM Show 2453.1 Lilknight's Miniature Mike Rosensaft's KI Tactics 2447.1 Player49 Wants Help With the Caro Kann Trompowsky Problem Accelerated Dragon 2450.1 Queen's Indian Resources More: Endgame Study 2420.18
GAMES S Kidambi (IM) - Koneru Humpy (GM) 1.d4 d6 Bonin,J (2339) - Shabalov,A (2597) [D46] 1.d4 Nf6 Shapiro,D (2264) - Becerra Rivero,J (2558) [A41] 1.d4 g6 Aguilar,M - Panno,O [B33] 1.e4 c5 S S Ganguly - Roktim Bandhodhpay 1.e4 e5 Bruzon,L (2603) - Lugo,B (2418) [C60] 1.e4 e5
Past issues of The Chessville Weekly can be viewed at our archives. |
Volume 2 Issue 50
December 14th, 2003 In This Issue
"If a man has talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has
talent and only uses half of it, he has partly failed. If he has
talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously
succeeded and won satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know." Still Available Directly From Chessville:
[FEN r2qr2k/ppp2ppB/2npb2p/3n2N1/5Q1P/2B5/PPP2PP1/2KR3R w - - 0 16] White to move and win - Find the
Solution
(12/14) Interview with GM Joel Lautier: The former World Junior Champion (1988), currently ranked #32 in the latest FIDE rating list at 2666, is a founding member of the Association of Chess Professionals. GM Lautier recently agreed to play 20 Questions with Chessville... "...the professional chess world is currently in a complete mess...The ACP has one simple goal: to transform chess, which in effect is still an amateur sport, into a professional one...the ACP will contest FIDE's further attempts at reducing the classical time control in most tournaments..."
(12/14) KID Fireworks - Part 2: Andrew's new book, King's Indian Pressure Play, published by Thinkers Press, will soon be appearing on the bookshelves. To whet the appetite, this month's Bits and Pieces column includes a few snippets from the book - four illustrative games, one each week, fully annotated with Andrew's unique commentary and opening insight. This week's game looks at the line beginning: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f4 c5 6.d5 0-0 7.Nf3 a6!? (12/14) Problem of the Week: Tactical training with our weekly puzzle. (12/14) Chessprint for December 14, 2003 "for the sheer joy of chess" (12/13) Annotated Game: A Visit With the Modern Benoni [A63] from the 1996 Swedish Championships, Wengholm,A - Hjelm,N. Annotated by Jens Madsen. For other games, see our Index of Annotated Games.
Online Chess League (12/13) The victors from the OCL's Fall 2003 tourney have taken their place alongside the Champions of the Past. Visit the OCL Hall of Champions and learn more about the Online Chess League. Another tournament will be starting next month! (12/13) Test!: Another Kennedy Kids story, from the creative mind of Rick Kennedy. "Time to see what you know about chess!" my brother said as he sailed into the room. "Don't bother reaching for a pawn - a pencil will do." Can you make the grade?
(12/10)
New additions to the
MyChessSite
downloads page: The Taormina Claude Pecaut Memorial Closed 2003
Tournament. 45 games, in a 6 kb zipped ChessBase file.
20 Questions with GM Joel Lautier
I'd like to state the obvious: the professional chess world is currently in a complete mess. Matches for the reunification have been announced and cancelled several times over the past year by the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. The final result looks like a joke... The ACP has one simple goal: to transform chess, which in effect is still an amateur sport, into a professional one. Chess is a game practiced and followed by millions of fans all over the world, yet it has remained to this day unable to capitalize on this huge potential. We would like to emulate the successes of golf and tennis, namely to set up a circuit of well run professional tournaments all linked together as in a chain... And I'd like to remind everyone that we shouldn't forget about women's chess too. This part of our game has a tremendous appeal that few organizers seem to notice, although it is quite obvious to any chess fan... This means the ACP will contest FIDE's further attempts at reducing the classical time control in most tournaments, since repeated polls, initiated by FIDE but never taken into account, have proven that a large majority of professional players are against the current 90 minutes duration for the whole game. At the moment, however, FIDE is not functioning properly, to put it mildly. Its president has spent millions of dollars but unfortunately to no avail, the mess is greater than ever and even absolute top players like Kasparov or Kramnik play very few games, simply because there are not enough tournaments any longer. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has certainly earned the gratitude of many players for giving them opportunities for a good income, however, he has been unable to build a self-supporting and lasting structure. The day he stops signing the checks, FIDE immediately goes bankrupt... Read all
of this fascinating interview with GM Joel Lautier.
Test! with The Kennedy
Kids "Time to see what you know about chess!" my brother said as he sailed into the room. "Don't bother reaching for a pawn - a pencil will do." Jon really likes to test me: test my patience, test my self-control, test my good will. A written exam was something new. I sat down at the kitchen table and looked at Part I. PART I: MATCHING Who said...? 1) "Chess is life." "Easy," I said, going right to work. If you know about the chess greats, you
know how they looked at chess, and what they would say. (Can you match
the quotes with the players?)
Test
Yourself, with The Kennedy
Kids KID Fireworks: Andrew's new book, King's Indian Pressure Play, published by Thinkers Press, will soon be appearing on the bookshelves.
Cebalo,M (2510) - Pavlovic,M (2565) 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f4 c5 6.d5 0-0 7.Nf3 a6!?
The red rag is held out in front of Cebalo and he does not disappoint us. 7...a6 is the introduction to a very provocative line... Find out why, read KID Fireworks with IM Andrew Martin
Miss Last Week's Column? Check it out!
The Mad Aussie's Chess Trivia Lesser Lights: When the USSR championship was held in one of the outlying republics, rather than in the major cities like Moscow or Leningrad, one of the top local players would be invited to compete. The first time this happened was in 1937, when the Georgian champion Ebralidze was invited to compete in the 10th USSR championship, which was being held in Tbilisi. He was outclassed, finishing last of the 20 players with 5/19. Lighting It Up: While the USSR championship was usually dominated by the top players over the years, there were times when an "outsider" won the championship. Here is a list of some of the lesser-known USSR champions between 1920 and 1991:
Submit your trivia to the
Mad Aussie! Pablo's Chess News Chessville coverage of:
other online chess news resources
Chessbase
The Chess Cafe
Chess Assistance
The Telegraph Chess Club
Tigerchess Times of India: Mumbai wows visually impaired chess champs
Mid-Day
About.com Chess
Chandler Cornered - Geoff Chandler
Mechanics'
Institute Chess Room
The Chess Drum Net Chess News - New Look!
Tim Krabbé's Open Chess Diary Seagaard Chess Reviews - Chess Endgame Training
World Chess Network RusBase Part Three - New Material From 1967 & 1968 USCF - 2004 Majestic Chess All America Team Members Announced Annotated Games
The Telegraph Chess Club
David
Sands (Washington Times)
World
Chess Rating Robert Byrne (NY Times): Mamedyarov-Topolov, Benidorm 2003 Lubomir Kavalek (Washington Post): Ivanov-Rivera, Philadelphia 2003 Jack Peters (LA Times): Lein-Shabalov, King's Island Open, Ohio 2003
Jonathan Berry (Globe and Mail) Puzzles & Problems
Chessville -
Problem of the Week Tell us about your favorite site that you would like us to
keep an eye on for you. Write:
Newsletter@Chessville.com Position of the Week: Solution
* * * * * * * * * Last week's position brought some interesting emails:
First, Oliver Mass wrote:
"I think I found an improvement in the position of the week...If we add a
white Bishop on e4, 6. Qa8 mate is no longer possible, thus enabling the
following much nicer and longer solution Now the question remains whether the position with the additional Be4 is legal. I think yes: the white h-pawn could have come to h7, the Black light-squared bishop to g8. With h7xBg8B! White could have obtained his second light-squared bishop. Black could have lost his queen with b4xQc5." About three hours later Pavel Perminov wrote: "The solution of yours for this study isn't correct, though you've shown only one move of the main line. This study is a symbolism, i.e. it is a chess representation of exile of Napolion from Moscow in the war of the 1812 between Russia and France. In this study BK represents Napoleon, WK - Alexander the First - Russian tsar. WQ is the detachment of Bagration. 2N - Russian cavalry. WB - the river Rubikon. The correct solution is as following: 1. Nd2+ the cavalry begins to press out the
French out of Moscow |
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Ask the
Tiger!
Interview with GM Joel Lautier: I'd like to state the obvious: the professional chess world is currently in a complete mess. Matches for the reunification have been announced and cancelled several times over the past year by the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. The final result looks like a joke: the official FIDE World Champion, Ruslan Ponomariov, is now offered a spot in the first round of a knockout tournament to be held in Spring, while his challenger, Garry Kasparov, has somehow taken his place since he will only play the final match against the winner of the knockout tournament. Not even in the troubled boxing world do you see such an absurd situation where the current champion has to qualify to gain the right to meet his "challenger"! The list of failures by the FIDE management in the last years is truly amazing: first the considerable reduction in prizes in the World Championship knockout tournaments (from five to three million dollars), now the complete standstill of the World Championship cycle since January 2002. There has also been the much criticized speeding up of the classical time control, which has severely damaged the quality of the games, without adding any TV (or any other media, for that matter) coverage to our tournaments, although this was allegedly the idea. This intolerable situation, where we can see our sport crumble to pieces with every traditional tournament that disappears and the media interest in our game dwindling dramatically, has prompted us to act and create a new organization, the Association of Chess Professionals. The ACP has one simple goal: to transform chess, which in effect is still an amateur sport, into a professional one. Chess is a game practiced and followed by millions of fans all over the world, yet it has remained to this day unable to capitalize on this huge potential. We would like to emulate the successes of golf and tennis, namely to set up a circuit of well run professional tournaments all linked together as in a chain. We want to establish a calendar of tournaments well in advance so professional players can prepare accordingly. We want to create a valuable commercial product so that organizers, journalists, media people and others living from chess can do their jobs properly and actually benefit from it. And I'd like to remind everyone that we shouldn't forget about women's chess too. This part of our game has a tremendous appeal that few organizers seem to notice, although it is quite obvious to any chess fan. I am certain that if a poll was conducted, it would reveal that both Judit Polgar and Alexandra Kosteniuk would be in the top five most popular chess players. Indeed, it has always been our wish that membership should not be limited to chess players only, like the GMA in former days. Hence the name we chose, Association of Chess Professionals and not Association of Chess Players. Besides the obvious resemblance with the ATP, the Association of Tennis Professionals, which represents an inspiring model for us, we wanted to emphasize the fact that all actors of the professional chess stage are important. Players, organizers, arbiters, journalists, chess programmers, et al are all part of the same play and have common interests. Certainly, the collapse of the single FIDE world championship title as it existed until 1993 dealt a heavy blow to the attractiveness of our sport. The ongoing uncertainty about what is to be considered the legitimate championship title has repelled many potential sponsors and will continue to do so until the chess world solves that problem. At the moment, however, FIDE is not functioning properly, to put it mildly. Its president has spent millions of dollars but unfortunately to no avail, the mess is greater than ever and even absolute top players like Kasparov or Kramnik play very few games, simply because there are not enough tournaments any longer. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has certainly earned the gratitude of many players for giving them opportunities for a good income, however, he has been unable to build a self-supporting and lasting structure. The day he stops signing the checks, FIDE immediately goes bankrupt. Read all of the Interview with GM Joel Lautier
GAMES Davies, N - Hanley, C Bury Quickplay, 2003 1.Nf3 d5
The
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