GameKnot online chess
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WELCOME TO THE MOST POPULAR TURN-BASED CHESS WEBSITE ON THE NET! (*)
What is GameKnot exactly? An online chess community where you can play chess even if you only have 10 minutes per day to spare. Playing chess, you are guaranteed a good exercise for your brain and enjoyable time too! No additional software to download, free registration, online chess at its best. You choose when to move and how often to move, and you don't have to finish your games in one sitting -- they'll be waiting for you the next day. If you prefer serious competitive chess, you can ponder about your next move the whole day, or when you have a spare minute, or even when stuck in traffic. You can also play at work, while doing other things or whenever you get bored! If you prefer fast real-time chess games, try our Blitz Chess. We offer several ways to compete and win: chess league, bi-monthly tournaments, mini-tournaments, teams and more! We also have a very helpful online chess games database and educational annotated games. We also provide free chess tools for websites/blogs.
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Totals: (since June 2000)
Registered players = 661,507
Completed games = 11,713,262
Games in progress = 112,353
Players currently online = 1,403

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WORLD CHESS NEWS:
Barden on chess
It is probably unique in more than a century of British chess championships for two county-standard players to share the lead after three rounds, both with wins over grandmasters. Stephen Barrett and Graeme Oswald were the early heroes at Great Yarmouth this week, though the fairytale was halted in Thursday's round four when the GMs Nick Pert and Jacob Aagaard beat the interlopers and advanced to 4/4. The question yet to be decided is whether an Englishman can win the title for the first time since 2000. Between 2001 and 2003 Indians triumphed, benefiting from an ancient rule allowing Commonwealth players to enter. The rules were then changed and ...
Telegraph chess: Wu just missed a win
Its two chess amateurs against two chess professionals on the top boards as only four players made it to maximum points after three rounds of the British Chess Championships being hosted by Great Yarmouth College. Steve Barrett and Graeme Oswald both upset titled players, defeating IM Stephen Gordon and GM Glenn Flear respectively to reach 3/3 and will face Nick Pert and Jacob Aagaard in round four. Barrett, who plays for White Rose in the 4NCL surprisingly outplayed Gordon who is the most likely candidate to be England’s next GM. In a quiet position that arose from the Capablanca Variation against the Nimzo-Indian with 4.Qc2. Barrett quickly won a pawn and ...
Telegraph chess: Flear mixes it up
The defending chess champion Jonathan Rowson lost an error-strewn game to Glenn Flear in the second round of the British Chess Championships at Great Yarmouth College. Flear is now in a group of seven players on 2/2 that includes Nick Pert who scored another easy win over GM elect Stewart Haslinger and has yet to break sweat. Flear, originally from Leicester but now resident in France was initially outplayed but with time pressure looming found a lovely combination which, while not entirely sound had the effect of completely randomising the position and gave Rowson huge complications to navigate and countless ways to go wrong. Flear spurned the win of queen for rook and bishop in ...
Telegraph chess: Rowson ready for action
The British Chess Championships start today at Great Yarmouth College with Scottish number one GM Jonathan Rowson aiming to make it four titles in a row. Rowson will face somewhat tougher competition this year than last as the English Chess Federation have taken the welcome decision to lower the prize fund and spend the money on supporting the participation of more titled players. The top dozen seeds are as follows: GM Jonathan Rowson 2599 GM Stuart Conquest 2546 GM Mark Hebden 2540 GM Nick 2536 GM David Howell 2519 GM Danny Gormally 2509 GM Tony Kosten 2508 IM Stephen Gordon ...
Judit Polgar struggles against Bareev
In the Candidates' Final, the top female chess player in the world, Judit Polgar, struggled in her match with Evgeny Bareev. This came as a surprise to many of Judit's fans, as we all felt she would have at least gone on to the second round. Bareev won the match with ease. This game was drawn. Winning with the black pieces was always going to be a tall order for Judit. She gave this game her best shot and obtained something of an advantage, but she really never came close to turning it into a win. The draw was agreed on move 47. Bareev dominated the chess match and might have finished it earlier and deserved to go through. ...
Barden on Chess
Canada's chess summer moved on this week from Quebec to Montreal and an even stronger grandmaster field. The Quebec winner, Bu Xiangzhi, left for the GM event in Biel, Switzerland, but Montreal included the world No4 Vassily Ivanchuk, in form and expected to shine against the Canadians, plus Nigel Short, renewing an old rivalry with the United States' Gata Kamsky, whose father a decade ago allegedly threatened the England No2 with violence during a candidates' match. The script went awry when Ivanchuk drew tamely with the lowest-ranked Canadian, and Short began catastrophically with five defeats and a draw, the worst start of his chess career. He then drew his grudge match with ...
Telegraph chess: Polgar's birthday treat
The Biel Chess Festival is one of the strongest chess tournaments of the year even in the absence of three times winner Alexander Morozevich. Judit Polgar of Hungary, the world’s strongest ever female chess player made the early running, celebrating her 31st birthday by outplaying Loek van Wely in her tactical style. In round two Polgar put some pressure on the Norwegian chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen but he defended carefully for the draw and the pair share the lead with the American Alexander Onischuk on 1.5/2. L Van Wely – J Polgar GM Biel (1) Queen’s Indian ...
Telegraph chess: Nigel Short fails to break duck
Nigel Short's misery continued at Montreal as he lost his fourth straight game, going down with the white pieces to Vassily Ivanchuk. Also in Montreal, Jovanka Houska, England's only female professional chess player, made the best possible start to the MonRoi International Women’s Chess Grand-Prix Finale, winning her first two games. In round one, Houska defeated the Polish WGM Iweta Rajlich, and in round two she easily overcame the Quebec Chess Federation representative Myriam Roy, who is rated about 500 points lower than the other seven players and will do well to break her duck. Two Canadian chess players played a wild King’s Indian in round three, but White always looked in control. ...
Telegraph chess: Tussle for board youth
Just two hundred and forty five young chess players from an original entry of 74,000 remain in the hunt after the British Land UK Chess Challenge Gigafinals were completed at Wellington College in Crowthorne and Manchester University. The sixty five section winners known as Ultimi go through to the Terafinal and will play for a first prize of £2000 while one hundred and eighty more will compete in the Terafinal Challengers for a top prize of £500 which is part of an extended prize fund this year down to 20th place. The North Leamington Community School and Arts College in Leamington Spa will host the climax to the year-long chess event, the largest of its kind in the world, on ...
Telegraph chess: Short open and closed
Following the success of the Canadian Open in Ottawa the Chess Federation of Quebec have organised a closed chess tournament at Montreal which includes Nigel Short and Vasily Ivanchuk. Short finished joint second at Ottawa on 7.5/10. The Chinese GM Bu Xiangzhi won outright on 8/10 thanks to a win with black in the last round over Vadim Milov. Short and Bu will probably cross swords again in September in Liverpool when the UK plays China. Short lost his first game at Montreal playing black against Polish GM Kamil Miton who also finished equal second at Ottawa. Playing black in the Bogo-Indian Defence Short saddled himself with an isolated queen’s pawn but ...
Chess, Lubomir Kavalek
American chess grandmasters Alexander Ivanov and Varuzhan Akobian qualified Friday for the FIDE World Cup, scheduled for December in Russia. They shared first place at the Continental Chess Championship in Cali, Colombia, with grandmasters Julio Granda Zuniga of Peru and Darcy Lima of Brazil and international master Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela, finishing with eight points in 11 games. Granda Zuniga won the title on a tiebreak. Also on Friday, Irina Krush won the U.S. Women's Chess Championship in Stillwater, Okla. She scored seven points in nine games, ending a half point ahead of the defending chess champion Anna Zatonskih and Maryland's Katerina Rohonyan. "Computers have a hard time to spot a combination where a sacrifice is followed by ...
Speelman on Chess
July is a prime time for chess, as evinced by the latest edition of Mark Crowther's splendid weekly magazine "The Week in Chess", which contains no fewer than 3700 games from 33 different chess events, currently in progress or recently finished; plus news of a further couple of dozen soon to get underway. Of the latter, I should mention the 40th Biel Chess Festival where play starts tomorrow and the 8th Montreal International, only a little weaker, which began on Thursday. This was preceded by the Canadian Open Championship, which was won by the Chinese chess grandmaster Bu Xiangzhi - who has gone on to Biel, ahead of a strong group half a point behind, including Nigel Short, who is playing in Montreal. Victory by a Chinese chess player would ...
Barden on Chess
This week's Canadian Open in Ottawa attracted a field of nearly 300, among them 22 chess grandmasters led by China's No1 Bu Xiangzhi and Nigel Short, who duly finished first and second. It was an impressive organisational effort since, unlike other recent Canadian Opens, the chess event lacked state funding. Private sponsors put up a $20,000 prize fund (£10,000) while some embassies in the Canadian capital also provided finance. These included the British High Commission, whose backing supported Short, England's No2, and our youngest GM, David Howell, 16, the joint leader after six rounds. Bu Xiangzhi's games showed new ideas in the Slav ...c6, which has been high fashion since ...
Telegraph chess: Solve black's secret
Despite playing all nine game with black the Young England chess team hit back in their match against Middlesex scoring four wins to one to take the round 6-3 and narrow the gap to five points with two rounds and eighteen games to be played. Once again it was the play of Callum Kilpatrick and Peter Constantinou that caught the eye. Kilpatrick played a model Ruy Lopez with black and outplayed Bob Eames one of Middlesex’s top scorers while Constantinou demolished the defences of David Ledger and finished with ...
Telegraph chess: Send for the Chinese
The 2007 component of the Liverpool Chess Festival will now be a match between the UK and China after the All India Chess Federation pulled out due to a clash of dates with their national chess championship. The Chinese have promised to send a world class chess team composed of four men, two women and two junior players. China currently has seven chess players rated in the world’s top 100, second only to Russia. The events are part of a 3 year program leading up to Liverpool’s Capital of Culture celebrations in 2008. The UK may have the strongest possible men’s team but Nick Pert is standing by to replace Luke McShane if the latter is unavailable. Michael Adams, Nigel Short and Jonathan Rowson are ...
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