Telegraph chess: Tussle for board youth -- 25-Jul-07
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 -- 24-Jul-07
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 -- 23-Jul-07
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 -- 22-Jul-07
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 -- 21-Jul-07
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 -- 20-Jul-07
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 -- 17-Jul-07
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 ... |
A Gentle Hand -- 16-Jul-07
Half a century ago, Vassily Smyslov became the chess champion of the world. His 12 1/2 - 9 1/2 victory over Mikhail Botvinnik in the 1957 world championship match in Moscow was the highest point of his chess career. A quarter-century later, the 61-year-old Smyslov finished second behind Hungary's Zoltan Ribli at the 1982 Interzonal chess tournament in Las Palmas, Spain, and qualified for the Candidates matches. His 1983 match with Robert Huebner of Germany had an unusual ending. When it ended in a tie, both players agreed to let the outcome be decided at the roulette table rather than playing tiebreaking games. Huebner's luck ran out and ... |
Speelman on Chess -- 15-Jul-07
Today, two top class Rapidplay chess tournaments which have just taken place in different European cities: the 3rd Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup in Odessa and the chess even stronger 20th City of Leon Rapidplay. As One Day Cricket is to County and Test matches so Rapidplay is to Classical Chess: an accelerated form of the game which, however, still retains the main outlines. In Rapidplay games, the players typically have 25 or 30 minutes each for the game though nowadays they sometimes begin with rather less but with a time increment every move. ... |
Barden on Chess -- 14-Jul-07
Economic necessity is likely to induce more chess tournaments below the world chess championship to use a rapid-play format where the entire game is concluded in around an hour. Rapid-play time limits allow anything from three to six rounds to be completed in a day, as against at most two rounds of classical long play. Hotel and venue costs, plus fees to grandmasters based partly on an event's length, currrently form a major part of GM tournament budgets. Odessa's Pivdenny Bank Cup has become an established top rapid chess event. The top-seeded Vasily Ivanchuk, ranked No4 in the world behind Vlad Kramnik, Vishy Anand and Veselin Topalov in ... |
Telegraph chess: Topalov is toppled -- 12-Jul-07
It was a magnificent seventh victory for the world number one Vishy Anand as he was a comfortable winner over the world number two Veselin Topalov in the final of 20th Ciudad de Leon Rapid Chess tournament. Anand scored his second 3-1 win at the chess event taking both games with white and his seventh victory at Leon was also his third in a row. Anand had some nervous moments in the first game defending the Ruy Lopez but Topalov missed the strongest continuation and his attack fizzled out. Anand held comfortably with black in game three before scoring a second convincing win against Topalov’s Sicilian Najdorf to ... |
Telegraph chess: Anand ready for hat-trick -- 11-Jul-07
World No 1 Vishy Anand defeated Ruslan Ponomariov 3-1 in the first semi-final of the 20th Ciudad de Leon chess tournament in Spain to set up a final against Veselin Topalov. Anand is aiming for a third straight victory at the chess event. Anand won the first two games then drew twice to win 3-1, while Topalov had to fight harder against Rustam Kasimdzhanov. Topalov took a 2-0 lead, but Kasimdzhanov won game three with black to stay in the chess match. Game four was a tough struggle with Kasimdzhanov securing a slight advantage against Topalov's King's Indian Defence before ... |
Telegraph chess: Ay up, Chucks -- 10-Jul-07
The chess tournament will be won by someone whose name ends in ‘chuk’ was the verdict of the Israeli GM Ilya Smirin after two of the three days play had been completed at the Bank Pivdenny Rapid Chess tournament taking place in Odessa. Alexander Grischuk made a clean sweep of his games on day one but now he shares the lead with Vasily Ivanchuk who repeated the feat on day two. The pair have 4.5/6 and have already played, Grischuk won. Grischuk’s only defeat came at ... |
CHESS Lubomir Kavalek -- 09-Jul-07
Vishy Anand is the top-rated chess grandmaster on the FIDE list. Yesterday, the Indian chess superstar also confirmed his status as the best rapid player in the world, winning the rapid event in the Spanish city of Leon featuring four former FIDE world chess champions. In the semifinals Anand defeated Ukraine's Ruslan Ponomariov 3-1, and Bulgaria's Veselin Topalov edged the Uzbek Rustam Kasimdzhanov 2 1/2 -1 1/2 . In the final match Anand beat Topalov 3-1. Here is the last game in brief. ... |
Speelman on Chess -- 07-Jul-07
The 35th Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting came to its conclusion a week ago today in the city's Civic Theatre in victory for the world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik by the impressive margin of a whole point. Kramnik is always especially comfortable in Dortmund, which is organised with the assistance of his manager Carsten Hensel and this was his eighth victory, outright or shared, in this great annual chess event. I left you last week, with Kramnik a shade ahead after four of the seven rounds but ... |
Barden on Chess -- 06-Jul-07
Dortmund has been Vladimir Kramnik's most successful chess tournament over the years, and the world chess champion again impressed this week when he took first prize there with 5/7, a point or more clear of his elite grandmaster rivals. Recently the Muscovite has become quite deadly with the white pieces, and the Catalan Opening with 3 g3 shown in this week's game is his favourite weapon. When you play over the moves this win against Norway's wonderboy Magnus Carlsen, 16, looks ... |
Telegraph chess: So easy for Kramnik -- 04-Jul-07
The world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik needed just a draw to secure his eighth tournament victory at the Sparkassen Chess Meeting held in Dortmund’s Civic Theatre and he achieved it with consummate ease. Kramnik’s Petroff Defence proved impregnable and it is quite possible that the Russian chess champion Evgeny Alexeev never managed to deviate from the champion’s home analysis in the 31 move game. Kramnik looked particularly impressive in what is his favourite chess tournament and his unbeaten score of 5/7 put him a point clear of the field. He was never in any danger throughout. The seventh round featured ... |
Telegraph chess: Vasily wins easily -- 02-Jul-07
The twelve chess players were rated nearly 2700 on average. Ivanchuk was unbeaten and won with a score of 7.5/11. I will devote most of today’s chess column to the analysis of his victory with black over Alexey Shirov in typically creative style. The performance of Ivanchuk’s 17 year old compatriot Sergey Karjakin should not be overlooked; he confirmed his status as a future chess champion and scored just half a point less than the victor. Ivanchuk’s unusual 6…Be7 succeeds in avoiding Shirov’s prepared line and ... |
Speelman on Chess -- 01-Jul-07
The annual Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting has been taking place this week at the city's Civic Theatre, starting last Saturday and finishing today. One of the absolute elite events in the chess calendar, Dortmund always packs a terrific punch and this year's tournament has been no exception with a fantastic line-up headed by the world number one Viswanathan Anand and the world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik, who were joined by three more in the top 11: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Peter Leko and Boris Gelfand; the inimitable Magnus Carlsen (currently 22nd in the world but who ... |
Chess, reading help prevent Alzheimer's -- 01-Jul-07
How often elderly people read a newspaper, play chess or engage in mental exercise is linked to their Alzheimer's risk, says a U.S. study. The study, published in the online edition of Neurology, found a cognitively active person in old age was 2.6 times less likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's disease than a cognitively inactive person in old age. The association remained after controlling for past cognitive activity, lifetime socioeconomic status, and current social and physical activity. ... |
Telegraph chess: Very clever kids' stuff -- 30-Jun-07
The world’s largest chess tournament, The British Land UK Chess Challenge, is now approaching its final stages, with over two thousand children vying for glory and thousands of pounds in prize money. The chess tournament began in the spring with over 70,000 children competing in 2,300 schools throughout the UK. From these emerged 8,000 Megafinalists who took part in 37 area championships for the title of Supremo and the chance to qualify for the third stage, the Gigafinals in July. There will be North and South Gigafinals to be staged at Wellington College, Berkshire on 7th and 8th July and in Manchester University over ... |
Telegraph chess: The strong and the weak -- 29-Jun-07
The world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik taught the young pretender Magnus Carlsen a lesson as he took the lead of the Sparkassen Chess Festival in the fourth round played at the Dortmund Civic Theatre. The 16 year old Norwegian chess prodigy decided to play into the main variation of Kramnik’s favourite Catalan Opening and was soon in trouble. Kramnik rapidly invaded weak squares on the queenside with the aid of a couple of nice tactical ideas and once a pawn had fallen the end was very swift. Kramnik reached 3/4 but saw world number one Vishy Anand renew his challenge with victory over the local GM Arkady Naiditsch who ... |
Telegraph chess: A walk on the wild side -- 28-Jun-07
There were four draws at Dortmund which left the placings unchanged. Both world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik and world number one Vishy Anand drew comfortably with black and looked fractionally better in the final position. The teenager Magnus Carlsen failed to exploit an extra pawn in the endgame against the Russian chess champion Evgeny Alekseev. The chess was more entertaining at the Aerosvit chess tournament being held at Foros in Ukraine where the seventeen year old Ukrainian Sergei Karjakin shares the lead with his compatriot Vasily Ivanchuk after eight of the eleven rounds. ... |
Telegraph chess: Russians on a roll -- 26-Jun-07
The Russians rule after two rounds of the 2007 Sparkassen Chess Meeting being held at the Dortmund Civic Theatre. The World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik and the 2006 Russian Chess Champion Evgeny Alekseev both scored wins with white but in contrasting styles. Kramnik overcame Israeli number one Boris Gelfand who he will meet at the WCC chess tournament in Mexico in September by gradually advancing his queenside pawn majority. At the most auspicious time Kramnik forced an endgame with knight versus bishop and made his extra pawn count. As so often happens when Kramnik gets an edge, Gelfand never ... |
Telegraph chess: Comfortable for Anand -- 25-Jun-07
The 2007 Sparkassen Chess Meeting at Dortmund started with the world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik making little impression against the world number one Vishy Anand who held the draw comfortably with the black pieces. The eight player round robin chess tournament takes place at the Dortmund Civic Theatre and includes four of the world’s top ten chess players. Kramnik was still a doubt for this chess event the day before Saturday’s first round as he was suffering from a severe respiratory infection but Dortmund is his tournament, he has won it seven times and his agent Carsten Hensel is based there. Anand rather ... |
Telegraph chess: Blast from the past -- 23-Jun-07
Anatoly Karpov took drastic action at the Gorenje 2007 chess tournament in Valjevo in Serbia. The twelfth world chess champion reverted to the King’s Pawn, 1.e4, the move he favoured almost exclusively until his hegemony was challenged by Garry Kasparov. The result was a very pleasing miniature and Karpov moved up the table to finish third, a point behind the joint winners Michael Roiz of Israel and Suat Atalik of Turkey who scored 6.5/9. Roiz defeated Karpov in a game that will ... |
Chess champion Polgar sisters to play again together -- 23-Jun-07
After a 10-year interval, the chess Olympic champion Polgar sisters - Zsuzsa, Zsofia and Judit -will once again play together in a simultaneous chess exhibition in Budapest on Sunday, local media reported. Judit agreed to play 34 games while her elder sisters will meet 33 opponents each in the Corinthia Grand Hotel, starting at 1500 hours local time. Meanwhile, members of the U.S. Olympic team, for which Zsuzsa played in the last Olympics, will play 30-minute rapid games with young Hungarian chess talents during ... |
Telegraph chess: Anyone for a6? -- 22-Jun-07
Not to be outdone by the support given to Russian chess by the airline Aeroflot, the Ukrainian carrier AeroSvit also sponsors top class tournaments. The 2007 Aerosvit chess tournament is underway at the resort of Foros and was opened by the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Dmitry Tabachnik and the Director General of AeroSvit Aron Maiberg. 4…a6 is a very popular move nowadays. Black wants to gain space on the queenside with b7-b5 which has the advantage of forcing White to either exchange on d5 when the position is level or to play b2-b3 which allows ... |
Telegraph chess: Kings on the warpath -- 20-Jun-07
The Bazna Tournament of Kings includes many Grandmasters who were leading chess players in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. With the exception of Mihai Suba from the host nation all have been World Chess Championship Candidates. The chess tournament is being held at the Romanian resort of Sibiu and is supported by Romgaz and the Chess Club “Alex 2001” Bucharest. The participants are: Ulf Andersson (Sweden), Alexander Beliavsky (Slovenia), Maia Chiburdanidze (Georgia), Alexander Khalifman (Russia), Henrique Costa Mecking (Brazil), Lajos Portisch (Hungary), Zoltan Ribli (Hungary), Andrei Sokolov (France), ... |
Telegraph chess: Karpov returns in style -- 19-Jun-07
Anatoly Karpov, the 12th world chess champion, has returned to the board to play Classical Chess after a long break and he shares the lead of a strong chess tournament in the Serbian town of Valievo after five rounds. There are 10 players, all ranked in the world’s top 150 - Karpov is the highest rated, just. He has scored four draws and recorded a typical win in his smooth positional style over Kiril Georgiev. It is a little long, unfortunately, to reproduce here. The Fide President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, sponsored a computer chess match alongside the Candidates Matches at Elista and once again ‘Deep Junior’, programmed by ... |
Telegraph chess: 'Mr Six Time' at his best -- 18-Jun-07
Many chess players have turned to Poker to supplement or replace their income and many of my contemporaries in professional chess play poker online successfully. I gather that at a certain time of night the internet is awash with weaker players from across the pond and there are rich pickings. Some top flight and former top flight GMs are also trying their hand at Casino Poker including, the WCC Candidates Etienne Bacrot and Alexander Grischuk, who we saw yesterday overcoming Sergey Rublevsky to get to the World Chess Championship tournament. To my knowledge no professional chess player has won bigger in one week than American GM Walter Browne who ... |
Chess with Errol Tiwari -- 17-Jun-07
Levon Aronian, Peter Leko, Boris Gelfand and Alexander Grischuk emerged winners in their second round Candidates' Matches and will advance to Mexico City to play in the 2007 FIDE World Chess Championship tournament in September. The four grandmasters will join current world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik, along with Viswanathan Anand, Alexander Morozevich and Peter Svidler for a grand round robin tournament to contend for the maximum title in chess: World Chess Champion. The Mexico chess tournament will be a rigorous one, as it boasts the strongest line-up of active players on the international chess circuit. The battles will ... |
Speelman on Chess -- 17-Jun-07
The Elista Candidates matches are now over, after two and a half weeks of thrilling chess. Awash with tension, they were an irreproachably fair, if bracingly harsh, method of determining the four extra qualifiers for the World Chess Championship Tournament in Mexico this September. And we now know that Lev Aronian, Peter Leko, Boris Gelfand and Alexander Grischuk will be joining Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Peter Svidler and Alexander Morozevich for the eight player double round showdown. I left you last week after two games with Aronian, Leko and Grischuk all leading by 1.5 - 0.5 against Alexei Shirov, Evgeny Bareev and ... |
Leonard Barden on Chess -- 16-Jun-07
In the chess event it all went according to Elo. Lev Aronian, Peter Leko, Boris Gelfand and Alexander Grischuk were the outright or joint top-rated players in their quarters of the world title candidates' matches, and that quartet will join the pre-qualified Vladimir Kramnik (holder), Vishy Anand, Peter Svidler and Alexander Morozevich in the world chess championship tournament in Mexico City from September 19 to 30. It looks a strong chess event, with Aronian a genuine threat to Kramnik. The Armenian narrowly defeated Alexey Shirov in a high-class match with some inventive endgames. ... |
Telegraph chess: Grischuk takes his place -- 15-Jun-07
The line up for the World Chess Championship tournament is now complete after Alexander Grischuk became the fourth Russian to make the eight player tournament after defeating his countryman Sergey Rublevsky 2.5-0.5 in a four game Rapid Chess match. The eight players who will contest the 2007 world title in Mexico City this September will be: 1) Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) who qualifies as world chess champion, 2) Vishy Anand (India) the world number one who qualified by virtue of his result at the last Fide title contest at San Luis Argentina in 2005, 3) Peter Svidler (Russia) and 4) Alexander Morozevich (Russia) who ... |
Telegraph chess: Desperation for Kamsky -- 13-Jun-07
Peter Leko of Hungary and Boris Gelfand of Israel are through to the World Chess Championship tournament to take place in Mexico this September. Leko secured an easy draw with White to run out a 3.5-1.5 winner over Evgeny Bareev of Russia while Gelfand simply took advantage of Gata Kamsky’s over-optimistic winning attempt and scored an easy point with black to win by the same score. The Russian chess champion Sergey Rublevsky drew quickly against Alexander Grischuk and has white in game 6. This match is the only one at 2.5-2.5. Levon Aronian shied away from an attempt to win what looked like a very strong position against Alexey Shirov and ... |
Telegraph chess: How to exploit confusion -- 12-Jun-07
The favourites lead all four matches at the halfway stage of the Candidates Final at Elista. The Hungarian Peter Leko is almost certainly through to the World Chess Championship tournament after taking a 2.5-0.5 lead over Evgeny Bareev whose Caro Kann Defence has not stood up to close scrutiny. Leko has won both his games with white and the former world title finalist also held the draw very easily with black when Bareev offered a draw in the opening in game 2. The games between Levon Aronian and Alexey Shirov have been very complicated with Aronian having the edge most of the time and a 2-1 lead in the match. In game ... |
Telegraph chess: Pawn stormin' Alex -- 11-Jun-07
There were three decisive games in the first round of the Candidates Final at Elista. The four match winners qualify for the World Chess Championship tournament at Mexico City in September where they will be joined by Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand, Alexander Morozevich and Peter Svidler. Candidates Final scores: Aronian 1–0 Shirov, Leko 1–0 Bareev, Grischuk 1-0 Rublevsky, Kamsky 0.5-0.5 Gelfand, Matches are the best of six games. Each match has a prize fund of $40,000 (£20,000). President Ilyumzhinov has contributed $320,000 personally and another $160,000 is coming from Fide. The game of the day was played by Alexander Grischuk against ... |
Speelman on Chess -- 10-Jun-07
The second round Candidates Matches are at the half way stage in Elista, with chess battle resuming today following the mid-match rest day on Saturday. They feature Lev Aronian v Alexei Shirov, Peter Leko v Evgeny Bareev, Sergei Rublevsky v Alexander Grischuk and Boris Gelfand v Gata Kamsky; and after two day's play Aronian, Grischuk and Leko led by 1.5 - 0.5 and Gelfand v Kamsky was all square. Today though I'm concentrating on the eight first round ties. Despite the massive tension, some terrific chess was played and indeed when I left you last week two had already finished with Peter Leko defeating Mikhail Gurevich by ... |
Leonard Barden on Chess -- 09-Jun-07
All three native western chess grandmasters were eliminated in the first round of the world chess championship candidates in Elista, but in different ways. France's Etienne Bacrot, who despite being in the world top 30 has largely deserted chess for poker, was crushed 3.5-0.5 by America's Gata Kamsky. England's No1 Michael Adams, who was 3-2 up against Alexey Shirov when I wrote last week, subsided tamely with three losses in a row to go out 5.5-3.5 after tie-breaks. But Norway's wunderkind Magnus Carlsen kept on coming back from the dead against Levon Aronian, and ... |
Telegraph chess: Cigar for Vasily -- 07-Jun-07
Latin America has been a happy hunting ground for Vasily Ivanchuk yet again. The Ukrainian chess genius won the Capablanca Memorial at Havana for the second successive year. Ivanchuk must be set to re-enter the chess world’s top ten after pulverising the field to score an unbeaten 7.5/9. Six of the ten players were ranked in the world’s top 100 chess players yet Ivanchuk achieved a huge margin of victory of two clear points. ... |
Telegraph chess: Adams loses out -- 05-Jun-07
Michael Adams was comprehensively outplayed by Alexey Shirov in their Candidates Match Rapid Chess tie breaker going down 0.5-2.5 in the best of four game contest and he is eliminated from the World Chess Championship cycle. The England number one had been one up with one to play in the match proper but lost the sixth game. In the tie break Adams lost the first two games and then failed to capitalise on an endgame advantage in ... |
Telegraph chess: Sad end for Ponomariov -- 04-Jun-07
Michael Adams was unable to secure the draw he needed to win his Candidates Match against Alexey Shirov and lost the sixth game with black in 49 moves. The chess match ended 3-3 and goes to tie breaks with four Rapid games at 25' + 10" per move. If that ends 2-2 there will be two Blitz games at 5' + 10" per move, and finally if that does not break the tie there is the Armageddon Game at 6' to 5' where White has to win. Adams subsided badly from ... |
Speelman on Chess -- 02-Jun-07
The eight first round Candidates Matches came to their conclusion in Elista yesterday, though in the event of ties - and presumably there will be at least one or two - battle will continue today with tie-breaks. These promise to be exhausting not only technically but also physically and emotionally for the players will have to contest four rapidplay games then if necessary two blitz; and finally, in extremis, an 'Armageddon' decider. I'm writing on ... |
Telegraph chess: Adams looking good -- 02-Jun-07
There was some predictable carnage in the fourth games of the Candidates' chess matches, with six of the eight ending decisively as Etienne Bacrot and Mikhail Gurevich made their last stands but were eliminated by Gata Kamsky and Peter Leko respectively. England number one Michael Adams scored what may prove to be a decisive victory with black when Alexey Shirov blundered. Adams took a 2.5-1.5 lead with two to play. World number five Levon Aronian hit ... |
Telegraph chess: Magic Magnus -- 31-May-07
The sixteen year old Norwegian chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen levelled his Candidates Match with world number four Levon Aronian in the third game at Elista. Wonderfully far-sighted play in a rook and pawn endgame sealed Aronian’s fate well before he resigned as the youngster showed his growing maturity and became the first of the sixteen players at Elista to fight back after a defeat. In contrast Etienne Bacrot the French hope lost miserably with black to the American Gata Kamsky to ... |
Telegraph chess: Near miss for Adams -- 29-May-07
Michael Adams drew the white pieces in the first of his six-game Candidates Match against Alexey Shirov but was unable to exploit an advantage from the opening. Shirov took some risks near the time control and Adams was very close to winning but after studying the position he repeated moves. The Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen was totally outplayed by Levon Aronian who comes fresh from victory over world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik in a Rapid Chess match. There are eight chess matches underway ... |
Telegraph chess: Swashbuckling Shabalov -- 28-May-07
Alexander Shabalov has won the Frank J Berry US Chess Championship with a typically swashbuckling performance. Shabalov, a Latvian, is a contemporary of Alexei Shirov who faces England’s Michael Adams in the Candidates Matches. Both chess players studied with former world chess champion Mikhail Tal, the ‘Magician of Riga’ and are very much at home in wild positions. Shabalov started with five straight wins and then lost to the Ukrainian Alexander Onischuk who ... |
Speelman on Chess -- 27-May-07
The 3rd Mtel Masters came to its conclusion at the Grand Hotel in Sofia a week ago today in triumph for Veselin Topalov, after a precise series of results yielded him outright first on the lowest possible score: just '+1' - 5.5/10. I left you last week with three rounds to go and everything still to play for. After his bad first half, Topalov had moved back into contention with a win against Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu and two draws. Meanwhile the mid-tournament leader Shakhriyar Mamedyarov had ... |
Leonard Barden on Chess -- 26-May-07
Mikhail Tchigorin, bearded and hard-drinking, twice challenged for the world title and achieved iconic, Karl Marx-style status in Soviet chess. He often favoured knights over bishops, and the defence 1 d4 d5 2 c4 Nc6 bears his name. Later Aaron Nimzovich, who wrote My System, and Tigran Petrosian, the world chess champion, also won impressive games by knight play. The world No4 Alexander Morozevich is today's equine defender. He likes 1 d4 d5 2 c4 Nc6 and has written a New in Chess book about ... |
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