|
|
Home • Shop
• Chess Books • Software
• Magazine • Chess
Sets & Boards • Computers •
Reviews • Ornate
Sets • Equipment |
|
|
Contact • Links • Map • Calendar • Britbase • Bound Volumes • Bridge • Go • Backgammon • Poker • Other Games |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Shop Hours:
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Last Edited:
Wednesday 12 March, 2008 8:46 AM
• Send an email to the BCM • BCM Blog
CHESS NEWS • News Archive: 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007BCM Blog Latest: "R.I.P. Bobby Fischer" (18 January): http://bcmchess.blogspot.com/ • editor 32nd Blackpool Conference, 7-9 March [12/03/08]The live games website for the Blackpool Chess Conference indicates that GM Alexandre Dgebuadze (BEL) won with 4½/5. Leading English contender Mark Hebden lost to Roger Williamson and dropped out having scored 1½/3. As well as some games in PGN, the website features reports by Steve Giddins and photos by Steve Connor. Still a mystery to me why they insist on calling a congress a 'conference' - do the players confer during play? I think we should be told... 126th Varsity Match, Oxford-Cambridge [08/03/08]
Click here for a full report of the match with photos. Recent British Game Scores... [06/03/08]
Too Much Chess! [18/02/08]We are in urgent need of a moratorium on chess - there is currently far too much of it being played worldwide for journalists and webmasters to be able to keep up. Here are some links... Four Nations Chess Challenge - http://www.bergensjakk.no/four_nations_2008/ - nothing to do with the 4NCL, but a four-sided international match tournament between Sweden, England, Latvia and Norway from 15-17 Feb. That was the finishing order (not all the teams were truly representative of the countries' true strength, but it provided much needed experience for some of the younger players)... Cappelle la Grande (16-23 Feb) - http://www.cappelle-chess.com/ ... Aeroflot Open, Moscow, 14-22 Feb - http://www.aeroflotchess.com/... oh, and Morelia/Linares, 15-23 Feb (Mexico), 28 Feb - 7 March (Spain) - http://www.ajedrezmorelialinares.com.mx/. 6th Gibtelecom Chess Festival, 22-31 Jan 2008 [03/02/08]
Corus Wijk aan Zee, 12-27 Jan [27/01/08]
R.I.P. Bobby Fischer [19/01/08]
Hastings Congress, 28 Dec 2007 - 6 Jan 2008 [07/01/08]
33rd Guernsey International, 21-27 Oct [21/11/07]The Guernsey International was won (not for the first time) by that most popular of Viking raiders, GM Tiger Hillarp Persson of Sweden. We now have all the games, keyed in and sent by Arthur Brameld (many thanks to him) and, to accompany them, a delightful and discursive report penned by Kevin Thurlow which has been composting down in the editor's in-tray for some weeks now (both thanks and apologies are due to the author). Click here for Kevin's report, plus games of the tournament. 16th European Team Championship, Crete, 27 Oct - 6 Nov [06/11/07]
Ahmed Adly - World Junior Champion! [27/10/07]
Dorset Open, 5-10 Oct [21/10/07]All 51 games of the Dorset Open, viewable and downable here and won by John Anderson (my thanks to Bill Frost for the games). Long 'radio silence' from the BCM editor: after the Isle of Man, I went down with a bad cold and then had to catch up with a lot of work. Will be blogging again soon... 16th Monarch Assurance Isle of Man International, 22-30 September 2007 [30/09/07]
Vishy Anand wins the World Championship in Mexico [30/09/07]
World Championship, Mexico City (MEX) 2007 cat. 21 (2752) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Final Table 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Anand, Viswanathan g IND 2792 ** == == == 1= =1 1= 1= 9.0 2848 2 Kramnik, Vladimir g RUS 2769 == ** == =1 == 10 =1 == 8.0 2799 3 Gelfand, Boris g ISR 2733 == == ** == == 1= 11 =0 8.0 2804 4 Leko, Peter g HUN 2751 == =0 == ** == =1 0= =1 7.0 2751 5 Svidler, Peter g RUS 2735 0= == == == ** 0= == =1 6.5 2725 6 Morozevich, Alexander g RUS 2758 =0 01 0= =0 1= ** == 01 6.0 2700 7 Aronian, Levon g ARM 2750 0= =0 00 1= == == ** =1 6.0 2702 8 Grischuk, Alexander g RUS 2726 0= == =1 =0 =0 10 =0 ** 5.5 2675 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Round 7: At the halfway mark, Vishy Anand leads the tournament with 5/7 ahead of Gelfand on 4½ and Kramnik on 4. The only decisive game of the day was Anand beating Grischuk in fine fashion. Kramnik also went out on a limb to beat Gelfand but the Israeli fought back well to secure a draw. The world champion is getting good positions but failing to put them away. He will have to improve his 'finishing' in the second half of the event or his world title will most likely be migrating to India. Of course, that would set up a dream match for 2008: Anand vs Kramnik. Round 6: Boris Gelfand was the only winner and his second successive win was enough to carry him into a joint lead with Anand. Round 5: No fewer than three decisive games in this round. Kramnik had a fairly quick draw with Black against Leko but the other games were lively. Svidler played the Marshall variation but Anand just seemed to get a decent position for White and was eventually a pawn up for nothing. In truth Svidler put up rather limp resistance. Morozevich took a rather warm pawn and was soon in all sorts of trouble on the black squares against Grischuk, who wrapped things up very effectively. Aronian indulged in some rather loose play in front of his castled king and was eventualy punished by Gelfand. Anand is now in the lead, half a point ahead of Kramnik, Grsichuk and Gelfand, and then there is a full point between the top four and the bottom four. It is probably too early to write anyone off yet because we have seen a few recent examples of remarkable second-half recoveries in major tournaments. That said, nobody here is called Veselin Topalov.
Round 4: Anand and Kramnik both pressed their opponents hard, but both failed to get the win. Morozevich seemed to be doing OK but then allowed Anand to get a monster c-pawn. Anand seemed odds-on to win from about move 35 to near the end but eventually had to settle for a repetition. Kramnik too seemed to have the win in the bank against Grischuk but for once his endgame play let him down. In the final analysis Morozevich and Grischuk have to be congratulated on their gritty defence. Aronian was the one winner of the day when Leko sacrificed a piece for not very much after being pushed back in a hedgehog opening. Svidler-Gelfand was a tame draw. Round 3: Another lively round. The big clash between Anand and Kramnik turned favoured the world champion when Anand tried a mini-tactic to engineer an advanced passed pawn but simply lost the pawn. However, careful play from Anand ensured that the resultant endgame was drawn. It was noticeable that this game was played at high speed, with Kramnik moving quicker than the normally super-fast Anand. Svidler defended the Scotch by developing his queen to f6. Though this is a known and respected line, Morozevich made it look like a beginner's error, harrying and hassling the queen until the point when Svidler blundered and had to give up material to extricate the queen from trouble. It did him no good and he lost quickly. Grischuk worked up a promising kingside attack against Aronian but finally opted for a repetition in time trouble, in a position that still looked to be quite useful for him. Leko appeared to be in the ascendant around move 35 but he then squandered his advantage with some tentative moves in the run-up to the first time control. In fact he was all but lost, but managed to cling to a draw in a long queen endgame. Round 2: things came alive with two full-blooded and decisive games. In one, Aronian tried a very dubious temporary piece sacrifice against Anand and then got a rook trapped behind enemy lines and lost. In the other, Kramnik played what was by his standards an extraordinarily adventurous game against Morozevich, also risking a knight sacrifice. But Morozevich, who normally thrives in messy positions, went astray trying to mate the world champion and lost rather quickly. Computers cannot make too much sense of this game and it is beyond ordinary mortals' comprehension so we will have to await the super-GMs' verdicts as to what was going on. Svidler was a pawn up against Leko but couldn't find a way to exploit his advantage. Gelfand-Grischuk may have been of some interest to theoreticians but didn't last long. Round 1: An inauspicious start to the world championship tournament in Mexico City - four draws, all in fewer than 30 moves. 57th Paignton Congress, 2-8 Sept [23/09/07]GM Keith Arkell won the 'Ron Bruce' Premier tournament at the 57th annual Paignton Congress, held 2-8 September. View/download games. Thanks to Bill Frost of the Chess Devon website for the games (report and crosstable here). I have added full names and ratings to his original file. 4NCL British Team League 2007/2008, 15-16 September [16/09/07]The 4NCL British Team League started its 2007/8 season with Division 1, 2 and 3 matches in Sunningdale over the weekend of 15-16 September. Latest results • Live Action • Official website • Download Division 1, Round 1 games. Liverpool 800th Anniversary Summit Match: UK v China, 4-9 Sept [08/09/07]
Match Scores: Main Match: China - Ni Hua, Zhang Pengxiang, Wang Yue, Wang Hao 4/6, Bu Xiangzhi 3½, Hou Yifan 2½; UK - Adams 3½, Short, 3, Jones 2½, Howell 2, Pert, Rowson 1½. Women's match: China - Ding Yixin 3½, Shen Yang 2½; UK - Arakhamia 4, Houska 2. So it was 22-14 in the main match, 6-6 in the women's match, making 28-22 overall. • Live Games • ... click here for archived round-by-round reports on the Liverpool event IBCA European Individual Championship, Durham, 14-23 Aug [28/08/07]
5th Staunton Memorial, Simpsons, London, 7-18 August [18/08/07]
• View/download
games (all games) thanks to Ray Keene and Steve Giddins • Final Crosstable British Championships, 30 July - 10 August [11/08/07]
Congratulations, Mickey and Tara! [08/08/07]Tucked away in a page on the Staunton Memorial tournament's website, comes the news that Britain's no.1 chessplayer Mickey Adams has married his long-time girlfriend Tara MacGowran at a ceremony in Taunton on 4 August. Congratulations to both of them. His honeymoon will be spent playing chess in the Staunton tournament (see here). Haslinger Scores Final GM Norm*, South Wales International, 7-12 July [20/07/07]The 4th South Wales International took place at Caerleon College, near Newport in Gwent, Wales, from 7-12 July. Four GMs - M Dzhumaev (UZB, 2500g), V Dobrov (RUS, 2504g), M Pavlovic (SRB, 2541g), P Wells (ENG, 2517g) - did battle with IM Stewart Haslinger, James Cobb, Charles Cobb, etc. Final Scores: 1st M Dzhumaev (UZB) 8/9 (£1,000), 2nd S Haslinger (ENG) 7½ (£600), 3rd P Wells (ENG) 7 (£300). Haslinger beat GM Dobrov in the last round to gain his final GM norm. *But I am reliably informed that he is still ten points short of the rating threshold (which is 2500) so he needs a good run of form to get him over the line. Richard Jones and Ioan Rees won the prize for the highest-placed Welsh players with 6 points. Official website: http://www.southwaleschess.co.uk/SWI/home.html - the games are now available (my thanks to Jack Rudd) • View/download games • Thanks to Mark Adams. Scottish Championships 7-15 July [19/07/07]The 114th Scottish Championships are being held in Cumbernauld from 7-15 July. The championship itself is being held as a ten-player all-play-all, with only three players rated above 2250. Official Website (which has the games in text format). Final Scores : 1st Andrew Muir 8/9 (his first Scottish title), 2-3 Alan Grant, Colin McNab 7, 4 Douglas Bryson 6½, etc. View/download games Middlesex vs Young England, 9-13 & 16-19 July [19/07/07]A group of nine young English players took on a strong Middlesex side in a nine-round Scheveningen format tournament (each of nine players on each team players each member of the other team once). The tournament is being sponsored by Edexcel, Popularis and the John Robinson Trust. The Middlesex team includes GMs Bogdan Lalic and Aaron Summerscale and IMs Cox and Crouch. Latest: Middlesex lead 40½-31½ with one of the nine rounds to go. This event is being held in celebration of Middlesex County Chess Association's centenary. Tournament coverage and games are available here. Irish Open Championship, 30 Jun - 8 Jul [13/07/07]This year's Irish Championship, sponsored by Island Oil & Gas and held at the Royal Dublin Hotel, O'Connell Street, Dublin, from 30 June to 8 July... more • View/download games • Official Site • thanks to Mark Orr and Ian Doyle BCM for July [06/07/07]
Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup [06/07/07]The Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup (http://worldcup.pivdenny.com/ru/) takes place in Odessa, Ukraine, from 4-6 July. Ten leading players (including five 2700+ super-GMs) meet in an all-play-all rapidplay event, with three games played per day (time control: 20 mins + 10 second increments. The tournament was being dominated by the two 'Chuks... Grischuk had a perfect day 1 (3/3, including a win over Ivanchuk), but Ivanchuk equalled his achievement with a perfect 3/3 on day 2. Final Scores: 1 Ivanchuk 7/9, 2 Grischuk 6½, 3-4 Radjabov, Shirov 4½, 5 Gelfand 5, 6 Drozdovskij 4, 7 Bacrot 3½, 8 Korchnoi 3, 9-10 Smirin, Tukmakov 2½ • View/download games Hastings Chess Club Celebrates its 125th Anniversary [30/06/07]Hastings Chess Club celebrated its 125th anniversary on 30 June 2007 with a reception at the club in Cornwallis Terrace, Hastings. Hastings CC is rightly proud of its long tradition of chess, as are the people of Hastings. Consequently it was no surprise that local MP Michael Foster and town councillor Paul Smith were in attendance, both being terrific supporters of chess in the town. BCM's editor was there to bring you this full report with videos and still photos of the occasion. Dortmund, 23 June - 1 July [01/07/07]The Dortmund Sparkassen tournament is a hugely strong (category event)
featuring eight elite players: Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand, Shak Mamedyarov,
Peter Leko, Boris Gelfand, Magnus Carlsen, Evgeny Alabekseev and Arkady
Naiditsch. Play starts at 2pm GMT. Follow the action online via the official
website, http://www.playchess.com/
(where Yasser Seirawan provides commentary: it costs about 1 euro a day)
and the Internet
Chess Club (where there is also live audio commentary). Aerosvit-Foros, 17-30 June [30/06/07]This impressive tournament in Crimea, Ukraine, features 12 GMs with an
average rating of 2693: Peter Svidler, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Dmitry Jakovenko,
Alexei Shirov, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, Krishnan Sasikiran, Pavel Elyanov,
Sergey Karyakin, Sergey Rublevsky, Lenier Dominguez, Loek Van Wely and
Alexander Onischuk. Follow the action online via the official
website and the Internet
Chess Club FIDE World Championship Tournament, Mexico, 13-29 Sept [13/06/07]This year, as in 2005, the World Chess Federation (FIDE) is holding a tournament to decide the world championship. Hopefully this will be the last time they employ this unsatisfactory format to decide the supreme title. The tournament will be held in Mexico City from 13-29 September 2007, with tie-breaks (what a horrible thought) on 30 September. The tournament format is double-cycle all-play-all (i.e. each player plays all the others once with White and once with Black). The eight-player line-up: Vladimir Kramnik (RUS, reigning world champion); Viswanathan Anand (IND, world rated no.1); Alexander Morozevich (RUS); Levon Aronian (ARM); Peter Leko (HUN); Peter Svidler (RUS); Boris Gelfand (ISR); Alexander Grischuk (RUS). Prize fund: $1.3 million. Official website: http://www.chessmexico.com/. FIDE World Championship Candidates, Elista, 27 May - 13 June [13/06/07]
† Lady Thelma Milner-Barry (1921-2007) [05/06/07]Lady Thelma Milner-Barry, widow of the renowned British chessplayer and wartime cryptanalyst Sir Stuart Milner-Barry (1906-1995), sadly died on 2 June 2007, aged 85 (born 10 August 1921). More... FIDE vs Short [09/05/07]Following the report that FIDE intends to summon Nigel Short before the FIDE Ethics Commission regarding comments he is alleged to have made about the activities of FIDE Deputy President Georgios Makropoulos and FIDE VP Zurab Azmaiparashvili, the English Chess Federation has responded with a strongly-worded reply and prospective counter-charge against Makropoulos and Azmaiparashvili. ECF letter to FIDE • Malcolm Pein's Telegraph report • BCM Blog Britbase Bonanza [24/04/07]It's a good day to replenish your chess database with games old and new. Either click here for the main Britbase page, or click on the following links. We've got the games from the recent Welsh Championships, the Southend Easter Open and then, going back in time, the 1st Lloyds Bank Masters tournament from 1977 and, even further, the 7th Islington Open in 1971. My thanks to everyone involved in keying the games and making them available • Welsh Championship 2007 • Southend Open 2007 • Lloyds Bank Masters 1977 • Islington 1971 Susan Polgar on UK TV [16/04/07]UK readers: look out for former women's world champion Susan Polgar on British TV on Tuesday night. She appears on the science news programme 'Horizon' on BBC2 at 9pm (Tuesday 17 April). The programme investigates ways of measuring intelligence and puts seven high fliers in their fields to various tests of intelligence. It will be interesting to see how she fares in competition with a musical prodigy, a quantum physicist, an artist, a dramatist, an RAF fighter pilot and a Wall Street trader • Susan Polgar blog • BBC Horizon website Britbase is 10 years old... [10/02/07]
News Archive: 2003 •
2004 • 2005
• 2006 • 2007
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The 126th Varsity Chess Match took place at the RAC Club, Pall Mall, London, on Saturday 8 March at 12.30pm. The match ended in a 4-4 draw. 
The 6th Gibtelecom Masters was won by US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura after an exciting play-off with China's Bu Xiangzhi. Both scored 8/10. Bu Xiangzhi started with a fantastic streak of 7½/8 but then lost to Efimenko and drew with compatriot Ni Hua. Nakamura was the opposite: a mediocre 3/5 start but then a hot streak of 5/5. He won the play-off 2-0. There were GM norms for Viktorija Cmilyte (LTU), Robert Bellin (ENG) and Zong-Yuan Zhao (AUS - his final norm), with IM norms for Max Devereaux (ENG - he should get the title), Zhao Xue (CHN), Joachim Thomassen (NOR) and Ismael Karim (MAR). 
The annual Corus Wijk aan Zee event consists of three 14-player GM tournaments, beginning 12 January and ending 27 January (rest days Wednesday 16, Monday 21, Thursday 24). Official website: 
Former world champion Bobby Fischer died on 17 January 2008, aged 64. He died of kidney failure, having been hospitalised with this condition for quite some time. The photo (right) shows the front cover of the forthcoming (February) issue of British Chess Magazine. There will be a full tribute to Fischer in the March issue.
This year's Hastings International Congress is being styled the 'Celebration' 83rd Hastings Congress to commemorate notable figures in the chess world who have passed away in the past few years. The Masters event is a ten-round swiss which runs daily from 28 December to 6 January, starting at 2.15pm each afternoon. Spectators are welcome.
The 2007 European Team Championship for men's/open and women's teams takes place in Hersonissos (near Heraklion), Crete, from 27 October to 6 November. Both tournaments last 9 rounds, time control 40 moves/1½ hours plus 30 mins/rest of game, plus
30 sec increments. 
Whilst in the Isle of Man, I had the chance to film an interview with Egyptian GM Ahmed Adly. This was Australian FM Manuel Weeks' idea because he and I were trying to teach ourselves how to make video clips for the web in advance of next year's Gibraltar tournament (see below) and Manuel thought Ahmed would make an ideal first subject - he's chatty and extrovert and fun to be with. 
As well as a great individual achievement for Ahmed, it was also a massive breakthrough for African chess - I'm not sure any African player has won such a prestigious championship before. It's worth bearing in mind that we now have a world champion from Asia (Vishy Anand), women's world champion also from Asia (Xu Yuhua) and world junior champion from Africa - not a European or American in sight! 
The FIDE World Championship tournament takes place in Mexico from 13-30 Sept as an eight-player double-cycle all-play-all. Players: reigning champion Vladimir Kramnik (RUS, 2769); Viswanathan Anand (IND, 2792); Alexander Morozevich (RUS, 2758); Peter Leko (HUN, 2751); Levon Aronian (ARM, 2750); Peter Svidler (RUS, 2735); Boris Gelfand (ISR, 2733); Alexander Grischuk (RUS, 2726). 
The match between 'Team UK' and 'Team China' started at the prestigious St George's Hall in Liverpool on 4 September. Each team consists of eight players, and a specially adapted six-round Scheveningen format is being used for this six-day competition. Six leading players play against the leading six players of the other team, and two further leading women players play each of their opposite numbers three times each. The two teams are:
The 4th European Individual Championship for visually-impaired players took place at St. Aidan's College, Windmill Hill, Durham, from 14-23 August as a nine-round swiss. Amongst the favourites is IM Colin Crouch whose eyesight is now impaired as a result of ill health suffered a few years ago. The tournament website can be found via the UK's Braille Chess Association website, which is 
The Staunton Memorial tournament, once again hosted by Simpsons in the Strand, has a strong line-up again this year.
The British Chess Championships are being held at Great Yarmouth College in Norfolk this year and as usual the main tournament is an 11-round swiss event, starting 30 July and finishing 10 August, with a rest day next Sunday. The 
• Round 11: Jacob Aagaard (pictured left, playing under a Jolly Roger flag in the Isle of Man!) is the new British Champion - and the title goes north of the border for the fourth year in succession. He beat Glenn Flear in a long, meandering game which went through many different phases but in which the Danish/Scottish GM always had the safer of the two kings. Stephen Gordon tried hard to beat Tony Kosten, something which nobody had managed this past fortnight but in the end had to call it quits (and say goodbye to a GM norm chance too). Jonathan Rowson finished with a win which was enough to give him a share of second. Once again the Scottish players will go home happy (with Keti Arakhamia wrapping up her fourth successive women's championship too) but the English will be left wondering what they have to do to win back what they once regarded as "their" championship. Final Scores: 1 Aagaard 8½/11, 2-3 Gordon, Rowson 8, 4-7 Kosten, Hebden, Haslinger, Howell 7½, etc.
16
qualified players travelled to Elista, Kalmykia, to compete for four places
in the FIDE World Championship tournament in Mexico City later in the
year. The round one pairings were Aronian (ARM) vs Carlsen (NOR), Adams
(ENG) vs Shirov (ESP); Ponomariov (UKR) vs Rublevsky (RUS), Grischuk (RUS)
vs Malakhov (RUS); Leko (HUN) vs M Gurevich (TUR), J Polgar (HUN) vs Bareev
(RUS); Gelfand (ISR) vs Kasimjanov (UZB); Bacrot (FRA) vs Kamsky (USA).
