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WORLD CHESS NEWS:
Van Wely looks wobbly -- 01-Jul-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
At any level of chess most games are decided by mistakes and there were plenty in the second round of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting at Dortmund as three players of the black pieces overlooked rather important details. Vladimir Kramnik was a major beneficiary as his training partner Loek Van Wely left his kingside completely open while defending a quiet variation of the Slav Defence which turned out to have concealed venom. Vassily Ivanchuk put his knight on a terrible square against Peter Leko and was never able to recover it. An injudicious check rendered Arkady Naiditsch's position immediately lost against fellow German Jan Gustafsson. V Kramnik – L Van Wely; Sparkassen ...
That's entertainment -- 30-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
The first round of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting at Dortmund was rather low key. Two of the games reached drawn endings very quickly and your correspondent was having chess deja vu as they unfolded. Sure enough, when I consulted the database it confirmed that Kramnik, who was black, had played virtually his whole game with white against Peter Svidler in last year’s Amber chess tournament. Kramnik does not want to reveal his openings before his match against Anand and so he played the Gruenfeld Defence and Jan Gustafsson, as the lowest rated chess player obviously did not want to take too many risks, yet I can’t help feeling that the spectators were short-changed. Dortmund only ...
In the mood for Lvov -- 27-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
Following months of wrangling and uncertainty the world title eliminator between Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and Gata Kamsky of the USA looks certain to take place at Lvov in Ukraine and have a prize fund of $750,000. The Bulgarians had originally offered to stage the chess match in Sofia for a fraction of the money but Kamsky was unwilling to play in his opponent’s home city. One of Kamsky’s advisors was able to raise funds to stage the chess match in Ukraine which was the least worst option for Topalov and his team who were desperate not to play in Russia after the Toiletgate scandals at Elista during Topalov’s failed attempt to wrest the title from Vladimir Kramnik in ...
Chess: A Knight's Tour by Bill Cornwall -- 25-Jun-08, sun-sentinel.com, online chess
Move, Slap, Move!: That sequence, repetitively duplicated at breakneck speed, describes the final moments of the deciding tie-break chess game played last month in Tulsa, Okla., for the title of U.S. Woman's Chess Champion. Moving chess pieces at split-second pace and instantly slapping their clocks to preserve time, then-current chess champion Irina Krush, 24, of New York, and former chess champion Anna Zatonskih, 29, of Ohio, were engaged in a type of chess appropriately called Armageddon. The scene was prepared when each had scored 7 ½ points in the 9-round main chess event in which games could take many hours to complete. Two 15-minute "rapid" encounters were ...
An elegant finish -- 24-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
The traditional Sparkassen Chess Meeting, sponsored by the German bank in Dortmund begins on Saturday. Once again the chess event is an 8 player all play all with the fourteenth world champion Vladimir Kramnik as top seed although it is possible he will be out-rated by Vasily Ivanchuk in the next list which will be published during the chess tournament. This is Kramnik’s first Classical Chess event since his failure at Corus Wijk aan Zee and his last before he attempts to wrest the title from Vishy Anand in the autumn. The talented Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi who plays fine attacking chess qualified for Dortmund as the winner of the 2008 Aeroflot Open at Moscow and ...
Grand Slam list finalised -- 23-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
Last year the organisers of the Corus Wijk aan Zee, the MTel Masters and Linares chess tournaments developed the idea of a Grand Slam, as distinct from the Fide Grand Prix. The plan was to add two more chess events and culminate with a final to be staged in Bilbao in September. The finalists would be chosen from the leading performers in the preceding chess tournaments. Last month the Mexico City Grand Slam chess event was cancelled and so the organisers had to add a sixth chess player for the final and the line up will be as follows. Vishy Anand (India), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Teimour Radjabov ...
Barden on chess -- 22-Jun-08, guardian.co.uk, online chess
Bobby Fischer was 23 when he became world No2 behind Boris Spassky. Garry Kasparov was 19 when Fide ranked him second to Anatoly Karpov. Last weekend Norway's chess wunderkind Magnus Carlsen eclipsed the immortal pair when daily Fide ratings showed that, after elegantly solving the chess puzzle below, he had jumped over Russia's Vladimir Kramnik and was now No2, only five points behind the world chess champion, Vishy Anand of India. Carlsen is aged 17 years and six months. The Anand v Kramnik title match in Germany this October was billed as the ultimate showdown between the two current active chess greats after Kasparov's retirement. Now, however, it ...
Shirov's costly blunders -- 19-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
While Magnus Carlsen coasts to chess tournament victory at Foros, Alexey Shirov is suffering. Shirov’s play has been highly creative but in several games, at critical moments he has blundered. Shirov started with 2/2 but has since garnered just three draws from seven games and is languishing near the bottom of the table. We saw his remarkable attack against Sergey Karjakin on Monday but even there he might have won rather than drawn. Carlsen’s stellar performance aside, he leads by 1.5 points with two to play, the Ukrainians are doing well on home soil and outperforming the Russians. Aerosvit scores: 1 Carlsen (Norway) 7 / 9; 2 Eljanov (Ukraine) ...
Aronian speeds to victory -- 18-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
Levon Aronian the Armenian number one was able to record another Rapid Chess triumph in his home city of Yerevan as he overhauled Peter Leko on the final day of the Karen Asrian Memorial. The chess event was renamed following Asrian’s sudden death at the age of 28 just hours before play was due to start. The Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian officiated at the closing ceremony and declared that the chess event will continue to keep the memory of Asrian, who won a gold medal playing for Armenian at the 2006 Chess Olympiad, alive. It’s hard to imagine a senior British politician turning up at a UK chess tournament and making such a speech but in Armenia chess has the status of ...
Carlsen charges on -- 17-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
Magnus Carlsen is knocking on Vishy Anand’s door after another win at the Aerosvit chess tournament, sponsored by the Ukrainian airline and staged in the Crimean resort of Foros. If the chess rating list were to be published now, Carlsen’s string of five victories in seven games have gained him so many rating points he would be almost level with Anand, the world chess champion and world number one. The seventeen year old Norwegian chess prodigy already leads the tournament by two clear points. The chess players visited the town of Balaklava on the rest day and Carlsen returned apparently more refreshed and more inspired than his opponent Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu of ...
Carlsen run checked -- 16-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
The frantic pace of the Aerosvit chess tournament in Ukraine relented a little in the sixth round as Magnus Carlsen’s winning run was ended by Evgeny Alexseev who held the youngster with black. However, even this game demonstrated how far Carlsen has advanced recently. Alexseev was a pawn ahead in the final position and could have played on but was not minded to take the risk. Carlsen retains a 1.5 point lead. Scores: 1 Carlsen (Norway) 5/6; 2-3 Volokitin (Ukraine), Karjakin (Ukrain) 3.5 4-8 Eljanov (Ukraine), Svidler (Russia), Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Nisipeanu (Romania), Shirov (Spain) 3; 9-10 Alekseev (Russia) , Jakovenko (Russia) 2.5; 11-12 Van Wely (Holland), Onischuk ...
What Bobby Fischer lost -- 15-Jun-08, sun-sentinel.com, online chess
Bobby Fischer wrested the title of World Chess Champion from Boris Spassky in 1972 at age 29, but his refusal to defend it against Anatoly Karpov in 1975 was disastrous. Most fans expected him to win and wondered if he was crazy for spurning millions to play Karpov in a chess match. Everyone was disappointed. His chess colleagues were bitter because he did nothing to promote chess during his self-imposed exile in the California sun. A mathematician claimed that his demands against Karpov — 10 wins but he keeps the title on a 9-9 tie — gave his challenger a better break. A French playwright called our hero "a persecuted poet defending human dignity." And a psychiatrist ...
Carlsen's carve-up -- 13-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
The Norwegian chess wunderkind Magnus Carlsen is carving up another world class field at the Aerosvit chess tournament being staged in the Crimean resort of Foros. Carlsen took the lead in round three with a victory over Loek van Wely and maintained it in the fourth round by defeating Pavel Eljanov with black. Carlsen’s tournament rating performance climbed over 3000 and if he maintains this remarkable pace he may take the world number one spot. One of Carlsen’s most impressive results last year was holding Kramnik with black in the former world chess champion’s favourite Catalan Opening. Against Eljanov Carlsen equalised then outplayed the Ukrainian in an endgame with ...
Death mars opening -- 11-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
The opening of the Armenian Chess Giants at Yerevan was overshadowed by news of the tragic death of Karen Asrian, one the country's top chess Grandmasters, at the age of 28. The news was announced to the audience at the Yerevan Opera House by his teammate Smbat Lputian and a minute's silence was observed. Asrian was chess champion of Armenia three times, their number four ranked chess player and number 92 in the world rankings. Asrian was a member of the gold medal winning Armenian chess team at the 2006 Chess Olympiad in Turin. When play started there were wins for Alexander Morozevich over Boris Gelfand who hung his queen in ...
Carlsen bags a lion -- 10-Jun-08, telegraph.co.uk, online chess
When the 17 year old Norwegian chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen rose to fifth in the world rankings and shared first at Wijk aan Zee in January some speculated he might even claim the world number one spot in 2008. Carlsen is playing more chess than anyone else and is gaining rating points at nearly every chess event he plays. Hot foot from his victory over Peter Leko at Rapid Chess, Carlsen took first blood at the Aerosvit chess tournament at Foros in the Crimea by defeating the great Vasily Ivanchuk in round one. M Carlsen – V Ivanchuk; Aerosvit (1) Foros; King’s Indian Classical. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0–0 6.Be2 e5 7.0–0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.b4 (White's plan is to force ...
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