Barden on chess -- 12-Jul-08
Nigel Short made a brave move last weekend when he visited Kiev for a 10-game rapid chess match against Sergey Karjakin. Ukraine are Olympiad champions and 18-year-old Karjakin is the young chess star. He is behind his Norwegian contemporary Magnus Carlsen but still ranks No15 in the world while Short, the 1993 world title challenger, is now aged 43 and has dropped to No 68 in the rankings. Moreover, the match was rapid chess, at the now established international time rate for such chess events of 25 minutes on the clock for each player, plus a 10-second increment for each move made. Karjakin is one of the best fast chess players, both over the board and ... |
Negi shows potential -- 11-Jul-08
The Indian chess prodigy Parimargan Negi,15, was one of the winning quartet of GMs at the big money World Open just concluded at the Sheraton Hotel in Philadelphia. Negi warmed up by winning a smaller chess event in Philadelphia and continued his good run to score 7/9 and share first with Evgeny Najer of Russia, Ljubomir Ftacnik of Slovakia and Alexander Moiseenko of Ukraine. In the absence of Gata Kamsky and Hikaru Nakamura the American chess challenge was eclipsed. Najer won a blitz tie break against Negi to win the title but the $55,000 for first to fourth place was shared. Overall, chess event organiser Bill Goichberg handed out $320,000 in prize money among ... |
Victory for Karjakin -- 10-Jul-08
Nigel Short was 5.5-2.5 behind at the end of the fourth day’s play in his ten game Rapid Chess match against the Ukrainian chess prodigy Sergei Karjakin. Karjakin secured victory with a day to spare outplaying Short in the seventh game before Short unleashed the King’s Gambit and won the eighth. The exhibition chess match was staged at the Kiev Puppet Theatre and sponsored by the Ukrainian mobile operator life :) Short lost the first three and he might have been a bit punch drunk but he hit back in style. Game 4 was a bit Punch and Judy, Nigel was Punch. N Short – S Karjakin; Rapid Match (4) Kiev; Closed Sicilian; 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 d6 3.Nge2 Nf6 4.f4!? (Short naturally wanted to avoid ... |
Back to the drawing board -- 09-Jul-08
Peter Leko rather predictably took no risks with the white pieces and secured chess tournament victory at Dortmund by steering play into a known drawing variation in the Marshall Attack to the Ruy Lopez. Of course Leko needed the cooperation of his opponent, Dortmunder Arkady Naiditsch but Naiditsch probably felt he had already given his home crowd enough entertainment by defeating former world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik in round three. Leko finished clear first, undefeated on 4.5/7, half a point ahead of the field. Kramnik had a terrible chess event and finished on a negative score after losing a middlegame battle against Vasily Ivanchuk. The position was roughly ... |
Chess boxers slug it out -- 08-Jul-08
A Russian man has been crowned world champion in the novelty sport of chess boxing, a game that requires equal skill at moving pawns and throwing punches. Mathematics student Nikolai Sazhin, 19, competing under the name "The President'' knocked out a 37-year-old German policeman Frank Stoldt, who served as a peacekeeper in Kosovo until recently. The loser said he was simply too punch-drunk to fend off checkmate. "I took a lot of body-blows in the fourth round and that affected my concentration. That's why I made a big mistake in the fifth round: I did not see him coming for my king,'' he said. Berlin is home to the world's biggest chess boxing club with some 40 members and ... |
Leko holds the lead -- 07-Jul-08
Peter Leko, emerged as the likely winner of the Sparkassen chess tournament at Dortmund as Vasily Ivanchuk and Vladimir Kramnik failed again to impove on a 50% score. Leko outplayed Jan Gustafsson, the lowest rated player in the tournament and replaced him as leader. Gustafsson played a quiet line with white and sought simplifications but was outplayed from a level endgame position. Kramnik tried to put one of his positional squeezes on Ian Nepomniachtchi but was unable to make any progress while Ivanchuk had to play very accurately to maintain the balance against Shak Mamedyarov. Loek Van Wely’s disastrous chess tournament got a lot worse in the sixth round as ... |
A fiendish trap -- 06-Jul-08
Nigel Short lost the first two games of his Rapid Chess match against the Ukrainian chess prodigy Sergei Karjakin. The eight game contest is sponsored by the Ukrainian mobile operator life and played at the Kiev Puppet Theatre. Short could easily have emerged ahead at the end of the day but somehow Karjakin seemed to be pulling the strings at the critical moments. The second game saw a terrible finger fehler from Short that transformed a totally won position into a lost one. Short’s F4 Sicilian gave him no advantage but Karjakin kept sacrificing pawns in search of a non-existent mate and in the diagram below he is four down with just a few random tactical ideas to keep ... |
Barden on chess -- 05-Jul-08
The annual elite chess event at Dortmund is Vladimir Kramnik's patch. The former world chess champion has won or shared first there eight times, including the last two editions. Dortmund 2008, which finishes tomorrow, is his penultimate outing before the title series against India's Vishy Anand in October. Kramnik's tournament strategy was to win with White, not lose with Black; so this week, in the bottom half of the draw with four blacks, he was set on scoring a full point with the first of his three whites. The Dutch No1, Loek van Wely, made it interesting by opting for the Slav Defence 2...c6, which is expected to be Anand's mainstay in the chess match. Kramnik naturally wanted to ... |
Pawns get racing -- 04-Jul-08
Ian Nepomniachtchi who qualified for the Sparkassen chess tournament at Dortmund by winning the Aeroflot Open in Moscow joined the leaders after a comfortable win over Loek Van Wely of Holland in round four. The Dutchman played sharply and sacrificed rook for bishop and pawn but then immediately blundered – see below - and was in a lost endgame before he could think of making a fight of the game. There was a pawn race as the time control approached but there was only ever going to be one winner. Vladimir Kramnik’s chances of scoring a morale-boosting chess tournament victory in his last outing before the WCC match in the autumn receded further when ... |
A Naiditsch in time... -- 03-Jul-08
Vladimir Kramnik will have mixed feelings about his crushing defeat at the hands of Arkady Naiditsch in the third round of the Sparkassen chess tournament at Dortmund. Although he hardly ever loses in this, his favourite chess event, if he is going to have one of his main lines of defence to 1.e4 refuted then at least it has happened before his world title match against Vishy Anand and not during it. This was a fine piece of home analysis by Naiditsch who found a clever new wrinkle on move 19 in what was a known rook sacrifice. Kramnik will be disappointed not to have found the best defence but the practical problems the defender faces when confronted with a new idea in ... |
Carlsen misses out -- 02-Jul-08
The latest Fide rating list has stirred controversy in the chess world. After conflicting statements from the governing body, the recent Aerosvit chess tournament held at Foros in Ukraine was excluded from the calculations thus depriving Magnus Carlsen of the number two spot. The event was dominated by the 17 year old Norwegian chess prodigy and although the tournament ended a few days after the deadline for the submission of results, exceptions have been made before. Instead Carlsen is number six. The chess top twenty, published yesterday is: 1 Vishy Anand, India 2798; 2 Alexander Morozevich, Russia 2788; 3 Vladimir Kramnik, Russia 2788; 4 Vasily Ivanchuk, Ukraine 2781; 5 Veselin Topalov ... |
Van Wely looks wobbly -- 01-Jul-08
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 ... |
Adams in the fast lane -- 09-Jun-08
Michael Adams is in action at an elite Rapid Chess tournament, the Yerevan Chess Giants taking place in the Armenian capital. The England number one is in an eight player field that includes three of the world’s top 10 including the Armenian number one Levon Aronian and world number three Alexander Morozevich. The line up is: Alexander Morozevich, Russia, 2774; Levon Aronian, Armenia, 2763; Leko, Peter Hungary 2741; Michael Adams, England, 2729; Boris Gelfand, Israel, 2723; Bu Xiangzhi, China, 2708; Vladimir Akopian, Armenia, 2673; Gabriel Sargissian, Armenia, 2643. Another elite chess event is underway at the Ukrainian resort of Forose. The Aerosvit chess tournament, sponsored by ... |
Rowson races back -- 08-Jun-08
Jonathan Rowson returned to form with a convincing victory at the Capo d’ Orso Open held at the Sardinian resort of Porto Mannu. Rowson scored an unbeaten 7.5/9 a full point clear of the field that included ten other chess Grandmasters. Rowson finished ahead of the Russian Oleg Korneev an Open tournament specialist who has won scores of such chess events and he crushed the Pan American champion Julio Granda Zuniga of Peru in their individual game given below. Rowson’s most difficult game was against Korneev with black but he chose to defend a slightly inferior position and the Russian could not break through. GM Stewart Haslinger was in the group on ... |
Barden on chess -- 07-Jun-08
Nigel Short made a shrewd decision last week. The England No2 spurned the chance to return to Sarajevo, where he finished next to last in 2007, and instead opted for Bazna, Romania, and a chess tournament of grandmaster old-timers. Short, 43, was the second youngest in the chess event and the former world title challenger won first prize with 7/10. If he had gone to Sarajevo he would have come up against the world No3, Alex Morozevich, in unstoppable form. This week's polished game must have especially pleased Short. Back in 1980 as a 15-year-old he finished runner-up in the world junior (under-20) championship in Dortmund. The winner was Garry Kasparov, so ... |
Short crowned king -- 06-Jun-08
Nigel Short was a convincing winner of the Tournament of Kings held at Bazna in Romania. The eleven player chess event comprised nine former world chess championship Candidates and two Romanian players. Some of the players could be regarded as veterans but all remain active in tournament play. Short was the highest rated chess player but more than justified his billing as he won four games, drew six and had won the tournament with a round to spare. We have already seen Short’s fine over Ulf Andersson but his best game by far was this victory over Andrei Sokolov which was reminiscent of Short at his best in the 1990s when no Sicilian player was ... |
Sarajevo superman -- 05-Jun-08
Alexander Morozevich was a class apart at Sarajevo and has secured the first prize with a round to spare. The Russian GM who is ranked third in the chess world conceded just five draws on his was to 7.5/10 and gained nine rating points and closer to Vladimir Kramnik, ranked two. Only the Cuban Lenier Dominguez avoided defeat at Morozevich’s hands and the winner must have been doubly delighted as last year he played indifferently at Sarajevo, losing three games, one to Nigel Short, and scored just 50%. This time roles were reversed as Sergei Movsesian, the winner in 2007 had to be content with 5/10. L Dominguez - A Morozevich; Sarajevo (4); Sicilian Taimanov; 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 ... |
Carlsen at the double -- 04-Jun-08
The 17 year old chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen ranked fifth in the world defeated former world title finalist Peter Leko 5-3 in a closely contested Rapid Chess match at Miskolc in Hungary. Carlsen won twice, once with white and once with black and six games were drawn although Leko came very close to winning a couple of games. Here is Carlsen’s first win. Black’s position is very solid but after Carlsen opens the g file Black becomes tied to the defence of g6 and when the play switches to the e file his forces lack the coordination to repel borders. M Carlsen – P Leko; Rapid Chess Match (4) Miskolc; Caro Kann; 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Ne5 (A rare move which limits Black bishop on ... |
Sweet 16 for Ivanchuk -- 03-Jun-08
Vasily Ivanchuk’s wonderful form continued as he defeated the world chess champion Vishy Anand in just sixteenth moves in the fourth and decisive game of the final of the City of Leon Rapidplay chess tournament in Spain. Both chess players won with black, Ivanchuk in game one and Anand in game two. After many vicissitudes game three was drawn before Ivanchuk secured victory as follows Anand appears to either ignore or forget the theoretical continuation. Ivanchuk’s recent triumphs include: Carlos Torre Memorial Yucatan Mexico 2007; World Blitz Chess Moscow 2007; Montreal 2007; Pivdeny Bank Odessa 2007; Foros 2007; Capablanca Memorial Havana ... |
The reign in Spain... -- 02-Jun-08
Vishy Anand needed a tie break to get past the Spanish GM Francisco Vallejo at the Leon Rapidplay chess challenge in Spain. After two draws the world chess champion won game three but was crushed in the game below as Vallejo levelled the score. Anand won the first tie break game with white and agreed a draw in a won position in game six. Anand will face Vasily Ivanchuk who overpowered Alexei Shirov by winning the first two games, both sharp Sicilian Defences. Games 3 and 4 were drawn. F Vallejo – V Anand; XXI Magistral Rapid SF (3) Leon; Caro Kann Advance Short Variation; 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 (This is Short’s idea, White concentrates on holding the centre and ... |
Dragon with a twist -- 01-Jun-08
Peer Leko and Magnus Carlsen drew the first two games of their Rapid Chess match at Miskolc in Hungary. In the first of the eight games Carlsen employed the Sicilian Dragon but applied a modern twist with an unusual twelfth move. Typically for him, Leko avoided the sharpest line but will doubtless scrutinize it overnight. Game two was a non-game, just 18 moves, here is game one. P Leko – M Carlsen; Rapid Chess Match (1) Miskolc; Sicilian Dragon Yugoslav Attack 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 ... |
Barden on chess -- 31-May-08
Nearly a decade after Gawain Jones and David Howell - now the UK's two youngest chess grandmasters - emerged, England has a new trio of schoolboy talents with real promise. This column has already reported on Yang-Fan Zhou. The Whitgift 13-year-old recently won the Coulsdon Premier with 8.5/9, gaining nearly 100 world rating points which will make him England's highest ranked under-18 after Howell in the July Fide list. Dulwich College's Samuel Franklin, 13, drew with a Russian GM at Cappelle, defeated GM Alex Cherniaev in the Surrey Open and won the imaginative game below against an IM in the UK league. White's Mikhail Tal-style 17 Nd5?! (17 Be3) is dubious but ... |
Don't mention yogurt... -- 30-May-08
The Cold War chess rivals Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi face each other over the board again at the 4th Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup which begins tomorrow at National Academy of Law in Odessa, Ukraine. The tournament will be Rapid Chess and the veterans are in a tough field which includes two of the highest rated chess players in the world today. Karpov and Korchnoi contested three matches for the world title. The first, in 1974, was in effect a title contest as Fischer soon abdicated. The second two took place after Korchnoi defected from the USSR in 1977 and had become a non-person, scarcely ever mentioned or even referred to in the official media in the USSR. The chess match at Baguio City in 1978 became ... |
Going for Spanish gold -- 29-May-08
The 21st edition of the "Magistral Ciudad de Leon" starts today in the Spanish city which has a magnificent chess tradition. The Rapid Chess tournament will see the world champion Vishy Anand taking on the man of the moment Vasily Ivanchuk plus Spain’s two leading chess players Alexei Shirov and Francisco Vallejo Pons. At the recent Dos Hermanas chess tournament which was also a rapid Chess knockout, Vallejo eliminated Shirov before losing to Veselin Topalov. An eight game match between former world title finalist Peter Leko and chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen is already underway at the Hungarian resort of Miskolc which stages a match for the Hungarian ... |
Coming out fighting -- 28-May-08
Alexander Morozevich is top seed at this year’s Bosna Sarajevo chess tournament and is living up to his billing with his usual brand of creative and fighting chess. After four of the ten rounds Morozevich leads with 3/4. Here is one of his chess victories. The game soon reaches positions similar to those from the Tarrasch Variation 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Ndf3 followed by Ne2 and Morozevich makes every effort to dismantle White’s centre and avoids committing his king. When he finally castles White is already lost. B Predojevic – A Morozevich; Bosna Sarajevo; French Defence Classical ... |
Van Wely gets inventive -- 27-May-08
The 95th British Chess Championships will be dedicated to the contribution made by Mike O'Hara to British chess administration. The championships will be staged in the magnificent St George's Hall in the centre of Liverpool as part of the 2008 Liverpool European Capital of Culture celebrations. The competition runs from Sunday 27 July to Saturday 9 August and 900 players are expected to enter the chess tournament. [...] Loek van Wely is an expert in this line of the King’s Indian and introduces a strange looking chess novelty the subtlety of which his opponent fails to appreciate. L Van Wely – S Dyachkov; Russian Team Ch Dagomys; King’s Indian Classical ... |
Historic success for Vassily Ivanchuk at M-Tel Masters -- 25-May-08
Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine overwhelmed a stellar field to win the fourth M-Tel Masters in Sofia, Bulgaria. Ivanchuk's undefeated score of 8-2 ranks as the highlight of his chess career and one of the best performances in history. He played at a level of 2977, about 200 points above his usual strength. The hometown favorite, Veselin Topalov, finished second at 6 1/2 -3 1/2 , an excellent 2841 performance. He matched his winning score in the 2005 and 2006 chess tournaments and improved on his 2007 result, when he won with 5 1/2 -4 1/2 . However, he had little chance of overtaking Ivanchuk, who coasted after winning his first five games. Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan, who complained of ... |
Barden on chess -- 24-May-08
Sofia's double-round M-Tel Masters manages to be one of the strongest chess events of the year despite a virtual boycott by the top Russians since Vladimir Kramnik was accused by the Bulgarians of cheating in the 2006 world title match. In the latest M-Tel, which ended this week, the hometown favourite Veselin Topalov was eclipsed by Ukraine's Vasily Ivanchuk, who began with 5/5 and won easing up. Earlier Topalov scored this crushing win. Bu's rare 9...Ne4 reflects recent white successes with the normal Bg6 10 Nh4, but after 10 Ne5!? Black ducked the untested gambit Nxc3 11 Bxc3 Bxc3 12 Ra3 Bb4 12 e4 Bxa3 13 Bxa3 Bg6 14 Bxf8 Kxf8. His actual choice gave White an easy edge, though ... |
Shulman wins US chess title -- 24-May-08
He came up just short the last two years, but Chicago GM Yury Shulman wouldn't be denied this time. With a dominating midtournament stretch, the Belarus-born Shulman won his first U.S. national title, winning the Frank K. Berry U.S. Championship chess tournament outright with an undefeated 7-2 score, a half-point ahead of GM Alexander Onischuk. Shulman finished second in 2006 to Onischuk and third in the 2007 event, won by Alex Shabalov. This year, he put the field in his rear-view mirror with five wins and a draw in six games starting in Round 2. His victims in the streak included four chess grandmasters — Boris Gulko, Gregory Kaidanov, Sergey Kudrin and Julio Becerra Rivero. ... |
Defeat with a smile -- 23-May-08
Vladimir Kramnik defeated Czech number one David Navara 5.5-2.5 in a Rapid Chess match to capture the CEZ trophy at Prague last week. The fourteenth world champion is mainly playing Rapid Chess prior to his title contest against defending chess champion Vishy Anand in October although he is expected to play the Classical Chess tournament at Dortmund. Navara was pummeled on the first day but after that he got a few winning positions and eventually, in the final game on day four he converted one. Navara expertly converts the advantages of a queenside pawn majority and control of the open file. He advances his pawns supported by his king and once he makes a passed ... |
Pawn, punch, pawn... -- 22-May-08
Britain has its first Chess Boxing club which has opened in North London. Chess Boxing started in Germany and consists of up to eleven alternating rounds of boxing and chess. A match starts with a three-minute chess round followed by three minutes of boxing and between rounds there is a 1 minute pause. In the chess rounds the contestants start with nine minutes on the clock each so time will run out if the contest goes the distance as six chess rounds will have elapsed. The winning methods are knockout, checkmate, a judge's decision or a win on time. A Chess Boxing tournament is planned for the summer and the North London club has classes on Saturday mornings. For more ... |
Goalkeeper on the attack -- 20-May-08
The MTel Masters ended in triumph for Vasily Ivanchuk who scored his sixth victory in the final round to reach an unbeaten 8/10 and dash the lingering hopes of Veselin Topalov who finished 1.5 point behind. Topalov's analytical assistant Ivan Cheparinov went for the win with the white pieces against Ivanchuk in the last round but was well beaten. Nigel Short once famously said that he never bothered preparing for Ivanchuk because: 'he can play anything' and so it proved. The Ukrainian chess genius chose the Sicilian Paulsen and when confronted with a dangerous looking chess novelty he reflected briefly and then refuted it. The Cheparinov’s queenside was soon full of holes and his king ... |
Bu... there's a surprise -- 19-May-08
Veselin Topalov can still make it four first prizes in a row at the MTel Masters but after a shock defeat at the hands of Bu Xianhgzhi in the penultimate round he must defeat Teimour Radjabov and hope that his analytical assistant and fellow Bulgarian Ivan Cheparinov can inflict a first defeat on Vasily Ivanchuk. Topalov has won every MTel chess event in his home city of Sofia since its inception. In recent years he has made many magnificent comebacks. However, after winning for the fifth time in round eight he went astray against Bu who had yet to win a game but took the chances he was offered. Vasily Ivanchuk started with five straight wins but has looked increasingly tentative and ... |
Bu bashed again -- 17-May-08
Vasily Ivanchuk managed to keep Veselin Topalov at bay and maintain a one point lead with three to play at the MTel Masters being held at the Central Military Club in Sofia. Scores: 1 Ivanchuk (Ukraine) 6/7; 2 Topalov (Bulgaria) 5; 3-4 Cheparinov (Bulgaria), Radjabov (Azerbaijan) 3.5; 5 Aronian (Armenia) 2; 6 Bu (China) 1. The game of the day, indeed one of the games of the year was played by Teimour Radjabov who reduced Bu Xiangzhi to 1/7. T Radjabov - Bu Xiangzhi; 4th M-Tel Masters (7) Sofia; Slav a6; 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 a6 5.Nf3 b5 6.c5 g6 7.Ne5 Bg7 8.Be2 0–0 9.0–0 Nfd7 (Black wants to free himself with e7-e5 so White rules it out with his next move) ... |
Nearly topped by Topalov -- 16-May-08
Vasily Ivanchuk conceded his first half point in the sixth round of the MTel Masters in Sofia. Ivanchuk was held to a draw by Teimour Radjabov and saw his lead cut to one point as Veselin Topalov defeated an out of sorts Levon Aronian. Ivanchuk’s performance has been remarkable but Topalov, who has won all three M-Tel chess tournaments staged in his home city is also in fine form and his chess tournament rating performance so far is over 2900. Ivanchuk’s is over 3100. to put that in context, Vishy Anand, the world number one is rated 2803. Garry Kasparov’s highest ever chess rating achieved in 2000 was 2849. Bu Xiangzhi lost again, he and Aronian are now well ... |
Boohoo for Bu -- 14-May-08
Another stirring victory for Vasily Ivanchuk gave him a clean sweep over his five opponents at the MTel Masters in Sofia. The Ukrainian chess genius is heading for for the record books as his run of wins over such highly rated opposition is reminiscent of Bobby Fischer or Garry Kasparov at their best. Ivanchuk's fifth victim was Levon Aronian whose form this year has been imperious with victories at Corus Wijk aan Zee and Amber. Ivanchuk's victory was his third with the black pieces and he now faces the same five opponents again in the second half of the chess tournament emboldened by the prospect of three more games with white and two with black. Ivanchuk's lack of what he calls ... |
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