Dylan Loeb McClain: Chess -- 01-Aug-08
People who go to Cuba often say it is a country caught in a time warp, a result of the long trade embargo imposed on it by the United States. Cuba has a proud tradition when it comes to chess, but, in some ways it, too, was stagnant for many years. The country, which was host to two world chess championship matches in the 19th century and which produced José Raul Capablanca, the supremely gifted third world chess champion (1921-27), had not been home to any top-flight chess players for decades. That is until recently. Cuba now has more than a dozen chess grandmasters, most in their 20s. The two most talented are unquestionably Lázaro Bruzón Batista and Leinier Dominguez Perez. ... |
Yang makes his mark -- 30-Jul-08
The Croydon schoolboy Yang Fan Zhou confirmed his recent promise by producing the upset result of the first round of the British Chess Championship being staged at St Georges Hall in Liverpool. The youngster defeated IM Richard Pert with the black pieces and his reward is white against one of the two GMs from the north west, Nigel Davies of Southport, who got proceedings under way on Sunday as he took on forty chess players simultaneously. GM Stewart Haslinger also of Southport, the winner of the South Wales International earlier this month lost to IM Thomas Rendle. Top seed GM Gawain Jones started in style as he outfoxed Graeme Buckley in the opening and ... |
Howell turns up the heat -- 29-Jul-08
England’s youngest GM David Howell had a fabulous result at the Andorra Open winning with a score of 8/9. Howell finished ahead of many other chess Grandmasters including Maxim Rodshtein of Israel a former world under 16 chess champion and Peruvian Julio Granda Zuniga the reigning Pan American chess champion. Also in the field was Mihail Marin of Romania the leading chess trainer and theoretician. It is a shame that Howell was unable to hot foot it to Liverpool for the British Chess Championship but he has other commitments and won’t be playing the Staunton Memorial either. Three of England’s leading senior chess players competed. Ray Edwards and Professor Julian Farand ... |
British title up for grabs -- 28-Jul-08
The British Chess Championships start today at St Georges Hall in Liverpool with a new name destined to appear on the trophy in the absence of Nigel Short and Michael Adams as well as defending chess champion Jacob Aagaard. Adams, Short, Peter Wells and Jon Speelman will be playing at the Staunton Memorial in London and in their absence Gawain Jones is top seed. The ladies chess championship will be a straight fight between Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant now officially playing for Scotland, Jovanka Houska and Susan Lalic. Magnus Carlsen duly took the sole lead at Biel with three to play after shrugging aside the challenge of Yannick Pelletier whose planless chess play gave him ... |
Playing a Lot (or Very Little) to Keep a Competitive Edge -- 27-Jul-08
How much chess is too much? Top chess competitors must play an official game at least once a year to maintain their rankings, but chess players have long held varying opinions about how often they should compete to maintain an edge. Viswanathan Anand of India, the world chess champion, has played only two games in the last few months as he has prepared for a world championship semifinal match in October against Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. And Kramnik has entered only two chess tournaments this year. Last week, it was announced that Gata Kamsky, who will play in the other semifinal, will be part of the United States team at the Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany, in ... |
Barden on chess -- 26-Jul-08
The annual British Chess Championship starts at St George's Hall, Liverpool, on Monday. As the British Chess Magazine website points out, there are no previous chess champions in the field for the first time since 1952. Both Michael Adams and Nigel Short will be absentees. Instead England's top pair will be in action in the Staunton Memorial at Simpson's-in-the-Strand, London, in August and also at the European Union Chess Championship in Liverpool in September. Liverpool's two fine chess events are part of the city's European City of Culture programme. The director, Stewart Reuben, has still secured a good grandmaster entry for the British Chess Championship in ... |
Cordova scores again -- 25-Jul-08
Readers may recall the travails of the teenage Peruvian International Master Emilio Cordova who failed to return home from a chess tournament in Argentina last year and ended up in the arms of a dancer is one of Sao Paulo’s more high profile night clubs. Well, it seems to have done him no harm at all as he recently took the honours at the IV Alajuela Open in Costa Rica scoring 8/9 to finish ahead of a strong field that included the European Individual Chess Champion Sergei Tiviakov. E Moncayo – E Cordova; IV Open Alajuela (3); French Defence. ... |
Carlsen is in luck -- 24-Jul-08
A little good fortune for Magnus Carlsen gave him victory over French chess number 1 Etienne Bacrot in the 3rd round at Biel and the lead on 2.5/3. Bacrot’s solid defence to the Queen’s Gambit was working out very well but when Carlsen complicated matters with a dubious pawn sacrifice his opponent collapsed and was lost just a few moves later. M Carlsen – E Bacrot; 41st Biel Festival (3); Queen’s Gambit. 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 Nbd7 6.cxd5 exd5 7.e3 Be7 8.Qc2 Nh5 (This simplifying and solid line was favoured by Ulf Andersson, it is notoriously hard to beat) ... |
Teenager causes angst -- 23-Jul-08
The top seeds Evgeny Alexseev and Magnus Carlsen met in the second round at Biel with Carlsen black. The teenage chess prodigy managed to stir up huge complications from a quiet position when he broke out of his cramped formation but his opponent, a former Russian chess champion managed to defend himself and reach a drawn endgame despite the invasion of a black knight into the heart of his position. E Alekseev – M Carlsen; 41st Biel Festival (2); Queen’s Indian. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.Qa4 Bb7 6.Bg2 c5 7.dxc5 bxc5 8.0–0 Be7 9.Nc3 0–0 10.Rd1 Qb6 11.Bf4 Rd8 (11...Qxb2 12.Rab1 Qxc3 13.Rxb7 Nc6 14.Bd2 traps the queen) ... |
Four share the spoils -- 21-Jul-08
There was a four way tie for first at the 9th Karpov Poikovsky chess tournament in Siberia. Alexey Shirov could not hold onto his lead after an eighth round defeat at the hands of the 21 year old Azerbaijani GM Vugar Gashimov who was a surprise winner of the inaugural FIDE Grand Prix chess tournament at Baku earlier this year. Gashimov joined Shirov on the winning score of 5.5/9 and the leading quartet was completed by 2005 Russian chess champion Sergei Rublevsky and 2006 co winner Dmitry Jakovenko. A Volokitin – A Shirov; 9th Karpov Poikovsky chess ... |
Nine moves to glory -- 20-Jul-08
The Norwegian teenager Magnus Carlsen ranked world number six is back in action today and starts as the clear favourite to win the 2008 Biel chess tournament. Although Biel is a strong tournament Carlsen has advanced so much since his invitation has announced that he is expected to win and win well. The full line up is: Magnus Carlsen (Norway 2775) (6) ; Leinier Dominguez (Cuba 2708) (25); Evgeny Alekseev (Russia 2708) (26) ; Etienne Bacrot (France 2691) (33) ; Alexander Onischuk (USA 2670) (50) ; Yannick Pelletier (Switzerland 2569) - outside the world’s top 100. Carlsen is too strong to play in the Norwegian chess championship. A smooth victory from one of chess ... |
Nab him, jab him, tab him -- 19-Jul-08
When faced with his favourite weapon, the Sicilian Najdorf, Bobby Fischer countered with Bc4. Garry Kasparov also used the move and it has had a renaissance recently. On c4 the bishop is immensely powerful as it attacks f7 and if Black castles kingside the bishop’s influence extends all the way to the king on g8. Black typically plays the move e7-e6 to limit the bishop but often has to reckon with a White sacrifice on e6 that gains two pawns and access to the black king. This year we have seen many chess games where Black has failed to exchange the bishop after its customary retreat to b3 and suffered the consequences. The games Naiditsch – Van Wely from Dortmund and Nisipiean-Grischuk ... |
Dylan Loeb McClain: Chess -- 18-Jul-08
World chess champions have tremendous influence on the development of chess with the openings they choose and their style of play. But some great chess players have shaped the game through their contributions to theory. Aron Nimzowitsch, for example, never played for the title, but he is remembered for his writing, in particular his book "My System," which is considered required reading by many serious chess players. Another player, Reuben Fine, who missed a shot at playing for the world chess championship because of World War II, wrote books on opening, middle game and endgame theory that are still influential. Pal Benko, a Hungarian chess grandmaster who ... |
New sport combines boxing and chess -- 17-Jul-08
Nikolay Sazhin almost knocked out his opponent with a blow to the chin in the second round. But he had to take the queen to win the match. In front of 1,000 cheering fans one recent Saturday night, Sazhin moved his bishop to go in for the kill and won the world championship of chess boxing, a weird hybrid sport that combines as many as five rounds of pugilism with a game of chess. The combatants switch back and forth between boxing and chess — repeatedly putting their gloves on and taking them off, so that they can move the pieces around the board without clumsily knocking them over — in a sort of brains-and-brawn biathlon. "It's the No. 1 thinking game and ... |
Space invaders attack -- 16-Jul-08
There is plenty of entertaining chess at the 9th Karpov Poikovsky chess tournament. Alexei Shirov played another sparkling chess game, Ernesto Inarkiev really shouldn’t have provoked him. E Inarkiev – A Shirov; 9th Karpov Poikovsky; Slav Defence. 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 c6 3.c4 Nf6 4.e3 Bf5 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nh4 Bg6 7.Be2 Nbd7 8.0–0 (8.Nxg6 hxg6 9.g3 keeps all options open, Whites' king can stay on e1 or go either side) 8...Ne4!? (Another new and ingenious idea from the Shirov laboratory) 9.g3 (9.Nxe4 Qxh4 10.Nc3 dxc4 11.Bxc4 Bd6 12.g3 Qe7 is fine for Black) 9...Nd6! (Black continues to tempt White to take on g6) 10.b3 (10.c5 Nf5 11.Nxf5 Bxf5 with a good game) ... |
Great Scot! A Dragon... -- 15-Jul-08
Alan Tate of Wandering Dragons Chess Club is the Scottish Champion after winning on tie break from defending champion IM Andrew Muir in a keenly contested competition held at Glasgow Academy. This was the 115th edition of the championship, first held in 1884. The chess tournament is usually invitation only but the SCA changed the format to an international Open with a pounds 2000 first prize as part of the centenary celebrations of the Glasgow Chess League. GM Jan Markos of Slovakia and Tautvydas Vedrickas of Lithuania shared first place in the Open on 7.5/9. For Markos, a visiting student at Glasgow University this was the latest in a string of first prizes in Scottish chess tournaments. ... |
Chess: Larry Evans -- 13-Jul-08
"Chess is vanity," declared Alexander Alekhine, who wrested the crown from Jose Capablanca in 1927. Indeed, chess players are seldom afflicted with humility. Capablanca once refused to pose with a film star, saying: "Why should I give HER publicity?" He couldn't raise the purse for a rematch with Alekhine in an era when the world chess champion imposed conditions and could pick his own challengers. Efim Bogoljubow was a born optimist whom Alekhine used as a punching bag in two title matches. In his heyday, he boasted: "When I am White, I win because I have the first move. When I am Black, I win because I am Bogoljubow." In 1929, Bogoljubow lost by a wide margin of ... |
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 ... |
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