Last update: 22:45 GMT 17:45 EST, Monday 13th October 2008.
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TWIC Theory

TWIC Theory is an electronic monthly magazine with high quality articles delivered in PGN and PDF format on the 25th of every month. You can still get the back issues.


Number 35 September 2007. Benko Gambit - Main Line/ The Latest Trends in the post-Topalov period By GM Alex Finkel

Details: http://www.chesscenter.com/twictheory/

The World Championship match where Viswanathan Anand defends his World title against Vladimir Kramnik in Bonn, Germany, October 14th– 2nd November, 2008. The main sponsor is Evonik Industries AG and the prizemoney 1,5 Million Euro. The contract was signed by both players 18th December 2007.

Dates for the match: Gm1: Oct 14th, Gm2: Oct 15th, Gm3: Oct 17th, Gm4: Oct 18th, Gm5: Oct 20th, Gm6: Oct 21st, Gm7: Oct 23rd, Gm8: Oct 24th, Gm9: Oct 26th, Gm10: Oct 27th, Gm11: Oct 29th, Gm12: Oct 31st, Tiebreak Nov 2nd.

Advanced booking for the World Chess Championship 2008 between Viswanathan Anand (India) and Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) has started. The tickets are available at the price of 35 Euro per day. The following benefits are included: - entrance to the playing hall - entrance to the commentary room with analysis by prominent grandmasters. The tickets are available at all ticket agencies in Germany. You can also buy tickets for the match in advance via BONNTICKET: http://www.bonnticket.de tickets@bonnticket.de. Tel. +49-(0)-180/5001812. Tickets for a possible tiebreak on November 02, 2008, will be available after the 12th game. Exclusive VIP tickets are also available. Details at the website below along with features on the leadup to the championships.

Website: http://www.uep-worldchess.com/

The 61st Russian Championship SuperFinal includes Morozovich, Grischuk, Tomashevsky (top 3 in '07), and Svidler along with Jakovenko and Alekseev as top 3 by rating who did not qualify otherwise along with Maslak, Lastin, and Riazantsev who qualified from the higher league competition. Opening ceremony 2nd October, 1st round on the 3rd.

Games in PGN

Official site: http://www.russiachess.org/

The new Schachbundesliga season 2008/09 starts this weekend 3rd-5th October and runs until March 2009. 16 Teams compete with team rosters of 16-18 players but only eight play each weekend,

OSG Baden-Baden is the big favourite with 16 Grandmasters in its squad headed by Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen. The strongest challengers are Werder Bremen with Shakhryar Mamedyarov and some strong ukrainian players such as Eljanov, Efimenko or Areshchenko and SV Mülheim-Nord with Dmitry Jakovenko, former world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov and the strong French player Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

For the first time all the games of the Schachbundesliga will be covered live in the internet. This service is for all chess fans for free.

The Website of the Schachbundesliga (http://www.schachbundesliga.de/index.aspx) serves as entrance site and from there you can go to the four playing venues and follow the games. In the first part of the season there is an additional match on Friday (the floating round 7), There will be 128 games at least.

A corrected version of the first weekend's file is in the TWIC 726 games section.

Rounds 1-2 of the 4NCL take place 4th-5th October 2008. Live coverage available.

Official website: http://www.4ncl.co.uk/ and live coverage: http://www.bcfservices.org.uk/livechess/4ncl/0809/index.htm

Games in PGN from Saturday's Round 2

Games in PGN from Saturday's Round 1

Nigel Short of England defeated Indian GM S. Arun Prasad to win the Commonwealth Championship at Nagpur in central India on October 6. Photo © Arvind Aaron.

The Commonwealth Chess Championship took place 28th September - 6th October 2008 in Nagpur, India. Nigel Short took clear first with 9.5/11 half a point clear of Surya Shekhar Ganguly. Games in TWIC 726.

Official site: http://www.commonwealth-chess.com and games broadcast live at: http://www.monroi.com/watch/?tnm_id=1120

There were huge changes in the order of the players at the top of the list which was not a big surprise because of the closeness in ratings. Veselin Topalov moved from 5th to 1st and World Champion Viswanathan Anand made the reverse journey. Alexander Morozevich held on to 2nd place, Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen are at 3rd and 4th, Vladimir Kramnik drops to 6th. These top 6 clearly stand out from the rest and the recent drops of Anand and Kramnik probably reflect the nature of the build up to their world title match, they needed some practice but couldn't play their best opening ideas, rather than any objective fall in strength.

October 2008 FIDE Rating List

The 5th China vs Russia Chess Match took place 18th-27th September 2008, in Ningpo, China. 18th-23rd September standard (90+30), 24th-26th September rapid (25+10), 27th September blitz (3+2), no official site.

Standard timerate: China 26 Russia 24. (China Men 14.5 - Russia Men 10.5 - China Women 11.5 Russia Women 13.5)

Rapids. Russia Men won 13-7 (match points - 28-22). The Women tied 10-10 tie in match points and 25-25 - on individual results. No games available.

In the blitz-match proved stronger than Chinese men (14-6) and Russian girls (11-9).

Overall Russia won the match but I'm not completely sure on the scoring system they used for the rapids but the Chinese victory in the standard time rate games in the men's event will no doubt be regarded as the most important for them.

Games in PGN

Games and results are available at: http://www.russiachess.org/

Round 10. Photo © http://www.chessvibes.com who has on the spot reports.

The Chess Grand Slam Final took place in Bilbao 1st-13th September 2008. There were 6 players. The first qualifiers were the winners of Corus 2008, Morelia - Linares 2008, and Mtel Masters 2008 - GM Levon Aronian, GM Viswanathan Anand, and GM Vassily Ivanchuk. Then the 2nd place players also qualified GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Veselin Topalov and finally the best all-round player left Teimour Radjabov. Three points for a win and one for a draw rules are in effect.

Grand Slam Final Bilbao. Final Round 10 saw Veselin Topalov confirmed clear first place when he beat Vassily Ivanchuk in the final round. Topalov won the most games and lost the least, for a dominant performance. Carlsen and Aronian tied for second place after Aronian blew a great position and lost against Radjabov. Carlsen took second by virtue of beating Aronian twice in the competetion (better head to head). This win for Radjabov also had the effect of relegating world champion Viswanathan Anand to dead last.

Time control: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and another 60 minutes to finish the game.

Players were not allowed to agree draw without arbiter's permission. In case both players request it to him, the arbiter will make his decision after consulting with a technical assistant.

Official site for the event: http://www.bilbaofinalmasters.com. On the spot reports from http://www.chessvibes.com. Videos also from http://www.europe-echecs.com and http://www.chessclub.com/. Some commentary at: http://www.chessok.com/, Playchess.com and http://www.chessdom.com/ and a gallery of photos by Fred Lucas

Games in PGN

Both the official and a normal table are given below. The used the unusual scoring system of three points for a win and one for a draw. Rightly or wrongly I'm going to stick with 1, ½ and 0 in the actual results part of the table. Carlsen took second from Aronian due to head to head results.