Alexander Morozevich has withdrawn from the Amber tournament, which starts in six days from now in Nice, France. The Russian is replaced by his compatriot Alexander Grischuk. To get you a bit in the mood already, today we present a video with footage from 2008 and 2009.

The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.

The world’s number one player, Magnus Carlsen, is the top-seed in Nice. Also present are Levon Aronian, the winner of the past two Amber tournaments, and Vladimir Kramnik, who won the Amber tournament a record six times.

The following twelve grandmasters will take part (between brackets their country and their rating in the March 1, 2010 world rankings): Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).

Every day four sessions will be played, two blindfold sessions and two rapid sessions. The first session starts at 14.30 CET. The fourth session finishes around 20.00 CET. The final round on March 25 starts at 12.30 CET. March 17 and 22 are rest days. The rate of play is 25 minutes per game per player. With every move made in the blindfold games 20 seconds is added to the clock, with every move made in the rapid games 10 seconds is added.

Below you’ll find an appetizer video. Like in previous years, many more will be posted on the official website during the tournament. Besides, you can expect something new this year: live chess with audio commentary, streaming footage from the playing hall and live commentary sessions with the top GMs!

Video

Link

• Official website

The 2010 Reykjavik Open ended in a four-way tie between Abhijeet Gupta, Yuriy Kuzubov, Ivan Sokolov and Hannes Stefansson. The four grandmasters all ended on 7/9; Dutchman Sokolov had the best tiebreak.

The Reykjavik Open took place February 24 – March 3 in the capital of Iceland. It was a 9-round Swiss with 104 players (20 GMs, 16 IMs). The rate of play was 1.5 hours for 40 moves plus 30 minutes to end te game, with an increment of 30 seconds starting from move 1. The main sponsor was MP Bank, the bank started by grandmaster Margeir Pétursson and the only bank in Iceland that more or less managed to avoid the biggest damage in the crisis so far.

As always the Reykjavik open was quite a strong event, with 11 GMs rated higher than 2550 and six rated 2600 or higher. Besides the usual suspects (Baklan, Dreev…) there were the sometimes quite famous veterans (Westerinen, Ehlvest, Romanishin) and some of the biggest talents around (Nyzhnyk, Jorge and Deysi Cori).

In the end the first place was shared between Abhijeet Gupta (India), Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukraine), Ivan Sokolov (The Netherlands) and Hannes Stefansson (Iceland). Sokolov recovered well from his terrible result at his last open, the open in Cappelle-la-Grande. For local hero Stefansson it was the third time in a row that he ended (shared) first, and the fifth time in total.

Selection of games

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Veterans meet: Alexey Dreev (Russia) vs Oleg Romanishin (Ukraine)

Newcomers meet: Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukraine) vs Ilya Nyzhnyk (Ukraine)

Peruvian rising star Jorge Cori vs Iceland's number two (on rating still behind the inactive Johann Hjartarson) Hannes Stefansson

Ivan Sokolov (The Netherlands) vs Irina Krush (USA)

A draw in the last round between Hannes Stefansson and Abhijeet Gupta

The fifth victory for Stefansson

Photos courtesy of the tournament website

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

Con Sedina, Zimina, le sorelle Brunello e Tonel!

L?11? Campionato Europeo Individuale Femminile si preannuncia di altissimo livello. Infatti sono presenti cinque delle prime sette giocatrici europee, fatta eccezione per la n?1 mondiale Judit Polgar e la Campionessa Mondiale in carica Alexandra Kosteniuk. Tra l?altro nelle prime 10 posizioni della classifica mondiale ci sono solo due giocatrici extra-europee (l?indiana Humpy Koneru e la cinese Hou Yifan), quindi questo Campionato è sicuramente di valore assoluto.

Ma partiamo dalle nostre rappresentanti, che sono cinque:

MI Elena Sedina, Elo 2334

MI Olga Zimina, Elo 2319

MI Femminile Marina Brunello, Elo 2217

Roberta Brunello, Elo 2043

Giulia Tonel, Elo 2023

Ovviamente il loro compito è difficilissimo, considerando che, su ben? 165 giocatrici preiscritte, cioè?appena 3 in meno del record stabilito nella precedente edizione, disputata a San Pietroburgo (Russia), hanno numeri di tabellone variabili dal 58 della Sedina al 149 della Tonel. Di sicuro per le nostre sarà un'esperienza altamente formativa, perchè non capita?spesso di poter giocare 11 turni a questi livelli! ?

Vediamo ora l?elenco delle Top-20 partecipanti, in ordine di Elo:

1 GM Stefanova Antoaneta BUL 2555
2 IM Kosintseva Nadezhda RUS 2554
3 IM Muzychuk Anna SLO 2533
4 GM Kosintseva Tatiana RUS 2524
5 GM Cramling Pia SWE 2523
6 GM Sebag Marie FRA 2506
7 IM Mkrtchian Lilit ARM 2503
8 IM Javakhishvili Lela GEO 2500
9 WGM Zhukova Natalia UKR 2492
10 IM Danielian Elina ARM 2491
11 GM Hoang Thanh Trang HUN 2487
12 IM Paehtz Elisabeth GER 2486
13 IM Cmilyte Viktorija LTU 2485
14 GM Dzagnidze Nana GEO 2479
15 IM Gaponenko Inna UKR 2472
16 IM Melia Salome GEO 2467
17 GM Socko Monika POL 2465
18 IM Rajlich Iweta POL 2459
19 IM Dembo Yelena GRE 2457
20 WFM Gunina Valentina RUS 2457

Antonaeta Stefanova, n? 4 mondiale e n?1 del tabellone

la "slovena" Anna?Muzychuk, n? 3 del tabellone?

Tatiana Kosintseva, vincitrice nel 2007 e nel 2009

In questo Campionato è molto difficile pronosticare il nome della vincitrice, considerando il fatto che tra la n?1 Stefanova e la n?20 Gunina ci sono meno di 100 punti Elo di differenza. Certo, 11 turni sono molti e per vincere sarà necessario ottenere un punteggio molto alto. Lo scorso anno la russa Tatiana Kosintseva e l'armena Lilit Mkrtchian fecero 8,5 punti e dovettero sfidarsi in uno spareggio per stabilire la vincitrice. La vittoria andò alla Kosintseva, che quindi bissò il successo del 2007.

Tra le altre partecipanti possono vantare un successo nel Campionato anche la Zhukova (nella?1^ edizione,?2000), la?Stefanova (nel?2002 all'età di 23 anni) e la Cramling (nel 2003).

Vediamo l'albo d'oro della manifestazione:?

2000	Batumi, Georgia	?Natalia Zhukova?(UKR)
2001	Warsaw, Poland	?Almira Skripchenko?(MDA)
2002	Varna, Bulgaria	?Antoaneta Stefanova?(BUL)
2003	Istanbul, Turkey	?Pia Cramling?(SWE)
2004	Dresden, Germany	?Alexandra Kosteniuk?(RUS)
2005	Chişinău, Moldova	?Kateryna Lahno?(UKR)
2006	Kuşadası, Turkey	?Ekaterina Atalik?(TUR)
2007	Dresden, Germany	?Tatiana Kosintseva?(RUS)
2008	Plovdiv, Bulgaria	?Kateryna Lahno?(UKR)
2009	St. Petersburg, Russia	?Tatiana Kosintseva?(RUS)

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

Sono previsti 11 turni di gioco dal 6 al 17 marzo, con turno di riposo il 13. Eventuali spareggi si giocheranno il 18.?L'orario di inizio delle partite è fissato alle ore 15,30.

Tempo di riflessione: 90 minuti per 40 mosse + 30 minuti per finire + 30 secondi di incremento a mossa.

Sito ufficiale, QUI

Partite in diretta, QUI

E' obbligatorio un bel FORZA RAGAZZE!

?

On January 28th we published a review of Viktor Moskalenko’s latest book Revolutionize Your Chess, and it wasn’t a positive one. Now we have received a reaction by Mr Moskalenko, which we’re happy to publish as an open letter here at ChessVibes.

In his review of Revolutionize Your Chess our reviewer Arne Moll wrote that he didn’t like the book. He used strong words, like ‘amazingly silly’, ‘rather confusing’, ‘extremely simplistic’ and ‘hopelessly flawed’. Here’s GM Moskalenko’s reaction:

On January 28 ChessVibes posted a singularly negative review, written by Arne Moll, of my new book Revolutionize Your Chess. The way Mr Moll approached my book, the tone of his review, the many (in my view) unjustified points he makes, and the subsequent vitriolic reactions by quite a few ChessVibes readers (some of whom confessed they didn’t know my book at all) did shock me.

My initial reaction was quite emotional. I really could not understand what I did to deserve Mr Moll’s bashing. On a Spanish website I did question Mr Moll’s motives, an unjustified action for which I have apologized. Now, after I have had some time to reflect, I am very grateful that ChessVibes has allowed me to post this more considered reaction.

Mr Moll hits his review off by venting his irritation that there are appearing many “improve your chess” books on the market. He confesses that he is not really interested in those books, because improving is only of secondary interest to him. Could it be that this negative attitude towards this type of works has coloured what he writes on my book?

Because the sole purpose of Revolutionize Your Chess is indeed this: to give to aspiring club players a set of tools with which they can improve their chess. I cannot help that Mr Moll dislikes the genre, and I cannot help that there are other books that make the same claim. But I think my book deserves to be judged for what it is. Mr Moll does not do this. In his incredibly fierce attack on my book he uses hyperbole, sarcasm and condescension in an apparent effort to humiliate me. He calls a part of my book ‘amazingly silly’, ‘extremely simplistic’ and ‘hopelessly flawed’. He says somewhere that when I write about the basic concepts of chess I ‘didn’t have a clue’, and he calls me ‘a show-off’. But, strangely, he fails to do one important thing: he does not contend that my system isn’t working! He has not tested, or even probed, if a chess player who does what I recommend in my book and who uses the tools I hand to him, becomes a better player or not. I will explain, later on, why I maintain that my system works.

Mr Moll heavily focuses on the foreword and the first two chapters of my books, in which I describe the structure of my system. Indeed 70% of his review is on less than 10% of my book. Briefly: in this part I offer a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the game: Chess Skills, Personal Skills, as well as my 5 so called “Touchstones”: tools to use for a dynamic understanding of all positions on the board. I also propose a test, which I jokingly call the Moskalenko Test, which my students use to rate their performance in a game. Obviously, Mr Moll does not like what he sees.

One of Mr Moll’s big problems is that I say my system is ‘revolutionary’, while he recognizes various elements in my system that other writers have mentioned before me. He seems to think that finding elements in my book that also feature in other chess writers’ books somehow falsifies my claim that my system could lead to a revolution. I think that the comprehensiveness of my system (Personal Skills, Chess Skills, Touchstones and Test) is indeed new, and that most club players who follow my advice will truly revolutionize their chess, and become a better player.

In the Foreword of my book I tried to find the reason why most chess players, once they have reached a certain level, fail to make real progress (of course a central problem in chess teaching). I made Mr Moll almost choke with anger by writing: “The answer is quite simple: the general rules of the game have not been discovered yet.” This is what Mr Moll calls ‘amazingly silly’. And why? Because there are, writes Mr Moll, ‘thousands of grandmasters and tens of thousands of IM’s’ (incidentally, Mr Moll is more than 500% wrong here about the actual numbers) who are pretty strong players. He suggests, no doubt sarcastically, that I think that strong players have still not grasped the right system.

What a strange thing to say! Maybe Mr Moll does not know that I am a strong player myself? Please allow me to explain: I am a Grandmaster and a former champion of Ukraine. I have won dozens of international tournaments, and I am still an active player. I have coached quite a few strong players, Vassily Ivanchuk is one of them. I think I am well qualified to judge what top-players know and how they think. I am not an idiot, of course I know that I don’t need to explain to them the basics of how they must think about chess. Obviously, my book is meant for club players. About elite players I explain that the reason they are almost invincible for any amateur is that they are so good in applying the Touchstones. Being aware of the process in their head is another matter; often top-players are thinking intuitively. This is also in the book.

My statement about the general rules that have not been discovered yet, is of course meant to provoke my readers. That is my style of writing, I always look for ways to keep them awake.

“I like to see myself as a philosopher” writes Arne Moll somewhere in his review. I think therein may lie one of the basic problems with his article. My concepts are not philosophical at all, they are very practical. Mr Moll looks for philosophical trouble behind many statements I make. He says concepts like ‘time’ and ‘material’ (which I use as ‘Touchstones’ to evaluate a position on the board) are ‘tricky philosophical ideas in the first place’. But in my book they are not tricky, and they are not philosophical. They are practical tools which every chess player can use to become better. And in my book I explain how they can do so.

I am not a philosopher. Apart from my own career as a player, I have been a chess trainer for many years. I have taught hundreds of club players. My classes have been recorded by the Catalan Chess Federation and are available online for thousands of players. I have written two successful books (which Mr Moll to my amazement says he liked) which sold thousands of copies all over the world. I get good feedback, literally daily, from my pupils, my viewers and my readers. I think I know quite well what beginning and more advanced chess players know and how they think. And what they should do to become better players.

I was amazed to see Mr Moll stating that “Moskalenko really didn’t have a clue when he wrote about these concepts”. This statement is, among other things, quite strange for someone who professes he liked my other books. How does Mr Moll think a Grandmaster who has written some good chess books (that’s me) reaches that level? By not having a clue? My friends have advised me not to use the word I will use now, but I strongly feel I have to do it: here I think Mr Moll is being disrespectful.

Somewhere at the end of his review Mr Moll calls me ‘a show-off’ because I use my own games or fragments of my games to illustrate specific chess instruction topics. I have thought about the merits of his reproach for quite a while. Let me just say that I think it is a strange thing to blame me for. An illustration of an instructional theme is either on or off the mark, at least that is my opinion. The show-off reproach, again, fits in the general condescending tone of his review. Strangely, Mr Moll says he likes my other books (The Fabulous Budapest Gambit, and The Flexible French) a lot; but in these books I use my own games as examples just as much as I did here! Does Mr Moll think that Nimzowitsch is a show-off because he uses his own games in his books? Besides, I use games from dozens of other players as well.

From my 340 pages book with hundreds of games, fragments, exercises and examples, Mr Moll cites just one practical example. In this position:

I discuss two possible moves for White: the good move Be3 and the dynamic move d5. I recommend d5. Mr Moll claims that I fail to give ‘any reasons’ why I think d5 is more dynamic. But he is simply wrong! I do explain that after Be3 Black plays …e6, blocking the position and giving White some trouble to exploit his lead in development. On the move d5 I explain that I choose this advance ‘in order to fight for space, hindering the development of the black kingside at the same time’. I think the example is not a bad illustration of the theme: there is a good, solid positional move available. And yet I recommend another move, a dynamic move. Without the solid move my example would be less valuable, I think.

After treating this one example wrongly, Mr Moll says that ALL the examples I give in the book (and there are many hundreds of them) are deficient. ALL examples suffer in that I ‘focus on the Touchstones for the sake of the Touchstones only’. Again, I find this a puzzling swipe. Mr Moll may not like the concept, but does he really think I employ the Touchstones just for their own sake? That I select my examples just to prove my system? Doesn’t he think my pupils would have left me many years ago if I would be doing just that?

I am not claiming originality in every point I make in the book. It is a strange thing to ask from an author, even from an author who claims to aim for a revolution. My book is a real revolution in that it brings everything together. Naming other books or authors who have written about some elements of my system does not mean my approach would somehow not be fresh.

And judging from the many positive reactions I get from readers, I may very well have succeeded. Obviously, not with Mr Moll. Maybe he is too strong a player (and too much of a philosopher) to find my concepts good tools. It may be that Mr Moll dislikes my enthusiasm. But I am a passionate believer in my system, because I know, from experience, that it works. It works for players of 1600 ELO, as well as for players with 2200 ELO, and even higher.

Maybe next time a chess improvement book comes up for review at ChessVibes, it would a good idea to ask someone to review it who does not dislike the genre, who does not see himself primarily as a philosopher, and who is more interested in the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Once more I would like to thank for the opportunity to publish this reaction.

Sincerely,

GM Viktor Moskalenko
Barcelona, 12 February, 2010

Update 14:40 CET: meanwhile Arne Moll has responded in the comments – we’ll give it here as well:

As it is a true honour for me to have such a respected Grandmaster and author respond to my reviews, let me just mention a few general points that Mr. Moskalenko seems to have misunderstood in my initial review, rather than addressing every single sentence of his letter point by point.

Mr. Moskalenko starts off his letter with the complaint that I am supposedly not interested in ‘Improve your chess’ books and am therefore biased against his book Revolutionize Your Chess (and hence unqualified to review it objectively). To me, this merely shows Moskalenko doesn’t read my reviews on a regular basis (and indeed I couldn’t possibly expect him to), for then he would have known that the very review before the one I wrote on Moskalenko’s book, is a highly positive and enthusiastic review of Lars Bo Hansen’s book called (ironically, if anything) Improve Your Chess.

In fact, I was also very positive about Herman Grooten’s Chess Strategy for Club Players, the book that recently beat Revolutionize Your Chess in the ChessCafe Book of the Year competition, and numerous other books that intend to improve the reader’s chess skills. My remark ‘What’s with all these improve your chess books recently’ was just a ‘by the way’, trying to make the related (but admittedly not terribly relevant) general point that lately, a lot of books focus on chess improvement while surely trying to make the reader enjoy chess is at least as important as that.

In any case, as I had already written in the comments underneath my review, a reviewer’s personal taste is not relevant as long as he’s ‘not prejudiced, focuses on the book and not his own taste, and he knows his literature.’ I would think my liking Moskalenko’s previous book sort of proves I’m not prejudiced against him, and apart from this one ‘by the way’ paragraph, I focus my entire review on the contents of the book itself. As for ‘knowing my literature’, I think I’ve shown this already sufficiently in the review itself.

I could mention several other points in Mr. Moskalenko’s letter where he misinterprets my intentions and words. For instance, he makes much of my sarcasm and hyperbole, but then without blinking an eye declares that he himself means to ‘provoke his readers’ and that this is simply his ‘style of writing, I always look for ways to keep them awake’. Well, Mr. Moskalenko, it seems we agree on something after all! Perhaps we should just drop this point?

Another small thing to note is that Mr. Moskalenko altogether ignores the positive things I have mentioned about his book in my review, instead claiming it is ‘singularly negative’. This is also why it’s simply untrue that the one example I picked from the book to illustrate a point is used by me to imply that ‘ALL the examples I give in the book (and there are many hundreds of them) are deficient.’

But here’s what I actually wrote in my review: ‘To be sure, there are better examples in the book, but they all suffer from the same illness.’ I also wrote, ‘The book does contains good stuff, but I liked the Viktor Moskalenko of The Flexible French much, much better.’ Forgive me for thinking this small nuance is probably worth pointing out.

I suppose I should also say I’m surprised by Mr. Moskalenko’s statement that his concepts ‘aren’t philosophical at all’ and that he himself, unlike me, ‘isn’t a philosopher’. Well, fair enough, but Moskalenko himself claims that while authors like Suba and Beim discuss many interesting aspects of dynamic chess, they offer ‘no theoretical framework’ – surely implying Revolutionize Your Chess is different in this respect! A few sentences later, he even explicitly states that ‘in the present book, we will make an attempt to systematize this dynamic approach to our game’.

And in Chapter 2, just to take one example, Moskalenko writes that the factor Time ‘has thus far been neglected in theoretical works. This dynamic factor should be included in any chess system if we want to call it conclusive’.
To me all this sounds distinctly philosophical. In fact, capitalizing the t in Time is, if anything else, the generally acknowledged way of indicating a ‘Platonization’ of the object at hand. But perhaps I’m again being too, well, philosophical here.

There is, however, one point in Mr. Moskalenko’s reply that I would like to elaborate upon a bit in more detail. This is when he writes that I do not contend that the system described in Revolutionize Your Chess ‘isn’t working’: ‘He has not tested, or even probed, if a chess player who does what I recommend in my book and who uses the tools I hand to him, becomes a better player or not.’

Indeed I must confess that I haven’t fully tested the system (although Mr. Moskalenko couldn’t possibly know this himself), for the inexcusable reason that I am, apart from being a father and a full-time employee, just a reviewer whose task it is to read the book and write his conclusions down as accurately and conscientiously as possible. (I imagine Mr. Moskalenko also doesn’t accept positive reviews when the reviewer hasn’t fully tested the system?)

But suppose I would like to test Mr. Moskalenko’s system before writing anything at all about it. How would I do it? Surely applying the ‘Touchstone Tools’ in my own games is not nearly enough: a sample of just 1 player can’t possible say anything meaningful about a method, can it? I’d have to ask perhaps my entire chess team to study the book and apply it in their own games to the best of their ability.

But then there would still be the (in my view very likely) possibility that our game improved not because of the Touchstone Tools, but by us being suddenly occupied with chess for much more than we currently are. You see, this is what statisticians call the correlation is not causation maxim: the fact that we’re reading Moskalenko’s book and actively trying to apply the Touchstones doesn’t prove Moskalenko’s method works – not at all.

For all we know the very fact that we’re in an experiment might make us more conscious of our play during games, and we might improve our game even without studying anything at all. This is a variation of the well-known placebo effect. To avoid such confusion, we’d at least need some sort of control group with a bunch of players of the same average level who would also engage in active chess study, but specifically without using Moskalenko’s Touchstones – say, by studying Mark Dvoretsky’s books.

After some time – say, a year – we’d probably be able to say something about whether Moskalenko’s method works or not (calibrating for random rating fluctuations and such, of course), and whether it works any better than other current chess-improvement methods.

Now, this would be an extremely interesting experiment, and I would be more than willing to try it myself if given enough time and money, but what I’m really wondering is whether Mr. Moskalenko himself has ever done such an experiment.

After all, he accuses me of not having tested his method and very firmly claims that his method does work. My question is very simple: has Mr. Moskalenko systematically tested his method, and can we see the results? And perhaps I should mention another statisticians’ maxim, which is that the plural of anecdote is not data. It’s great to have many testimonies from players who are happy their money was well spent and they improved their chess by receiving chess training, but this doesn’t, of course, prove the training method itself works: it just proves they improved their game.

And this may have happened for numerous reasons – the most important one being what I also wrote in my initial review, which is that ‘improving one’s chess can be achieved by studying any chess book seriously.’ (Mr. Moskalenko seems to have overlooked this remark.)

Let me finish by what strikes me as an extremely important point, made by one of the commenters to this post. It’s this: ‘Maybe [Moskalenko] is right in saying so, but he fails to address how his students got better using his advice.’

This is precisely my whole problem with the book. It’s not the Touchstone tools, it’s not the provocative language, not the lack of philosophical depth, not even the annoying -T1 and -T4 notation: it’s the lack of specificity; the lack of explaining how the touchstones work (and why), how students improve their game and how dynamic chess works; and how revolutionary Moskalenko’s book is, precisely.

Perhaps these questions are typical philosophical questions, but so be it. I’m just a an ordinary chess player trying to improve and be inspired by chess. Mr. Moskalenko claims he knows ‘quite well what beginning and more advanced chess players know and how they think.’ In other words, he knows exactly how I think. I can only hope he will some day understand my point of view in this matter after all.

Links

• Revolutionize Your Chess
• ChessVibes review of Revolutionize Your Chess
• More book reviews

World champion Viswanathan Anand ended his long chain of draws with a lucky victory over Spaniard Alexei Shirov in the tenth round of the ‘A’ group of the Corus chess tournament.

Having drawn the first nine games, Anand yet again tried hard to be back on his winning ways but missed a simple tactic which might have seen him on the receiving end.

However, Shirov missed the opportunity at the fag end of the first time control and instead landed in a lost position which the Indian ace converted without much ado.

Ahead of the third and final rest day, this welcome break for Anand saw him jump to joint fourth spot with just three rounds remaining in this category-19 event.

Russian Vladimir Kramnik emerged as the new sole leader on seven points after Shirov’s disastrous loss. The Russian played drew with Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine on a day that also saw Magnus Carlsen uncork the French defense and winning a fine game against defending champion Sergey Karjakin.

Carlsen and Shirov are joint second with 6.5 points each while Anand shares the next position along with Hikaru Nakamura of United States, Leinier Dominguez of Cuba, Vassily ivanchuk of Ukraine and Karjakin who all have 5.5 points each.

In the ‘B’ group, P Harikrishna suffered a shocking loss against Dmitri Reinderman of Holland, while Parimarjan Negi played out a draw with Ni Hua of China.

Harikrishna was outdone in an English opening by Reinderman who stuck form. Harikrishna lost a couple of Queen side pawns in the middle game and his counter play bid did not really materialise as Reinderman won in 58 moves.

Parimarjan Negi yet again held a higher ranked opponent to an easy draw. Playing the black side of a Queen’s gambit declined, Parimarjan had no difficulties in equalizing out of the opening and timely exchanges forced the game in a level ending. The peace was signed in 51 moves.

Anish Giri of Holland remained at the top of the tables in this section after taking a draw with top seed German Arkadij Naiditsch. The 15-year old now has seven points and Erwin l’Ami of Holland and Ni Hua are still on his toes a half point behind. Parimarjan is joint fifth on 5.5 points while Hari slipped to joint seventh spot on 5 points.

Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta suffered his second reversal in as many days in the ‘C’ group as the Indian could not find an adequate method to combat Norwegian Lie Kjetil and sacrificed a pawn early in the opening. Kjetil played the ensuing middle game quite well to romp home in 53 moves.

World junior girls’ champion Soumya Swaminathan scored her first victory in the event at the expense of Swede Nils Grandelius. The Pune-based got an attacking position early in the opening and she was a treat to watch in tactical complications. Grandelius resigned in 36 moves.

Chinese Li Chao increased his lead to a whopping 1.5 points after beating Robin Swinkles and took his tally to 7.5 points in all and a group of four follow him with six points each. Abhijeet with 5.5 points is joint fifth here while Soumya stands 13th in the 14-players competition.

A well rested Filipino GM Wesley Barbasa So is looking for his first win in the 72nd Corus international chess championship group B as he battles Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna in the 5th round at the De Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk Aan Zee, Netherlands.

The 16-year-old So, 2009 Corus C group champion, drew his first four round assignment against top seed GM Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany, GM Erwin l’Ami of the Netherlands, GM Varuzhan Akobian of the United States and GM Parimarjan Negi of India.

So gets his much needed rest on Wednesday before tackling Harikrishna.

Over-all, So tallied a total of 2 points and joins the 6th placers in the company of Negi, Naiditsch, former World Championships finalist Romanian GM Liviu- Dieter Nisipeanu and Finnish GM Tomi Nyback.

“Crucial game ni Wesley (So) sa fifth round, hope manalo siya,” said National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) president Prospero “Butch” Pichay Jr., who bankrolled the local and international chess campaign of So together with Filway Marketing Inc. CEO Hector “Chito” Tagaysay.

Dutch GM Anish Giri and Chinese GM Ni Hua, both leading in the 13 round-robin tournament with 3 points will each try to maintain their lead. Giri will go up against Israeli GM Emil Sutovsky while Ni will face England’s GM David Howell.

Individual Standings after round 4, Group B:

3 points— GM Anish Giri (Netherlands), GM Ni Hua (China)
2.5 points— GM Erwin L’Ami (Netherlands), GM David Howell (England),GM Pentala Harikrishna (India),
2 points— GM Wesley So (Philippines), GM Arkadij Naiditsch (Germany), GM Liviu- Dieter Nisipeanu (Romania), GM Tomi Nyback (Finland), GM Parimarjan Negi (India),
1.5 points— GM Emil Sutovsky (Israel), WGM Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine)
1 point— GM Varuzhan Akobian (USA),
0.5 point—GM Dimitri Reinderman (Netherlands)

Indian Grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna showcased his amazing middle game skills, as he outplayed GM Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany in the fourth round of the Corus Super GM tournament at Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands.

Starting with a knight sacrifice on the 20th move, Hari ripped open Naiditsch’s kingside, that was bereft of good defence. Maneuvering his queen admirably, along with the twin threat of pawns on the centre and flank, Hari forced the German to concede the game, as he threatened to queen his pawn on the 42nd move.

Hari scores his successive win in as many rounds and moves to second spot with 2.5 points, half a point behind Anish Giri and Ni Hua. In another Group B match up between two world class juniors, Delhi based Parimarjan Negi drew with Wesley So of the Phillippines.

Earlier, World Champion Viswanathan Anand drew his Group A game against US Champion Hikaru Nakamura. Local star Loek van Wely suffered his third straight reverse, this time against Ukraine legend Vassily Ivanchuk. Ending in draws were Dominguez-Leko, Karjakin-Caruana, Kramnik-Tiviakov games. Shirov kept his tryst with form defeating Jan Smeets, and moving to an impressive 4/4 score. Nakamura, Ivanchuk and Carlsen follow Shirov at 3.0 points from four rounds.

The first of the three rest days falls tomorrow, 20th Jan, 2010.

Official Site :

http://www.coruschess.com/

LIVE GAMES :

http://livechess.chessdom.com/site/

Pentala Harikrishna – Arkadij Naiditsch

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 d5 3. Bg2 c5 4. O-O Nc6 5. d3 e6 6. Nbd2 Be7 7. e4 O-O 8. Re1 b5 9. e5 Ne8 10. Nf1 b4 11. h4 Nc7 12. Bg5 Nb5 13. N1h2 Nbd4 14. c3 Nxf3+ 15. Nxf3 h6 16. Bf4 bxc3 17. bxc3 Rb8 18. Nh2 Qa5 19. Ng4 Rd8 20. Nxh6+ gxh6 21. Bxh6 f5 22. Qh5 Bf8 23. Qg6+ Kh8 24. c4 Qc7 25. cxd5 Nd4 26. d6 Qd7 27. Rac1 Bb7 28. Rxc5 Rbc8 29. Rxc8 Rxc8 30. Bxf8 Rxf8 31. Qh6+ Kg8 32. Qg6+ Kh8 33. Qh5+ Kg8 34. Rc1 Rc8 35. Qg6+ Kh8 36. Rxc8+ Bxc8 37. h5 Ba6 38. Qh6+ Kg8 39. Qe3 Qa4 40. Qg5+ Kf7 41. Qe7+ Kg8 42. d7 1-0

Viswanathan Anand – Hikaru Nakamura

1. d4 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. O-O O-O 6. b4 Nc6 7. a3 d5 8. Bb2 Ne4 9. Nbd2 Be6 10. e3 a5 11. b5 Na7 12. Qe2 a4 13. Rfc1 c6 14. bxc6 bxc6 15. c4 Nc8 16. Bc3 Ncd6 17. cxd5 Nxc3 18. Rxc3 Bxd5 19. Ne5 Bxg2 20. Kxg2 Bxe5 21. dxe5 Qa5 22. Rac1 Qxe5 23. Rxc6 Qb2 24. Qd3 Rfd8 25. R1c2 Qb5 26. Qxb5 Nxb5 27. Nb1 Rd3 28. Nc3 Nxc3 29. R2xc3 Rdd8 30. Rb6 Kf7 31. Rb4 Rd2 32. Rcc4 Rd3 33. Rxa4 Rxa3 1/2-1/2

Alexei Shirov – Jan Smeets

The traditional blindfold and rapid annual Amber Super GM chess tournament will be sans Anand and Topalov this time around. With the world championship scheduled a few weeks later during April 2010, the Indian and Bulgarian Grandmaster chose to skip this event. In the just announced Amber 2010 field  World No.1 Magnes Carlsen leads the interesting pack which includes Kramnik, Aronian, Gelfand, Gashimov, Ivanchuk, Svidler and Morozevich among others.

The annual Corus Chess tournament is currently taking place in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. This years promises to be an exciting event with a variety of players from around the globe. This tournament will be bolstered by a number of young stars who have born in the past few years. Below are the participants of the Group “A”.

Title	Player	Country	Flag	Rating	rank	born
GM	Magnus Carlsen	NOR		2810	1	1990
GM	Viswanathan Anand	IND		2790	3	1969
GM	Vladimir Kramnik	RUS		2788	4	1975
GM	Vassily Ivanchuk	UKR		2749	8	1969
GM	Peter Leko	HUN		2739	12	1979
GM	Alexei Shirov	SPA		2723	20	1972
GM	Sergey Karjakin	RUS		2720	21	1990
GM	Leinier Dominguez	CUB		2712	25	1983
GM	Hikaru Nakamura	USA		2708	28	1987
GM	Nigel Short	ENG		2696	38	1965
GM	Fabiano Caruana	ITA		2675	51	1992
GM	Sergey Tiviakov	NED		2662	62	1973
GM	Jan Smeets	NED		2657	73	1985
GM	Loek van Wely	NED		2641	104	1972

Main Site: http://www.coruschess.com/

Russia won the World Team Champioinship Wednesday with a 3-1 victory against Israel. The USA drew 2-2 with Azerbaijan and edged out India by just half a board point to take silver. Games round 9 with notes.

The 7th World Team Championship takes place at the Merinos Congress Centre in Bursa, Turkey from January 3rd till 14th, 2010. It’s a 9-round round-robin with 10 teams of 6 players: 4 players + 2 reserves, and one coach/captain. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves +30 minutes to end the game, with 30 seconds increment from the start. At the tournament the zero-tolerance rule is in effect, and draw offers are not allowed before move 30. Teams are Russia, Brazil, China India, Egypt (continental champions), Armenia, Israel, USA (Olympiad qualifiers), Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Greece (organizing country and two invited federations).

Round 9

A 2-2 against Israel would probably have been enough for Russia, since the USA, 1 match point and 1.5 board points behind, would never score a 4-0 against Azerbaijan. Well… perhaps it was theoretically possible in the end, since the Azeri’s showed up without Gashimov and Radjabov. But Guseinov, Mamedyarov and the two Mamedovs held the Americans to 2-2 thanks to excellent opening preparation.

And so the Russians won the title quite convincingly in the end. After their surprising loss against Greece in round 2 they won all their matches (including a 3-1 against main rival USA) and drew with Armenia. In the last round they were too strong for Israel, where Boris Gelfand is still in a class of his own. He drew with Grischuk, but boards 2-4 lost 2.5-0.5 and Sutovsky must have been losing too.

Sutovsky-Malakhov

Black just won an exchange and exchanged queens, but White managed to hold this.

Vitiugov’s last move against Rodshtein was pretty:

Vitiugov-Rodshtein

33.Qxf7+! 1-0

Their 3-1 win against Egypt paints a too rosy picture for the Armenians. OK, Adly was outplayed by Aronian, but Amin was doing alright for most of the game against Akopian and it looks like Ezat could have drawn against Pashikian with 57.Bf7. India finished an excellent tournament with a convincing 3.5-0.5 victory over Brazil.

Both Egypt and Turkey scored one win and one draw in Bursa but Turkey finished last with just half a board point less. In the last round, Firat saw ghosts:

Firat-Mastrovasilis

Here White resigned, but 31.g3 is not clear at all.

Mamedyarov seems to be fully back in the world elite. After some strong months at the end of 2009, he scored the highest tournament performance rating in Bursa: 2950.

Although we were a bit skeptical about the tournament formula (and we still are about the way teams are being selected – where on earth was the Ukraine?) we must say that the combination of strong and weak teams at least led to very interesting fights, and several brilliant games. If this event set an example for the rest of the year, 2010 will see great chess.

The next big one already starts in two days: the Corus Chess Tournament. Travelling from Bursa to Wijk aan Zee are Akobian, Harikrishna, Nakamura, Robson and Sutovsky.

Games round 9

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Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

The 2009-10 Hastings Masters ended in a fourway tie for first place, between Mark Hebden, David Howell, Andrei Istratescu and Romain Edouard. Hebden and Istratescu were leading after 8 rounds and drew in 11 moves, allowing Howell and Edouard to join them.

The 2009-10 Hastings tournament took place December 28th – January 5th at the Horntye Park Sports Complex in Hastings, England. It was a 9-round Swiss with Drozdovskij , Edouard, Hracek, Istratescu and Howell as the top seeds. The time control was 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and then 15 minutes to finish the game + 30 seconds per move starting from the 1st.

After his fine performance in London, David Howell had a good start in Hastings, where he was the only with a 100% score after three rounds. After a draw in round 4 he was joined by Yuri Drozdovskij (Ukraine), Romain Edouard (France), Andrei Istratescu (Romania) and Mark Hebden (England). In round 5 Istratescu beat Howell with Black due to a big blunder by the young English grandmaster.

The Romanian GM kept his lead until round 8, and at that point he was sharing first place with Hebden. The two drew in just 11 moves in the last round, and were joined by Howell and Edouard, who beat their opponents Hracek and Ansell with the black pieces.

As always, the tournament website’s round reports were provided by the witty, and classical Steve Giddins. In his first report he started by claiming that he’s been “possessed by the permanent feeling of having been born between 50 and 100 years too late”, and that, well, he doesn’t really like anything that’s connected to the modern world, including art and films. The perfect round report author for a classical tournament such as Hastings, we’d say, and for anyone who wants to refresh his knowledge of Latin I can recommend his articles as well.

Selection of positions (from Steve Giddins’ round reports)

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GM Keith Arkell (ENG, 2464), 6/9

GM Zbynek Hracek (CZE, 2624), 6/9

GM Yuri Drodovskij (UKR, 2625), 6.5/9

GM Danny Gormally (ENG, 2479), 6.5/9

GM Mark Hebden (ENG, 2522), 7/9

GM David Howell (ENG, 2597), 7/9

GM Romain Edouard (FRA, 2620), 7/9

GM Andrei Istratescu (ROM, 2624), 7/9

Photos © John Saunders

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

This year’s Groningen Chess Festival saw a sensational victory of 13-year-old Ilya Nyzhnyk (Ukraine), who finished clear first, a full point ahead of GMs Reinderman and Werle. In the match between a former Junior Champion and the reigning Junior Champion, Jan Timman beat Robin van Kampen 2.5-1.5. Big, pictorial and video report.

The Groningen Chess Festival took place December 18-30 in Groningen, The Netherlands. There were several open tournaments; in the top group a total of 64 players participated (13 GMs, 13 IMs and 11 FMs). Besides, this year’s festival included a match between GM Jan Timman, Dutch Junior Champion in 1966 when he was 14 years old, and Robin van Kampen, who won the Junior Championship this year, at the same age.

Video report

Before continuing with the pictorial report, I’ll first give the video report below. The organizers tell about their tournament and also about its long tradition; the video includes footage from the 1946 tournament in Groningen!

The Timman-Van Kampen match was quite exciting and attracted a lot of attention from the participants in the open groups. The board was nicely placed in the centre of the venue, with a Christmas tree and a demonstration board behind the players.

The Timman-Van Kampen match

The match started smoothly for Timman, who exchanged queens in game 1 for a better ending which he won easily. In a difficult, queenless middlegame Timman was the first to err in game 2 and after many more complications, Van Kampen managed to level the score.

In the same Slav variation as in the first game, Van Kampen turned up much better prepared for game 3. He had looked at the line together with Anish Giri and many other young Dutch talents, who all stayed together in ‘hotel ship’ De Mars, a boat located in the city center. The game was drawn after 32 moves.

The boat where the Dutch talents stayed

Game 4 was again very interesting; in a Kan Sicilian Timman invited his young opponent to sacrifice his queen and Van Kampen accepted the invitation. Soon Timman had to give back his own queen, but also in the ending the position remained sharp. When Van Kampen missed his last chance (30.b4) the game and the match was over; Timman had won 2.5-1.5.

Timman-Van Kampen match 2009 | Results

In the Open group Dimitri Reinderman was leading with 4 out of 4 during the rest day (Christmas Day). In the next round the Dutch grandmaster dropped his first half point, to 13-year-old IM Ilya Nyzhnyk. This was the turning point in the tournament.

In round 6, Reinderman and Giri drew quickly, and so did Greenfeld and Werle on board 2 and Nijboer and Swinkels on 3. Nyzhnyk beat Ernst with the black pieces and the next round the Ukrainian super-talent defeated Chadaev. While his rivals prevented each other from winning the tournament, Nyzhnyk finished strongly with a draw against Werle and a last-round win against Deviatkin. Sipke Ernst, quite a strong grandmaster himself, said about Nyznyk: “He was just playing with us. I haven’t seen this since Carlsen crushed everyone in Corus C.”

Nyzhnyk, next to his mother, just after he beat Chadaev in round 7

Winning in Groningen undefeated with 7.5/9 and a 2741 performance rating is an amazing result for a 13-year-old. It was Nyzhnyk’s second grandmaster norm – his first was scored already in April 2008 when he won the Nabokov Memorial in Kyiv, Ukraine. At the moment of writing Nyzhnyk is 13 years, 3 months and 7 days old and so chances are high he’ll become the youngest grandmaster in the world somewhere in 2010.

Groningen Open 2009 | Final Standings (top 40)

No. Name                Score WP   SB     PS    rat.  TPR  W-We
---------------------------------------------------------------
 1. Nyzhnyk, Illya      7.5  48.5  40.00  38.0  2494 2741 +2.75
 2. Werle, Jan          6.5  53.0  36.75  35.5  2565 2670 +1.28
    Reinderman, Dimitri 6.5  52.0  36.75  37.5  2575 2662 +1.11
 4. Chadaev, Nikolai    6.0  50.0  30.00  32.0  2567 2555 -0.03
    Greenfeld, Alon     6.0  48.5  31.00  32.0  2559 2571 +0.23
    Nijboer, Friso      6.0  47.0  29.50  32.5  2561 2545 -0.12
    Brandenburg, Daan   6.0  46.5  30.75  32.0  2481 2573 +1.22
    Baklan, Vladimir    6.0  46.5  30.75  30.0  2655 2549 -1.04
    Giri, Anish         6.0  45.5  29.00  32.0  2585 2582 +0.04
    Deviatkin, Andrei   6.0  45.0  28.00  29.0  2608 2503 -0.82
    Poetsch, Hagen      6.0  36.5  23.75  26.5  2361 2410 +0.70
12. Ernst, Sipke        5.5  46.0  26.50  26.5  2587 2432 -1.55
    Meijers, Viesturs   5.5  46.0  26.00  28.5  2488 2456 -0.29
    Kleijn, Christov    5.5  46.0  25.50  28.0  2383 2461 +0.99
    Pruijssers, Roeland 5.5  44.5  24.75  26.5  2413 2434 +0.35
    Saravanan, V        5.5  44.0  24.75  29.5  2356 2499 +1.78
    Podzielny,Karl-Heinz5.5  42.0  21.50  28.0  2456 2425 -0.18
    Hoffmann, Michael   5.5  40.5  23.25  27.0  2509 2365 -1.47
    Caspi, Israel       5.5  40.0  20.75  26.0  2423 2402 -0.09
20. Swinkels, Robin     5.0  47.5  25.25  31.5  2500 2484 -0.16
    Bok, Benjamin       5.0  47.0  23.50  29.0  2337 2523 +2.14
    Kantans, Toms       5.0  43.5  20.75  24.5  2281 2486 +2.30
    Popilski, Gil       5.0  42.5  20.00  26.0  2441 2394 -0.49
    Pijpers, Arthur     5.0  42.5  18.75  23.0  2201 2366 +1.86
    Wiel van der, John  5.0  41.0  21.50  25.0  2475 2373 -1.10
    Berkovich, Mark A   5.0  37.5  17.50  23.5  2406 2283 -1.30
    Groenewold,Jan Joris5.0  36.0  18.00  18.5  2145 2313 +1.96
28. Grover, Sahaj       4.5  43.5  18.75  26.0  2372 2429 +0.72
    Heemskerk, Wim      4.5  40.5  17.50  21.5  2236 2320 +0.94
    Klein, David        4.5  40.5  16.75  21.5  2262 2364 +1.14
    Bijlsma, Nick       4.5  39.5  17.50  20.0  2075 2255 +1.98
    Afek, Yochanan      4.5  39.5  16.75  21.5  2285 2330 +0.39
    Hoeksema, Erik      4.5  38.0  17.00  22.5  2331 2233 -1.14
    Paulet, Iozefina    4.5  37.5  12.00  20.0  2312 2217 -1.07
    Haast, Anne         4.5  33.5  14.25  19.0  2251 2229 -0.34
36. Burg, Twan          4.0  48.5  21.00  25.5  2460 2340 -1.34
    Genova, Lyubka      4.0  45.0  19.50  21.0  2263 2317 +0.57
    Genov, Petar        4.0  44.5  17.75  26.5  2476 2299 -1.98
    Piasetski, Leon     4.0  39.0  14.75  18.5  2269 2238 -0.48
    Donker, Roel        4.0  38.0  16.50  20.5  2140 2259 +1.13

Timman-Van Kampen & all of Nyzhnyk’s games for replay

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The famous 'Martini Tower', at the central square in Groningen

The venue was the University's Sports Centre

GM Jan Timman, former world's number 2

IM Robin van Kampen, one of the biggest Dutch talents at the moment

Two old friends sharing thoughts about a position: Jan Timman and Hans Böhm

Local hero GM Jan Werle, a regular guest at the sports centre, finished shared second...

...together with GM Dimitri Reinderman from Amsterdam

Good years or bad years, Friso Nijboer always plays in Groningen

Anish Giri enjoyed it last year and was happy to return

But 13-year-old Ilya Nyzhnyk was the strongest - we'll hear much more about this young lad - but first a bit of history...

...because photos from the 1946 event were hanging at the venue - here an overview of the playing hall back then

The participants in order of the final standings (if one of our readers can put them in the right order of this photo, let us know!): Botvinnik, Euwe, Smyslov, Najdorf, Szabo, Boleslavsky, Flohr, Lundin, Stoltz, Denker, Kotov, Tartakower, Kottnauer, Yanovsky, Bernstein, Guimard, Vidmar, Steiner, O'Kelly de Galway, Christoffel

Boleslavsky, Euwe and Smylov

Smyslov vs Botvinnik, who would play three World Championship matches - Stolz and Yanovsky are watching

L-R Najdorf, Guimard and Steiner

Tartakower (standing) and Vidmar

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN: Timman – Van Kampen | Open

Hot from the press: the organizers of the 2010 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament today announced the list of participants – Carlsen, Kramnik, Aronian, Gelfand, Gashimov, Ivanchuk, Svidler, Ponomariov, Morozevich, Karjakin, Dominguez and Smeets.

PRESS RELEASE

The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée, a legendary hotel on the world-famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco.

The new number one in the world rankings, Magnus Carlsen, is the top-seed in Nice. Also present are Levon Aronian, the winner of the past two Amber tournaments, and Vladimir Kramnik, who won the Amber tournament a record six times.

The following twelve grandmasters will take part (between brackets their country and their rating in the January 1, 2010 world rankings): Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2810), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2781), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2761), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2759), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2749), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2744), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2732), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2720), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2712) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2657).

Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov were invited, but apparently they decided to skip this year’s event because just a few weeks later their World Championship match is scheduled. In fact half of the field of last year is different: Leko, Radjabov, Kamsky and Wang Yue also don’t play next time; new compared to last year are Gelfand, Gashimov, Svidler, Ponomariov, Dominguez and Smeets.

For the 2010 edition we should consider Aronian, Carlsen and Kramnik as the big favourites. But what about the rest of the field?

There is a new king in the world ranking of chess. The nineteen-year old Magnus Carlsen (2810, +9) has officially vaulted over 2800 mark to become only the 5th person in history to eclipse the magical figure. It appears as if 2800 is the old 2700.

Approximately 10 years ago, there were only a handful of players having reached the 2700 level. There are currently 34 players over 2700 with a number of players having reached the mark previously and fallen below. Carlsen has had a meteoric rise to the world’s number one position and some project that he may break Garry Kasparov’s 2851 mark.

Being knocked from his comfortable perch, Veselin Topalov (2805, -5) is more focused on his upcoming match with World Champion Viswanathan Anand (2790, +2). The match will take place in Bulgaria in April 2010. Some believe Carlsen will be vying for the title in the next cycle. However, there are a lot of viable candidates in the loop.

Vladimir Kramnik (2788, +16) scored a nice victory in the recent Tal Memorial placing 1/2-point ahead of Carlsen. Kramnik had dropped precipitously prior to winning the ‘Toiletgate’ match against Topalov, but has overcome ailments to regain his form. In fact, many state that he is playing more aggressively. Armenia’s Levon Aronian (2781, -5) switched places with Kramnik and dropped to the #5 spot.

Rounding out the top ten, you have FIDE World Cup winner Boris Gelfand (2761, +3) who gained only a few points are the tournament performance is added to his tally. Vugar Gashimov (2759, +1) is Azerbaijan’s #1 and in an recent interview he stated the possibility of becoming the top-rated player one day. He lead his nation to a win in the prestigious European Team Championship and they will be a favorite to win a medal at the 2010 Olympiad.

Vassily Ivanchuk (2749, +10) continues his fluctuation in and out of the top ten. He regained some points are a strong showing at Tal Memorial, but had an early exit from the World Cup losing to rising star Wesley So (2656, +14) of the Philippines (pictured left). A Chinese player has reached the top ten for the first time in history and his name is Wang Yue (2749, +15).

With his solid style and consistency, Wang continues to climb the rating ladder and can clearly be considered in the elite class. With invitations rolling in, he has had opportunities to show the talent that had been developing since his youth days. There seems to be more talent in the Chinese pipeline.

Peter Svidler (2744, -10) rounds out the top ten, but has hit skids lately. He bombed in the Tal Memorial with 3.5/9, was eliminated in the FIDE World Cup quarterfinals and just a week ago he lost in 23 moves to talented junior, Sanan Sjugirov (2610, -2).

In women’s chess, nothing has changed in terms of the order. Judit Polgar has been on top for decades and is now regaining form. Hou Yifan (2590, +2) is hot on the heels of world #2 Koneru Humpy (2614, +11).

Humpy scored a good result in the match featuring the Queens vs. Veterans, but entered in a public dispute with her federation about her contractual committments. While she continues to play primarily against women, her improvement has not been very dramatic since reaching 2600 two years ago.

Former World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova (2545, +4) has remained steady over the past year, but the new sensation in the women’s section is Nadezhda Kostineva (2533, +15) of Russia. She has vaulted over 2500 and is now the top-rated Russian woman.

Kostineva overtakes World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk (2523, -6) who had held the top position since she first won the title at age 17. She will most probably keep the top board at the Olympiad regardless of the rating difference. Kosteniuk was blanked by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2741, +22) in the FIDE World Cup but helped Russia win the European Team Championship.

As the world’s number one Carlsen leads the Juniors and French #1 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2730, +12) is now second and Sergey Karjakin (2720, -3) is third. All were born in 1990 and will dominate the list for a few more years. Karjakin has recently changed his federation from Ukraine to Russia.

GM Fabiano Caruana is knocking at the door of the 2700 club. Here he plays Sweden’s GM Pontus Carlsson enroute to winning Corus ‘C’ earlier last year.

Italian #1 Fabiano Caruana (2675, +33) has pilled up points at a rapid pace and is approaching 2700. He made the fourth round of the FIDE World Cup finally losing to Gashimov. Ian Nepomniachtchi (2658, +32) of Russia gained a whopping 31 ELO points in the Russia Final with 8.5/10!

Perhaps one of the junior receiving the most praise (besides Carlsen) is Wesley So of the Philippines (2656, +14). He got to the 4th round of the FIDE World Cup beating Gadir Guseinov (2614), Vassily Ivanchuk (2749) and Gata Kamsky (2693).

One of the best thing about the juniors list (and other lists) is the wide diversity of nations represented, a fact not solely because of emigration from strong nations. Out of the top 20 juniors, 12 countries are represented. For the top 20 girls, two nations dominate the list… Russia (6) and China (4). Hou Yifan (2590, +2) is the #20 junior, but the top girl.

Jorge Cori and sister Daysi of Peru.

Daysi Cori of Peru is the sole representative on the girl’s list from the Western Hemisphere. Her brother Jorge recently made headlines by fulfilling the requirements a Grandmaster at age 14 and earlier winning the under-14 title. Daysi won the under-16 girl’s title.

FIDE: http://ratings.fide.com/toplist.phtml

Except for snow, Christmas trees and fireworks, the period just before and after New Year is also known for the many big open chess tournaments. Some of them have a very rich tradition, like Reggio Emilia, the Rilton Cup and, of course, the Hastings Chess Congress, the oldest tournament in the world still running.

Photo © Rilton Cup

Reggio Emilia

The 52nd edition of the “Torneo di Capodanno” takes place December 28th – January 6th at the Astoria-Mercure hotel in Reggio Emilia. It’s a 10-player round-robin with GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Michele Godena, GM Daniele Vocaturo, IM Sabino Brunello (all from Italy), GM Gata Kamsky (USA), GM Eltaj Safarli (Azerbajan), GM Baadur Jobava (Georgia), GM Konstantin Landa (Russia), GM Viktor Bologan (Moldavia) and GM Zoltan Almasi (Hungary).

The rounds start at 14:30 CET and GM Miso Cebalo annotates the games for the public at the venue every day; admission is free. The rest day, missing since the 40th edition (1997-98), has been reintroduced: no games will be played on January 1st. A nice preview on the tournament can be found here. Results round 1: Brunello-Safarli 0-1, Landa-Jobava 1/2, Bologan-Caruana 0-1, Almasi-Godena 1/2, Vocaturo-Kamsky 0-1.

At first Vladimir Malakhov was going to play in Reggio, but because of his success at the World Cup the Russian Chess Federation wanted him on the team for the upcoming World Team Championship in Bursa, Turkey. The Italian organizers were then helped by Gata Kamsky, who was happy to step in.

Rilton Cup

The 39th edition of the Rilton Cup takes place December 27th – January 5th in the beautiful Mälarsalen, Münchenbryggeriet in Stockholm, Sweden. The stars at this big, 9-round Swiss are Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Poland), Luke McShane (England), Eduardas Rozentalis (Lithuania), Igor Lysyj (Russia) and Jon Ludvig Hammer (Norway), who won the open in London earlier this month.

Ever since I played in the 2004/2005 edition I’m planning to return to Stockholm and the Rilton Cup. It’s a wonderful tournament with a fantastic tradition and history which they keep reminding you of. For instance, on the tournament website you can find a nice picture gallery of participants from the early years onwards. In this year’s event two rounds have been played so far; in the first Lysyj and Hammer were held to a draw by FMs Mads Andersen and Osmo Kauppila and already in the second round Wojtaszek played an IM (his name was Arnd Lauber and he manageg to draw) and McShane even a GM (Aleksandr Shimanov, who also held the draw). A tough event for the top seeds.

Hastings Chess Congress

Hastings, like Wijk aan Zee, is a coastal town of minor importance. However, it plays a major role in British history and the reason is of course the Battle of Hastings: on October 14, 1066 the Norman army led by Duke William of Normandy defeated the English army led by King Harold II. It is said that the Normans introduced chess to Hastings: this William the Conqueror was a chess player and once broke a chess board over the head of his nephew, Louis the Fat, having accused him of cheating…

One of the strongest chess tournaments ever held was Hastings 1895, but it wasn’t won by one of the favourites, amongst them Lasker, Steinitz, Chigorin or Tarrasch. No, it was Harry Nelson Pillsbury from the USA.

Which tournament can say that over the years all world champions except Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov have played? Here’s an impressive list of the winners. This year to favourites are Yuri Drozdovskij (Ukraine), Zbynek Hracek (Czech Republic), Andrei Istratescu (Romania), Romain Edouard (France) and David Howell (England). The games of the top boards of round 1 can still be replayed at the live section.

And more…

Naturally more tournaments are being played these days. I’ll mention one, the Groningen Chess Festival, which I visited yesterday to make a video report. This will be published later this week. In the open Ukrainian super-talent Ilya Nyzhnyk is leading with two rounds to go, while the 4-game match between Jan Timman and Robin van Kampen is 1.5-1.5 after three games. Later more on this event.

Links

• Reggio Emilia
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• Rilton Cup
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• Hastings Chess Congress
• Games in PGN via TWIC

His sterling performance in this year’s World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, after beating World no. 12 GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in round 2 and last year’s World Chess Cup titlist GM Gata Kamsky of the US in round 3, gained him 15.8 points and he is expected to climb to 2656 when the Jan. 1, 2010 FIDE-RP rating list is formally released in a few days. He currently has an Elo rating of 2640. His best Elo rating is 2646 in July 2009 then lost two Elo in September 2009 (2644) and four Elo in November 2009 (2640).

Chess has a storied history. There are many theories of its origin stemming from either India or China and going to Persia through the Middle East across the Sahara and into Europe. Some say that chess went through Central Asia and into Eurasia. Regardless of where chess started and how it got there, the form the Moors brought into Spain appears to be the precursor to the form that we play now.

Today there is a question circulating… it pertains to the apparent changing of the guard in chess. With the retirement of Garry Kasparov, the changing of the guard had begun. The transition was not a smooth one and a scramble ensued within the disjointed chess world. Before Kasparov, several Soviet champions drew inspiration from Mikhail Botvinnik who became a symbol of the Soviet School of Chess. There would exist a single line of domination for 50 years effectively ending with Kasparov. Vladimir Kramnik had this to say about the World Champion:

Botvinnik’s example and teaching established the modern approach to preparing for competitive chess: regular but moderate physical exercise; analysing very thoroughly a relatively narrow repertoire of openings; annotating one’s own games, those of past great players and those of competitors; publishing one’s annotations so that others can point out any errors; studying strong opponents to discover their strengths and weaknesses; ruthless objectivity about one’s own strengths and weaknesses.

In the modern era, there were a lot of new talented players and the chess behemoth representing the Soviet Union was led by Anatoly Karpov followed by Garry Kasparov. The era from Botvinnik to Kasparov represented the glory years of the Soviet tradition and it remains an important time in chess history.

While many of the strongest chess nations were once a part of the Soviet empire, does the “Soviet School of Chess” still reign supreme in the face of rising powers such as China and India? One may believe the proof is still evident when approximately 70% of the world’s top 100 players are from Russia and the former Soviet republics. However, there are some changing trends.

The trend of globalization has brought about a “chess wave” and currently the top three players are from Norway, Bulgaria and India. When Viswanathan Anand (right) became World Champion, it signaled a new era. Certainly a different time from when there was at least one “K” in the top ten for three decades.

As the largest Soviet remnant, Russia has not scored an Olympiad medal in three straight Olympiads and its players no longer dominate tournaments as before. In addition, tournament winners span a variety of countries. The former Soviet bloc still represents an influential and formidable tradition, but what has become of the “Soviet School of Chess”? Does it still exist? Did it ever exist in the magnitude of its reputation?

During the recent FIDE World Cup, there were 27 players from Russia competing out of 128. Nearly eighty-percent of the total players were from the former Soviet bloc. The tournament was won by a veteran from Belarus, Boris Gelfand, who now plays for Israel. Despite the high percentage of players from the outset, Russia did not place a player in the final match. However, the last eight players were from the “Soviet tradition”. Perhaps one can argue that the tradition is alive, but there are also other developments indicating that the balance of power is shifting. Does it remain a monolithic ideology or is it a deep-seated culture that has diverged into different approaches to chess?

Back in 2006, Vladimir Kramnik complained about the lack of young talent coming up in Russia. He remarked that the veterans were indeed very strong, but needed to make way for young players with great stamina. Other nations in the former Soviet bloc seem to be thriving despite their small size. The Ukraine won the Olympiad in 2004 and Armenia has won in 2006 and 2008. Azerbaijan recently won the European Team Championship. Each of these teams have young stars making of a great part of their success. Of course, we cannot forget that both Israel (#3 in the world) and the U.S. (#8) consist of a number of of Soviet emigres.

Russia’s Peter Svidler and Vladimir Kramnik at the 2008 Olympiad in Dresden. These two elite players work to bridge the gap of the old and new. Photo by Daaim Shabazz.

If one has to answer whether the Soviet School is still relevant, there is no question that it is very much a force. However, times are changing and the method of assimilating mass amounts of knowledge in a short time (to reach a critical analysis) has overtaken the method of deeply analyzing select classic games and positions. Other regions have proved that other techniques can be used with great effect. Many of the promising juniors being produced today are from many parts of the world who do not have the benefit of a rich chess culture, yet they are making a mark and entering the upper echelon with improvised techniques.

If we look at the rise of China, there may be an argument that there is a “massification” of talent, but that argument has not panned out yet. China has a very well-defined system for producing talent… a strong player as national trainer (GM Ye Jiangchuan) and government support. The number of players they produce is selective, yet all of the players appear to be very strong and well-prepared. Liu Wenzhe wrote a book about the “Chinese School of Chess” but it is not clear how close that model is being followed today.

The nation has created a powerhouse in less than 30 years and its women have dominated chess for more than two decades. China currently holds the #5 ranking (behind Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Azerbaijan). They have produced four 2700s and have a cadre of young strong players who are unrated and indeed ready to enter the chess stage. Li Chao and Yu Yangyi showed great promise in the FIDE World Cup, not to mention Hou Yifan, a legitimate talent.

Wesley So represents a new era of chess players. Photo by Galina Popova courtesy of FIDE.

India has the benefit of a great icon in World Champion Anand and perhaps more of a massification effect in terms of young talent. We are witnessing the “Anand Effect” or “Anand Boom” similar to what happened in the U.S. with Bobby Fischer. India has excelled in many of the age group world championships and in 2008 won both the boy’s and girl’s junior titles. Overall, India is now ranked as the #6 federation (counting the top 10 players). The players have strong support from the corporate sector, but internal rankling could slow process.

Vietnam and the Philippines have begun to show promise with young talent such as Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son and Wesley So, respectively. Cuba has led the way in showing that there are other methods for producing elite players and have Lenier Dominguez. Iran has also made tremendous strides in producing strong talent. In North America, there is Hikaru Nakamura who has soared over 2700 and is has developed a unique approach to chess development.

What does all this mean? It means that while the Soviet School of Chess still has tremendous influence in terms of chess training, literature and tradition, methods are evolving quickly. The methods still show results, but is perhaps losing ground. Kramnik has made such comments in a 2006 interview when asked about the rising Russian players.

With regard to Russia I am not aware of the most recent developments; actually it is Evgeny Bareev who is working with the main players in his school. But unfortunately I don’t see much talent coming from our country and this is scaring for me as we shall not get any younger. Some of the players in this team already played in 1994, so you need some new blood at some point and at the moment I can’t see who can bring some new resources to the team. OK, we have some good players such as Malakhov, we have Jakovenko, but they are not much stronger than the rest of the guys. Bareev is already 40 you know, but I hope that he will be able to prepare in his school some young players for the Olympiad in two years time in Dresden. (Link)

In Dresden, it was not to be. Armenia would take gold again on the strength of Levon Aronian and Gabriel Sargissian. Israel took silver and the U.S. took the bronze. For the time being, Russia, the Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia will keep the tradition strong, but how long can we continue to identify success as a result of the “Soviet School”?

Garry Kasparov was perhaps the first player from the Soviet School to make effective use of the traditional methods along with the use of databases. Players like Ruslan Ponomariov, Teimour Radjabov and Sergey Karjakin are steeped more in the information age than previous generations, but one can still see the influence of the Soviet tradition. The idea of studying classic games is invaluable as are the deep studying of middlegame positions, but the means by which that is done will change drastically. Younger players are finding other ways to practicalize their preparation.

Viktor Korchnoi has been very critical of the new generation by saying that too much reliance is placed on computers and databases. One thing for sure… computers and databases are here to stay. Other nations are certainly benefiting from the mass amount of data, powerful engines and access to strong players on the Internet. In interviews, Anand has described the role of computers in “leapfrogging” and leveling the field.

I think that happened with chess. I think that is exactly right. Not only in India but there has been a sort of levelling in the world. The rest of the world has been able to catch up with Russia much faster than it would have had these things not come into play. And now I would say even the expertise is being levelled because you have computers that are so strong. I mean most programs on a PC would beat almost any grandmaster. Even when I play, or any top GM, we have to really concentrate to have a chance. If you are casual, the machine is too strong. So you have such a strong computer with which you can work, all your doubts can be cleared much easier. That is why the sport has become much younger. The time needed to accumulate a certain amount of experience and understanding has dropped. So yes, first the lag in information, then the lag in expertise or knowledge and geographical boundaries through the Internet. Each of these things we have bypassed. We are still as far away as we used to be, but we have bypassed them. (Link)

The methods as taught by many Soviet trainers will still have some relevance, but will require some adaption if they are going to continue to be affective against players who require speed and volume of many games over the depth and critical analysis of fewer games. The Soviet School as we know it will never be the same. Eventually, it will have to give way to a more dynamic pedagogy. It’s going to be exciting to see where the world of chess is headed.

Two decades after the USSR broke up, Soviet training methods remain potent at the chessboard. When the field of 128 was reduced to the quarter-finals in the current World Cup, all eight grandmasters remaining had their education from Soviet coaches.

The final four-game match now in progress to decide who qualifies for the 2010 candidates is between Ukraine's Ruslan Ponomariov, who won the 2002 World Cup as a teenager, and Boris Gelfand, the 41-year-old top seed. In the semi-finals Ponomariov beat Vlad Malakhov 4-2 while Gelfand eliminated Sergey Karjakin 2-0. In both the semi-final and in the game below the Israeli veteran defeated opponents more than half his age.

Sergey Karjakin, 19, who lost to Gelfand 0-2, chose the 'safe' Bishop's Opening in an attempt to avoid the Petroff 2 Nf3 Nf6, but after 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 Nf6 3 d3 Nc6 4 Nf3 Be7 5 0-0 0-0 6 Bb3 d5 7 exd5 Nxd5 8 h3 a5 9 a4 Nd4 10 Nxd4 exd4 11 Re1 was rocked by the new plan Ra6! White should have bailed out for a draw by 12 Bxd5 Qxd5 13 Rxe7 Rg6 14 f3 Bxh3 15 Re2 Qxf3 16 Qf1 Bxg2! but instead fell to a crushing attack on his king.

Gelfand's 1 c4 English Opening had a tiny edge against France's junior world champion when Black erred by 16...f5? (better c6 17 bxc6 bxc6 18 Ne3 Rb8) after which 17 Nh4! and 19 Qh5! homed in on the weak light squares. When Gelfand launched a second front down the open b file, Black's defences collapsed.

B Gelfand v M Vachier Lagrave

1 c4 Nf6 2 Nc3 e5 3 Nf3 Nc6 4 a3 g6 5 g3 Bg7 6 Bg2 O-O 7 O-O d6 8 d3 h6 9 Rb1 Be6 10 b4 Qd7 11 b5 Nd8 12 a4 Bh3 13 Nd5 Bxg2 14 Kxg2 Ne8 15 e4 Ne6 16 Bb2 f5? 17 Nh4 Kh7 18 exf5 gxf5 19 Qh5 c6 20 bxc6 bxc6 21 Ne3 f4 22 Nef5 Rf6 23 d4 exd4 24 Nxd4 Nxd4 25 Bxd4 Re6 26 Qf5+ Kg8 27 Rfe1 Nc7 28 Bxg7 Kxg7 29 Rb7 Re7 30 Rxe7+ Qxe7 31 Qxf4 Kg8 32 Nf5 1-0

3117

P Svidler v V Malakhov, World Cup 2009. Black (to play) can choose a plausible move which loses instantly or a less obvious one which wins instantly. Can you find both?

3117 1...dxe1Q?? 2 Bxf7+ Rxf7 (Kg7 3 Qg6+) 3 Qxf7+ forces a speedy mate. The game ended dxe1N+! and White resigned due to 2 Rxe1 Qf2+ and Ng3 mate.

Ten of the world elite are competing at Moscow's Tal Memorial, which ends today and is one of the strongest tournaments in chess history. But the winner in the event's first half was a flu virus which affected several grandmasters and encouraged a minimalist, cautious approach. Ukraine's Vasily Ivanchuk wore a face mask, and a high 80 per cent of the first five round games were drawn.

The sickest player was Magnus Carlsen, 19, who had trained beforehand with Garry Kasparov and was expected to unleash some opening bombs in his campaign to become world No 1. But Norway's golden teen was close to defeat against Vlad Kramnik in the opening round and then opted to fight his bug by antibiotics and a solid, low risk strategy.

As the bug subsided, the leaders before the final round were Vlad Kramnik 5.5/8, Vasily Ivanchuk and the world champion, Vishy Anand, 5, Magnus Carlsen 4.5. Below, Anand gives a lesson in how to cash in a small edge.

Svidler began with the Grunfeld 3...d5, the most popular opening in Moscow. White chose a calm line, Black's 13...Nb4 improved on theory, and three moves later Rfd8-d6 would have been level. Svidler's more passive plan provoked an attack along the f file, but Black was still holding until 25...fxe4? (f4!) after which 29 b4! cracked the defences. If 29...Rc8 30 bxc5 Qxc5 31 Rexd4 wins a piece, and in the game Anand also gained decisive material.

V Anand v P Svidler

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 d5 4 cxd5 Nxd5 5 Bd2 Bg7 6 e4 Nb6 7 Be3 0–0 8 h3 e5 9 Nf3 exd4 10 Bxd4 Bxd4 11 Qxd4 Qe7 12 Qe3 Nc6 13 Bb5 Nb4 14 Rc1 Be6 15 b3 a6 16 Be2 Nc6 17 0–0 f6 18 Rfe1 Rad8 19 Bf1 Bf7 20 Nh2 Be6 21 f4 Nd4 22 f5 Bf7 23 Ng4 gxf5 24 Nh6+ Kh8 25 Qf2 fxe4 26 Rxe4 Qd6 27 Rd1 c5 28 Nxf7+ Rxf7 29 b4 f5 30 bxc5 fxe4 31 Qxf7 Nf3+ 32 Qxf3 1–0

3113 1 Qce3+! If Ka8 2 Qea3, or Ka6 2 Qa4, or Qb6 2 Qfa3. Traps are 1 Qcc5+ Qb6 or 1 Qcd4+? Ka6 or 1 Qfc5+? Ka8.

In the only decisive encounter of the Tal Memorial’s 8th round, Magnus Carlsen won his first game, and we might as well add: in Tal style. A devastating sacrifice on e6 in a Sicilian decided his game against Ponomariov at an early stage. With four draws in the other games, Kramnik is still half a point ahead of Anand and Ivanchuk. Tomorrow is already the last round, again at 13:00 CET.

The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The category 21 round-robin has Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).

The first four rounds of the round-robin are held in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.

Round 8

Top seed Magnus Carlsen seemed fully recovered today and played like a young Mikhail Tal. He “thought it was time to switch opening moves,” as he explained during the post-game press conference (very much done in Corus style, with a demoboard in the press room – you can still watch it here!). “Forgive me my ignorance,” Carlsen continued, “but I didn’t know the move 10…Ne5 at all.” So much for everyone who thought that the very interesting novelty 11.Qe1 was strong preparation by the Carlsen/Kasparov team…

Carlsen allowed Ponomariov to take one of his bishops, because he considered the more natural 14.Bf2 d5 to be fine for Black. “And I wanted to line up my knights to take on e6 some day,” he said with a smile. Ponomariov then should have played the normal 15…Be7, when Black in fact threatens 16…e5 and is absolutely fine. “I wouldn’t recommend the way I played with White,” Carlsen admitted. However, the way Ponomariov neglected his development couldn’t be recommended either, and the move 20…d5 was already desperation. Carlsen is still not feeling 100%, but “it helps to win games,” he ended the press conference.

The draw in Kramnik-Leko was quite spectacular but unfortunately it was all theory for no less than 26 moves. Immediately after they left an old Yusupov-Sax game, the two liquidated to a queen ending that was about equal, and so it makes you wonder whether the two friends were up to a real fight today.

Gelfand might be the oldest participant but he’s in excellent shape and therefore difficult to beat, especially with the black pieces. And so Anand played it safe today, and drew in a Catalan, just like his neigbour in the standings, Ivanchuk. The Ukrainian however had to show some endgame technique to keep a difficult rook ending against Aronian. Instructive material, which was explained very clearly by our live commentator GM Dimitri Reinderman.

The game between Morozevich and Svidler had the same result and was even played out till bare kings. On move 19 Morozevich went for a long and forced line that led to a QR-QR ending with five pawns each. In the second phase of the game both players seemed to be playing for a win, which made it a fascinating struggle between the two top GMs from Russia. Because nobody faltered, the point was split in the end.

Tomorrow the last round starts at the same time: 13:00 CET. Naturally all eyes will be focused on Ivanchuk-Kramnik, and Anand-Aronian. Our live coverage will be done all the way from Sydney, Australia, by GM Ian Rogers. Free free to tune in!

Games round 8 [GM Dimitri Reinderman]

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Following an excellent idea of Georg in the comments, we write something about Mikhail Tal every day.

There haven’t been many occasions for Dutch chess fans to see Mikhail Tal play, let alone to see him play really great chess. He won Wijk aan Zee in 1973, the year I was born, but in his other tournaments in The Netherlands, he mostly seems to have been out of form. It’s strange to realize that there aren’t many Dutch chess players of my generation and younger who could have seen him play in real life, since he played here for the last time in 1988, beating Jan Timman 3.5-2.5 in the KRO training match in Hilversum.

I haven’t seen Tal play at the board either, but I have seen him in real life once. In 1988, when I had just joined my first chess club in Amsterdam, I visited the Wijk aan Zee tournament on a Saturday with my dad. We arrived some time in the afternoon, and when I entered the playing hall and looked around, someone came up to me and said I was standing in front of a former World Champion. I turned around and looked at whom I later learned was Mikhail Tal.

But frustratingly, I don’t recall anything of him except the fact that he appeared rather short. Apparently, his famous penetrating eyes didn’t make an impression on me! (I have seen Max Euwe once, too, in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam – he died in 1981 so I must have been really young – but I don’t recall anything of him either. Evidently, I don’t have a good memory for faces of former World Champions.)

It turned out Tal had already finished his game with Karpov, a short draw typical for his tournament, which he finished with 11 draws out of 13 games. Later that year, he did considerably better at the World Blitz Championship in Saint John: he won it ahead of the best players in the world. The old Tal was back, at age 51.

Tal,M-Gurevich,D
World Blitz Ch (01) 1988



Here Tal blitzed out the fantastic 24.Nxe6!! Rxe6 25.Bxf5! and of course went on to win the game.

Arne Moll

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

The 3rd and 4th round of the Schachbundesliga and one match from round 7 will take place from the 13th to the 15th of November, 2009. This article provides you with the pairings of the following weekend.

The top matches of the following weekend will take place in Bremen and Mülheim. The host team Bremen will face on Saturday the team of Eppingen. Both teams are expected to fight for the first places in the Bundesliga. Bremen is one of the few teams who can challenge the German Champion OSG Baden-Baden. In Mülheim the host team will face the team of Solingen, two teams of the upper half of the chart. The German Champion OSG Baden-Baden is playing at home and is odds-on favourite in the matches against the teams of München and Erfurt.

All teams involved at the playing venue Bremen agreed to announce their lineups two days in advance. Bremen will play on the first board with Pavel Eljanov from Ukraine, who is ranked number 17 in the world after some outstanding performances in the last months. Her premiere in the Schachbundesliga will celebrate Anna Muzychuk from Slovenia.

GM Anna Muzychuk (2532, Slovenia)

She is one of the few female players, and the strongest one, in the highest German chess league. She will play on board eight for SC Eppingen. You can check all lineups and parings of the matches in Bremen by following this link.

3rd round: Saturday, 14th of November 2009, 2 pm

Playing venue Baden-Baden (Routing)
OSG Baden-Baden – Bayern München
SK Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim – Erfurter SK

Playing venue Mülheim (Routing)
SV Mülheim Nord – SG Solingen
SF Katernberg – SC Remagen

Playing venue Bremen (Routing)
Werder Bremen – SC Eppingen
Hamburger SK – SG Trier

Playing venue Emsdetten (Routing)
SK Turm Emsdetten – SF Berlin
SV Wattenscheid – SK König Tegel

4th round: Sunday, 15th of November 2009, 10 am

Playing venue Baden-Baden
Bayern München – SK Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim
Erfurter SK – OSG Baden-Baden

Playing venue Mülheim
SG Solingen – SF Katernberg
SC Remagen – SV Mülheim Nord

Playing venue Bremen
SC Eppingen – Hamburger SK
SG Trier – Werder Bremen

Playing venue Emsdetten
SF Berlin – SV Wattenscheid
SK König Tegel – SK Turm Emsdetten

Match of the 7th round: Friday, 13th of November 2009, 4pm
Playing venue Bremen
Werder Bremen – Hamburger SK

Live coverage

All games of the Schachbundesliga are covered live in the internet. At the particular date of the matches you can get access to the games via the website of the Schachbundesliga.

Teams

In the only decisive game of the Tal Memorial’s 7th round, Vassily Ivanchuk defeated Boris Gelfand to reach a shared second place with Viswanathan Anand. The two are just half a point behind Vladimir Kramnik, with two rounds to go in Moscow.

The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The category 21 round-robin has Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).

The first four rounds of the round-robin are held in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.

Round 7

Ivanchuk’s mouth mask isn’t news anymore, but what about his play? Isn’t the Ukrainian playing surprisingly strongly since he’s wearing it? Has his mask been checked by a metal detector?

Joking aside, Ivanchuk did play another very good game today and defeated Gelfand to reach a +2 score. Accurate calculation proved that White could take a pawn on a7 without having his bishop really trapped, and so Ivanchuk went for it. A difficult variation pointed out by our GM commentator Wouter Spoelman showed that Gelfand could probably have reached equality, but in the game White kept a slight advantage. A big mistake in the rook ending suddenly led to a lost position for Gelfand.

Kramnik’s game started as promising as his first six, but this time his opponent Aronian wasn’t planning to give in. Playing it safe, a short but exciting middlegame led to a drawn endgame. Anand and Morozevich seemed to be steering to a very quick draw out of the opening, but in reality White did have a small edge. With accurate play (18…Ra7, 19…b6 and 20…b5) Black still solved his problems relatively quickly.

Ponomariov-Leko and Svidler-Carlsen were two more draws but the latter left the fans and our commentator a bit puzzled. Wasn’t Carlsen’s extra pawn in the final position worth anything?

With two rounds to go the Tal Memorial is entering the decisive, and probably very exciting final phase. The unpredictable Ivanchuk has suddenly moved up to shared second place with Anand, just half a point behind the leader, Kramnik. The World Champion first plays Gelfand with Black, and ends with the white pieces against Aronian. Kramnik plays Leko with White tomorrow, Ivanchuk has Aronian with Black. And… the last round has the top encounter Ivanchuk-Kramnik!

Tomorrow at 13:00 CET our live coverage of the 8th round starts with GM Dimitri Reinderman. The last round, on Saturday, will be covered all the way from Sydney, Australia, by GM Ian Rogers. Free free to tune in!

Games round 7 [GM Wouter Spoelman]

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Following an excellent idea of Georg in the comments, we try to write something about Mikhail Tal every day.

In our short Tal columns we have referred a few times to The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal. This book is in fact one of the most original autobiographies ever published, written by one of the most original chess personalities that ever lived. If you don’t own the book yet, don’t hesitate to purchase one in the near future. It ought to be in any chess lover’s library – no, really!

To make this point clear, it suffices to quote a bit from the start of the book. Tal doesn’t just start telling, no, instead he introduces the remarkable form of writing that he adopts in the whole book: that of ‘a chess player’ and ‘a journalist’ talking to each other:

1 My First Steps

Dialogue between a chess player and a journalist
(instead of an autobiography)

Dramatic personae:
A CHESS PLAYER. Mikhail Tal
A JOURNALIST. Who knows, perhaps alias…

JOURNALIST. Well now, ‘Shall we begin?’. Did you think, on first sitting down at the chessboard, that you would at some time play a match for the World Championship? Incidentally, what do you recall of your first game?
CHESS PLAYER. Did I think… Probably not. Matches for the World Championship are fairly rare events, and from the psychological point of view it is simply not possible for many chess fans to take part in them. I say fans, because, after all, even professionals are chess fans.
But about my first game. When one of us first plays chess, he is like a man who has already caught a dose of microbes of, say, Hong Kong ‘flu. Such a man walks along the street, and he does not yet know that he is ill. He is healthy, he feels fine, but the microbes are doing their work.
Something similar, though less harmful, occurs in chess. (…) You lose the first game. But at some time, if your father or elder brother or simply an old friend wants to be kind to you, then you win, and as a result feel very proud of yourself. A few days pass, and suddenly you involuntarily begin to sense that, without chess, there is something missing in your life. Then you may rejoice: you belong to that group of people without a natural immunity to the chess disease…

(It was completely accidental, but a funny coincidence, that Tal makes a comparison with the flu in this column.)

Links

• Official website
• On-the-spot coverage at the Chess.FM blog
• Games in PGN

At the Tal Memorial in Moscow, Aronian left the group of favourites after losing to Gelfand today. Still waring a mouth mask, Ivanchuk scored a fine win against Morozevich. But the centre of attention was claimed by Kramnik again, who defeated Ponomariov in a wonderful struggle. We have very insightful GM commentary and a video of Anand explaining his game.

The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The category 21 round-robin has Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).

The first four rounds of the round-robin are held in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.

Round 6

Like yesterday, Ivanchuk played with a mouth mask today (he didn’t start with it, but put it on later in the game). In the comments of yesterday’s report some visitors wondered why Carlsen himself didn’t wear a mouth mask, instead of Ivanchuk. Meanwhile, we’ve come across the article “Surgical masks versus respirators for flu protection” which involves a recent scientific claim that different types of masks and how they’re worn, may be crucial to their effect.

“We still remain unsure whether flu is transmitted mainly by large or small droplets. If most transmission is by very large droplets produced by coughs and sneezes then a surgical mask might prove effective, but if it is mainly very small particles that remain suspended for long periods and have no difficulty finding their way around a loose fitting surgical mask it’s another matter. For that you want a respirator with a good seal.” (…)

Ivanchuk with mouth protection | Picture Macauley Peterson

Well, whatever Ivanchuk was wearing today, he wasn’t negatively affected by it. He played a strong game with Black against Morozevich; quite an original Sämisch King’s Indian.

Usually it’s Black pushing away a knight on g3 with h7-h5-h4, but this time it was White who started pushing his h-pawn. Ivanchuk reacted by chasing away Nc3 and then pressing on White’s centre with …f5 – a classical strategy which culminated in the win of pawn d5 on move 28. Thanks to his strong bishop pair, Ivanchuk didn’t have to hurry in converting his advantage.

Gelfand scored his first win of the tournament, basically profiting from just one big mistake by Aronian. The Armenian’s 24th move can be called a blunder at this level since White’s response involved a simple double attack. After winning a pawn, the oldest participant proved that he’s still going strong, giving his opponent no chance to survive.

The important fight between Carlsen and Anand, the top seed versus the World Champion, ended in a draw after both sides had had their chances. In an untheoretical, Slav kind of position Anand quickly gave back an extra pawn to be able to finish his development, after which the position was roughly equal.

The position became sharper when White started focusing on a kingside attack and Black continued an assault on the queenside. Missing 26.f5, Carlsen’s attack was strong enough for a perpetual, but not more. Leko and Svidler also drew after White’s small advantage evaporated. Perhaps Leko missed a chance on move 27.

Kramnik again played by far the longest game of the round, and again the most interesting game as well. How great is the chess he’s been playing so far! The former World Champion seems reborn – is it too early to speak of the New Kramnik? For the moment we’ll keep it at “Kramnik 2.0″.

But it takes two to tango; Ponomariov defended resourcefully against White’s activity and kept on looking for ways to profit from his opponent’s king that was stuck in the centre. An extremely sharp middle game was followed by a new phase after the time control, when like yesterday, Kramnik had reached a favourable ending.

This time he was an exchange up, but Black should have been able to draw it somewhere. However, as so often the defender had a harder task and Ponomariov missed the chance to reach a theoretical draw. Instead, a famous ending arose which every Dutch chess player knows from the game Timman-Velimirovic, Interzonal 1979. These days the tablebase tells the verdict immediately, and as it turned out Kramnik had a more favourable version than Timman thirty years ago. The Zugzwang win at the end explains the whole ending in one move.

The final phase of the Kramnik-Ponomariov game...

...Ponomariov making the move 80...Bg3...

...Kramnik plays 81.Re4, bringing the fatal Zugzwang on the board...

...after which Ponomariov resigned, after more than 6.5 hours of play.

Today’s live commentary was done by GM Dimitri Reinderman – his insightful comments can be replayed in the viewer below. With three rounds to go, Kramnik is in sole lead again, with 4.5/6, followed by Anand on clear second place with half a point less. Morozevich, Svidler and Leko are all on -2.

Games round 6 [GM Dimitri Reinderman]

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Following an excellent idea of Georg in the comments, we try to write something about Mikhail Tal every day. Today we decided to include a few videos posted on YouTube. In the first not only Tal, but also Petrosian and Smyslov can be seen, in 1959 in Beograd. A year later Tal won the World Championship (second video).

Links

• Official website
• On-the-spot coverage at the Chess.FM blog
• Games in PGN

Very deep opening preparation and powerful middlegame play brought Viswanathan Anand a deserved victory against Peter Leko today. The World Champion leads the Tal Memorial together with Vladimir Kramnik, who drew with Boris Gelfand – the same result as in the other three games. Ivanchuk played his game against Carlsen with mouth protection.

The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The category 21 round-robin has Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).

The first four rounds of the round-robin are held in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.

Round 5

Yesterday was the only rest day at the Tal Memorial and in fact it was Mikhail Tal’s birthday: November 9th, the same date as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. For today’s round the players changed venues from Hotel National to Main Department Store GUM on Red Square which might have been a bit tricky as far as the internet connection was concerned, but luckily it didn’t have any effect on the tournament’s official live broadcast.

Main Department Store or GUM, a modern namer for the main department store in many cities of the Soviet Union, known as State Department Store in the Soviet times. This one is actually a shopping mall. Prior to the 1920s the place was known as the Upper Trading Rows. | Photo: Josef F. Stuefer

In the chat screen of our own live broadcast, already before the round had started someone asked about the condition of Magnus Carlsen. The Norwegian had “flu like symptoms”, as we were told by a member of their team, then Chessbase reported it was a “throat infection” and then we read Magnus describing it himself as “a sore throat and also fever”. But that was November 8th, when he was “already feeling better”.

Anyway, Ivanchuk didn’t want to take any risks, and came to the board with his mouth protected. Blogging for the website of his new sponsor, Carlsen wrote:

Today he arrived at the playing hall, and played our entire game with a mouth mask (probably to protect against me), and frankly it happened to the considerable amusement of the other players.

Well, perhaps we emphasize too much on Carlsen’s physical state already. Let’s look at his chess – the top seed easily equalized against Ivanchuk’s London System today, making clear once more that with correct play, Black doesn’t have anything to fear against this at club level quite popular opening.

Not long afterwards two more games ended peacefully. Ponomariov’s laptop is clearly 100% up-to-date as he played the interesting 15…c4 and 17…Nc6 plan in a Berlin Wall (how appropriate) against Svidler; a slightly different version of the same theme as in the very recent game Adams-Bacrot, Novi Sad last month. Like Adams, Svidler tried it with the thematical e5-e6 push, but using the pin along the b-file Ponomariov equalized quickly.

Aronian seemed to be totally outplaying Morozevich, who tried the Stonewall, but somehow White’s advantage was smaller than it seemed. In the end one advantage, in this case the bishop pair, isn’t enough to win a game.

Anand and Leko followed the theoretical paths for no less than 21 moves. A very sharp position arose in which Rybka constantly gives 0.00, due to the many lines ending in perpetual check. This is probably how the game should have ended, after e.g. 23…Rf6. During the game it was very difficult to pinpoint where Black went wrong exactly, but around move 30 Anand suddenly had more than enough compensation for his pawn deficit, he then won back his pawn and another one, after which the queen ending was won. Powerful play by the World Champion, that’s for sure.

After the game Anand said that Kasimdzhanov deserves credit for the Nxd4 move. 'It all comes down to the opening. If you know the knight idea you can hold it, but I think it's almost impossible for Black to solve it at the board.' | Quote & picture thanks to Macauley Peterson

The last game to finish, between Gelfand and tournament leader Kramnik, was very interesting as well. Once more, the Russian went for sharp stuff, which is not easy against the Catalan. His 5…Bb4+ and 6…a5 must have come as a surprise for Gelfand too, who started thinking and whose 8.Bg5 was already a novelty. Continuing with 8…b5 showed that Kramnik has absolutely no fear in Moscow!

A difficult middlegame followed with perhaps a few inaccuracies here and there, and then a terrible time trouble phase. When the smoke had cleared, Black had the better ending, but Gelfand could liquidate to a 3 vs 4 rook ending where his f2-g3-h4 was the ideal setup – to exchange as much pawns as possible before Black can create a passed pawn. Though 5 vs 4 is usually a win, 4 vs 3 is not, as the theoretical manuals tell us. With Gelfand’s king on e2 instead of g2 Kramnik could quickly create a passer on the h-file, but this wasn’t sufficient for a win either.

So far the tournament proves that draws can be very interesting too. It might surprise you that in this exciting event the drawing percentage after five rounds is as high as 80%, with an average of one decisive game per round.

Games round 5 [IM Merijn van Delft]

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Following an excellent idea of Georg in the comments, we try to write something about Mikhail Tal every day.

Exactly fifty years ago – in November 1959 – Dutch grandmaster Jan Hein Donner wrote at length about the young Mikhail Tal, who was then rising to the top like a comet and would become World Champion within less than a year. It’s almost scary how accurate and nuanced Donner’s observations were at the time, and how true his words still are about in chess in general.

“Without exaggeration one can say that Tal’s appearance has shocked the chess world. In him, one clearly feels a new phenomenon. The game of chess has always been regarded as a game of logic. Chess players themselves were the first to praise it as an art and, as could be read some months ago in an article by him, someone like Botvinnik had the incination to see the competitive element as a side-effect. Whoever played chess had to first of all try and play ‘correctly’. (…) It was precisely this logical, mathematically proveable aspect which was regarded as essential to chess. This gave it its standing and it distinguished itself from the so-called games of chance. (…)

And then came Tal. He didn’t care about correctness, complications were more important to him. To drag his opponent with him into the labyrinth, he gave everything for it. I’ve seen it in Zürich, the growing feeling of unease when he sacrificed a piece or more in every game, and won, but when afterwards it turned out the whole enterprise had been rather risky if only the opponent would have found the right moves behind the board. In analysing, too, it turned out that, although he had calculated much and much more than the average player, he did very much tend to calculate in his own favour. Even then it became clear that only Keres could stand up to him in such analysis sessions where hands grab and reach over the board. ‘Aber mein Lieber, was machen Sie denn darauf!’ [But my darling, what do you play now?] and Tal just laughed. ‘Wer hat gewonnen?’ [Who has won?] (…)

Tal thinks differently than the way people used to think about how to be successful. He didn’t enrich the game with new ideas. His game setup is old-fashioned and reminds one of Tarrasch, but what a difference otherwise! To Tarrasch, the game of chess was one of logic par excellence. His entire dogmatism was founded on that idea. However paradoxical it may seem, in reality he sought a system that always won. (…) Tal throws all this away and shows the essence of chess. There is no system, there is no correct or incorrect, there only is success. This thinking without norms of one’s own infallibility has no chance in reality and will ultimately wreck itself. But in chess, it is the greatest inspiration. Therefore, it is wrong to call Tal a trickster. He only knows that, although self-critism and self-knowledge are necessary, objectivity behind the chess board is a fiction.”

Actually Donner was exaggerating about Tal’s performance in Zürich. In his game against Donner, Tal didn’t sacrifice anything but just crushed him out of the opening. You could say Donner sacrificed one truth to reach another, more important one. I think Tal would have liked that.

Arne Moll

The position of the game between Donner and
Tal after 28…Nd7-c5. Donner resigned.

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

Starting aggressively again, and finishing it off in the endgame, Vladimir Kramnik grabbed the lead in Moscow today by beating Peter Svidler. Although flu like symptoms among some players have been reported, so far Kramnik seems least affected.

The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The category 21 round-robin has Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).

The first four rounds of the round-robin are held in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.

Round 4

We received confirmation from the Carlsen team that Magnus is having some flu like symptoms, and according to Mig, Kramnik isn’t feeling 100% either in Moscow. However, the former World Champ doesn’t seem affected at all and gave another impressive show today, beating Svidler in coffeehouse style and using exemplary endgame technique.

White’s “patzer plan” of rushing with the h-pawn and exchanging Black’s fianchetto bishop (isn’t that suppose to backfire with Black pressing in the centre?) worked out surprisingly well in this Exchange Grünfeld; at least over the board Svidler couldn’t find a good antidote. He tried his luck in an endgame a pawn down, and at first he seemed to get some compensation but as soon as the White rooks became active it was over.

The top encounter (if not all games are, at the Tal Memorial) Carlsen-Aronian started quite interesting, and was heavily debated during our live commentary, but they drew relatively quickly. This was a most welcome course of events for the top seed, who will have the rest day to recover.

Not much fireworks in the other drawn games either; Leko-Ivanchuk did start promising but they too called it a day as soon as the position was even. Tomorrow’s the only rest day after which the players will switch venues, from hotel National to the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. Kramnik has showed some very good chess and is the deserved leader after four rounds.

Games round 4 [IM Robert Ris]

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Following an excellent idea of Georg in the comments, we try to write something about Mikhail Tal every day.

Mikhail Tal played countless crazy games, but one of the craziest was surely the game he played against the young readers of the Soviet magazine Pionerskaya Pravda in 1968. The readers called themselves ‘White Rook’ in this game. In it, Tal employs the Traxler Gambit as Black – basically, he sacs a rook as early as move four hoping to create complications against the white king. After the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 Bc5 5.Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6.Kxf2 Nxe4+ 7.Kg1 Qh4 8.g3 Nxg3, over 20,000 readers sent in their moves each time it was their turn.

The game was also heavily analysed and numerous discoveries were found during the course of more than fourty years. In the legendary Dutch chess book Chess curiosities (1974), Tim Krabbé devotes many pages to the game, which strangely didn’t make it into Tal’s Life and Games.

The game was also analysed by Smyslov and still later by Alexander Khalifman in his Tal biography, but probably the most famous analysis was done by a Soviet chess junior called Vadim Brodsky, who made a fantastic discovery in the ‘endgame’ which appeared after move 26.
Here, Tal erred with 26…Ng3+? and after some more adventures the game was subsequently drawn. But a few months after the game was played, Brodsky found that Black can win with 26…Nf4+! 27.Kh6 Rg6+ 28.Kh7 Rg7+! 29.Kh6 Kg8! and Black mates next move. Sadly, most modern engines find this line within seconds. We can only wonder what the great magician from Riga would have thought about this development.

(Arne Moll)

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

The silence was broken in round 3 of the Tal Memorial. Anand was the first to win today when Svidler blundered in an already difficult position. Leko never got true compensation against Aronian in an Anti-Moscow and resigned on move 43. In the best game of the day Kramnik defeated Morozevich with Black in a Nimzo-Indian.

The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The category 21 round-robin has Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).

The first four rounds of the round-robin are held in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.

Round 3

Blood on the boards today! Finally we saw wins and defeats, winners and losers, joy and sorrow. Anand, Aronian and Kramnik grabbed the lead with a win in a great round which was live commentated by IM Robert Ris, who also participated in the chat throughout the day. We start to get used to our new service ourselves, and it shows!

We have to start this report with Morozevich-Kramnik, which was an absolutely splendid performance by the former World Champion. In yet another Nimzo-Indian he was quickly on top and made his opponent thinking at move 10, which gave the impression that something had gone wrong in Moro’s preparation. White’s Kf1 and h4 set-up was interesting, but not very dangerous and soon Kramnik showed the downside of it, using the remarkable knight manoeuvre Nc5-b3-c1. Though he fought well, Morozevich couldn’t survive Kramnik’s ongoing power shots.

By then Anand had already won as well, and even easier. His 5.Bd2 line was a good choice against Svidler’s Grünfeld and soon the Indian proved that with accurate play White can reach a slight advantage there. Marching with the f-pawn was suddenly decisive when Svidler blundered with 25…fxe4? – he must have underestimated the deadly 29.b4!.

Aronian-Leko was a heavy theoretical battle in an Anti-Moscow in which the Armenian came with the first new move, but the Hungarian kept on playing quickly for a while. Aronian ended up with an extra pawn and slowly but surely kept on improving his position, until the ending was a simple win.

Gelfand and Carlsen drew quickly in a Grünfeld while compatriots Ivanchuk and Ponomariov played the longest game of the day, mainly because of Ivanchuk’s fighting spirit – he kept on trying to convert a tiny edge in a knight ending, until there really wasn’t any play left at move 69.

Games round 3 [IM Robert Ris]

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Following an excellent idea of Georg in the comments, we try to write something about Mikhail Tal every day.

Mikhail Tal was World Champion between 1960 and 1961, but he always remained a very strong and dangerous player. One of his best performances in his later career was his shared first place with reigning World Champion Anatoly Karpov at the Montreal super-tournament of 1979, where the two finished on 12/18 (a 10-player, double round-robin, those were the days…), ahead of Portisch, Ljubojevic, Spassky, Timman, Hort, Hübner, Kavalek and Larsen.

In the tournament book Montreal 1979 – Tournament of Stars (Pergamon, 1980) the winners are interviewed (although it’s not clear who asks the questions, A. Roshal or V. Chepizhny). A bit from that book:

Many – and, I must admit, myself included – consider that something of an evolution has occurred with Tal’s style. Your play has become more positional, more universal. Is this so?

I’d be glad to get to heaven, but my sins won’t allow it! Today the squares d5, f5 and e6 (my visiting cards, so to speak) are so well covered! Have a poke in there – there are four defenders! Now, Rantanen, a young player, he didn’t know that I had become ‘positional’, and played ‘open’ chess against me in Tallinn. I succeeded in carrying out an interesting combination. To work it out was probably not very complicated but… He made a move, I replied, and he should have resigned, but preferred to be mated; in making his last move, he thought that he was winning!

No, it’s nothing to do with me – it’s my opponents!

You mean that your style is just what it used to be?

My style – yes. Perhaps I have become a little older, and see a little more for my opponents, and a little less for myself. I am convinced that, protected by all this armour, I would simply tear to pieces that Candidates of the sixties!

In this tournament you succeeded in winning several games in good old Tal style. I recall that in one of your recent interviews you said that today spectacular combinations are possible only against weak opponents. Is this exactly what you meant?

Very well, you can add – weak or forgetful. Spassky and I have been meeting now for a quarter of a century. And all these years in my games with him I have been setting my sights on the square h2 (h7). And in Montreal Boris simply provoked me into a combination. To open yourself up to such an extent you have to be in excellent form, and that is just what Spassky wasn’t in this tournament. For me it was both unexpected and simple to win this game.”

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

More than 150 nations are affiliated to the global chess body Fide, yet team supremacy on the board is currently being fought out by two small Caucasian republics. In the process the pair have humilated their big neighbour Russia, for long the undisputed No1.

When Armenia won the 2006 Olympiad, the success was reckoned a surprise one-off. Then its squad retained the crown in 2008, sparking street celebrations in Erevan and the presidential plane home for the winning team. On both occasions the top-seeded Russians failed, as they had behind Ukraine in 2004.

These results infuriated politicians and grandmasters in Azerbaijan, which has an ongoing acrimonious border dispute with Armenia. At last week's European team championship, the men from Baku came with a new manager, a highly rated team and ambitious zeal. Russia were again No1 seeds and at the start of the final round they led Azerbaijan by a point, with easier opponents. But they blew it yet again. Russia managed only 2-2 with Spain and the Azeris clinched the gold medals when a Dutch GM blundered in a drawn rook ending.

Both nations have chess traditions from Soviet times. Erevan boasts a statue of Tigran Petrosian, the Armenian world champion, while Garry Kasparov was raised in Baku by his Armenian mother.

The battle now moves to next year's world title candidate matches, as Azeris and Armenians haggle with Fide over venues, qualifiers and wild cards. The Azeris have three GMs in the world top 20, led by Vugar Gashimov, 23, their Euro team star whose subtle play below gives White first a strong pawn centre, then a winning attack.

V Gashimov v M Roiz

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O Be7 6 Re1 b5 7 Bb3 d6 8 c3 O-O 9 d4 Bg4 10 d5 Na5 11 Bc2 c6 12 h3 Bc8 13 dxc6 Qc7 14 Nbd2 Qxc6 15 Nf1 Re8 16 Ng3 Be6 17 Ng5 Bd7 18 a4 Nc4 19 b3 Nb6 20 a5 Nc8 21 Bd2 Bd8 22 Bd3 Ne7 23 c4 Qb7 24 Nf3 b4 25 c5 dxc5 26 Nxe5 Bc7 27 Nxd7 Nxd7 28 f4 Nf8 29 Bc4 Rad8 30 e5 Nc6 31 Nf5 Nxa5 32 Rxa5 Bxa5 33 Qg4 g6 34 Nh6+ Kg7 35 f5 Ne6 36 fxe6 Rxd2 37 exf7 Rf8 38 e6 Bd8 39 Nf5+ Kh8 40 Qg3 1-0

The same story as yesterday reaches us from Moscow, Russia: five more draws in round 2 of the Tal Memorial kept everyone together in first and last place, but also today we saw a number of interesting games.

The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The category 21 round-robin has Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).

The first four rounds of the round-robin are held in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.

Round 2

Who would have thought? Okay, the players are all enormously strong, and their ratings quite close to each other, but it’s still surprising that after two rounds there hasn’t been a decisive game yet in Moscow. At least it means that nobody is really out of shape, which promises a great last seven rounds of the tournament.

After about an hour of play all five boards saw highly interesting positions, but unfortunately this time most of the games petered out into draws quickly. The first to finish were Anand and Kramnik; the World Champion followed the current Grünfeld rage and proved to be very well prepared in the theoretical jungle of the 8.Rb1 line.

Ivanchuk seemed to have a nice advantage out of the opening with attacking chanches on Svidler’s king, but the grandmaster from St Petersburg played a few very accurate moves to hold the balance. By then Leko and Gelfand had already quickly reached a very drawish ending in a Petroff; the two started thinking only after 28…a5 but it was clear that White had nothing.

Ponomariov had the better chances against Aronian in yet another Grünfeld, but Black’s prophylactic rook manoeuvre along the seventh rank held everything together. Carlsen tried the 4.f3 against Morozevich’s Nimzo and did win a pawn, but from the start it looked a bit ugly positionally, and therefore not very dangerous for Black.

Today we had GM Sipke Ernst giving live commentary at our special live page www.chessvibes.com/live. Throughout the day people joined the chat, which is still visible. Tomorrow we’ll have IM Robert Ris, so feel free to come and watch!

Games round 1 [GM Sipke Ernst]

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Tal Memorial 2009 | Round 2 Standings

Tal Memorial 2009 | Schedule and results

As we know, Mikhail Tal suffered from health problems throughout his life and had to be hospitalized frequently throughout his career. In this respect it didn’t really help that Tal was a chain smoker and a heavy drinker. The eigth world champion mainly suffered from kidney problems; eventually one of his diseased kidneys was removed.

Before the 1962 Candidates Tournament Tal had to be operated because he was suffering of kidney colic. In The Life and Games he writes:

“When we were talking before the operation I asked [the doctor] to bear in mind that fact that within two months I had to travel to Curacao, and that it would be good if he could repeat the ‘miracle’ of 1959, when after the removal of my appendix I won the Candidates Tournament. The professor listened to my request, and operated most carefully, but, alas, history did not repeat itself.”

At the end of round 21 of the Curacao Candidates Tournament, after recurring attacks of his illness, Tal had to retire from the tournament. He had scored eight draws and three victories, but the rest of his games were cancelled.

The famous photo below shows Bobby Fischer (who finished 4th and would later accuse the Russian players of fixing games) visiting Tal at the hospital in Curacao. It shows clearly how well the two went along and how much they enjoyed the game.

On June 28, 1992, Tal died in a Moscow hospital, officially of kidney failure. The same cause was given to Fischer’s death, on January 17, 2008.

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

The Tal Memorial started today with five draws, but the first round was far from boring. Most eyes were focused on Carlsen-Kramnik, in which the former World Champion went for the top seed’s throat – a surprising but welcome act of aggression with Black by Kramnik which was almost successful. Update: some photos of the opening ceremony by Mark Gluhovsky.

The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The category 21 round-robin has Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).

The first four rounds of the round-robin are held in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.

Round 1

The stongest tournament of the year has finally begun. Except for Veselin Topalov and Vugar Gashimov the whole top 10 is in Moscow. The only player perhaps who hasn’t been around too much at elite (whatever that may be) events recently is Ruslan Ponomariov, but he used to be, of course. And it’s good to have the former FIDE World Champion around again.

As could be expected after Carlsen’s success in China, most attention went to his game against Kramnik today, and the ex-World Champion almost personally made sure that we kept on following that game. After his lost match with Anand last year, Kramnik promised the chess world that he would have a second look at his opening repertoire, and it looks like we saw an example of that today.

Kramnik, unlike Kramnik, played a very sharp set-up with Black that started with Anand’s recent innovation in the Nimzo that makes the move 4.Qc2 almost look dubious. To prevent further damage Carlsen went for an ending a pawn down, with rooks and opposite-coloured bishops, but even there Black had excellent winning chances.

Anand, unlike Anand, chose a solid but passive set-up with Black, against Ivanchuk. The World Champion soon came under pressure and in the early (queenless) middlegame White had a nice advantage, which vanished after one or two inaccurate move by Ivanchuk.

Another ending with lots of pieces was seen in Morozevich-Leko, which started as a Scotch but soon looked like a Sicilian Dragon. Great, imaginative play by Moro was answered by great, accurate defence by the Hungarian. Excellent game.

Svidler feels at home in the Grünfeld and yet again equalized comfortably against Aronian, who even had to be a bit careful in the end. Gelfand-Pononariov was the least interesting game; a Catalan that was mainly full of exchanges.

Live commentary

As one of the strongest tournaments ever held in chess history, the Tal Memorial is an excellent moment to introduce live commentary, we figured. During the tournament, at our special live page www.chessvibes.com/live (how easy to remember is that?) the games and, more importantly, analysis by IMs and GMs will be provided. We started today with IM Merijn van Delft and had some technical problems (almost inevitable at the start) but we hope to improve tomorrow!

Games round 1 [IM Merijn van Delft]

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Tal Memorial 2009 | Schedule and results

Following an excellent idea of Georg in the comments yesterday, we try to write something about Mikhail Tal every day. Because one thing we shouldn’t forget: the tournament is dedicated to the eighth World Champion, a great player and a great person who we should keep in our minds.

Before Tal passed away, the annual Moscow tournament was known as the Alekhine Memorial. The last game in The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal is against IM Hans Böhm, played at that event in 1975. Böhm tells about that game:

“Naturally that was a special experience, against a charismatic world champion who almost always put the board on fire. Unfortunately during that tournament I suffered pneumonia, and threw away many won positions. Also against Tal I was probably winning if I had played 22.Nxf7. He knew I was a dangerous opponent because he knew I had a winning position in several previous games. But he also knew I spoilt these positions!”

In his book Tal writes: “Up till the sixth round, in which this game was played, the two players had made a pretty poor showing, This applies in particular to the Dutch master playing White: his column in the tournament table showed a string of five successive noughts. It has long been known that such an opponent is doubly dangerous (this is shown by the following rounds, where Böhm scored two successive wins), since this series is always liable to come to an end.”

Böhm: “I hang out a lot with him at tournaments, and for example when he played the KRO-match against Timman in Hilversum. There was much he liked to talk about in those days, the West, Fischer, politics, and he had an original way of seeing things. He appreciated the small things in life, a study, a nice move, but also stories, small jokes, and often with drinks, of course.

One night we walked in Moscow and he suddenly remembered an old friend from 40 years back. You know what he did? He called her!”

Mikhail Tal himself

At the opening ceremony. In the audience we recognize Ruslan Ponomariov, Levon Aronian, Geurt Gijssen, Joel Lautier (who lives in Moscow) and Genna Sosonko

Peter Leko, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Morozevich

Boris Gelfand ("I'd better switch that phone off altready") and Viswanathan Anand

Magnus Carlsen draws no. 1 at the drawing of lots - organizer Alexander Bakh and arbiter Geurt Gijssen next to him

No. 6 for the World Champion...

...and no. 4 for Aronian

Players, organizer and arbiters posing

Henrik Carlsen and Mark Dvoretsky ("Well, you know, Mark, it's just that... we have found a trainer which is said to be quite decent. But I'll keep it in mind.")

Photos © Mark Gluhovsky

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

We received lots of positive feedback on our coverage of the Pearl Spring tournament (Nanjing), and this encouraged us to do even better during the Tal Memorial. With Anand, Aronian, Carlsen, Kramnik, Leko, Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Morozevich, Svidler and Ponomariov it’s the strongest tournament of 2009, and it starts tomorrow. For the first time we’ll be providing live IM/GM commentary throughout the tournament.

The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The Memorial will consist of two events: a category 21 round-robin and the World Blitz Championship. In the round-robin Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739) compete.

The World Blitz Championship will be held 16, 17 and 18 November. This event tournament will be attended by 22 GMs, including the round-robin participants and invited players A. Karpov, A. Kosteniuk, L. Dominguez, A. Grischuk, D. Jakovenko, J.Polgar and six winners of the qualifying blitz “Aeroflot Open” – S. Karjakin, V.Gashimov, S. Mamedyarov, E. Bareev, V. Tkachiev and Zhou Jianchao.

The first four rounds of the round-robin will take place in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.

Live commentary

As one of the strongest tournaments ever held in chess history, the Tal Memorial is an excellent moment to introduce live commentary, we figured, and so this is what you can enjoy as of tomorrow. At our special live page www.chessvibes.com/live (how easy to remember is that?) the games and, more importantly, analysis by IMs and GMs will be provided. You will be able to follow the comments and analysis in the game viewer you’re used to, and besides, you’ll also find a chat window below the board. This way you can talk about the games with other visitors, and besides, this way the IM/GM will be able to answer questions from the audience every now and then.

Our team

Our schedule for the Tal Memorial:

As you know by now, at ChessVibes we like to experiment. Hopefully you will enjoy our live coverage – we’re pretty excited about it ourselves and we’ll do our very best to make the Tal Memorial a great experience for our visitors.

Kosintseva Tatiana

Dzagnidze Nana

Muzychuk Anna

Stefanova Antoaneta

Sebag Marie

Kosteniuk Alexandra

Kosintseva Nadezhda

Danielian Elina

Lahno Kateryna

Dembo Yelena

Paehtz Elisabeth

Socko Monika

Ushenina Anna

Javakhishvili Lela

Mkrtchian Lilit

Rajlich Iweta

Zhukova Natalia

Romanko Marina

Khukhashvili Sopiko