Chess News, Chess Programs, Databases

Russian Superfinal under way in Moscow
19.12.2007 – The Russian Championship Superfinal runs from 17-30 December (rest days 21st and 25th), at Moscow's Central House of Chessplayers (the former Moscow Central Chess Club). Round one saw a terrible loss for Svidler with the white pieces, a spoiled brilliancy for Morozevich, and a beautiful queen sacrifice from one of the outsiders. Report with pictures.

Understanding Grandmaster play – Fabiano annotates
18.12.2007 – Recently a 15-year-old won the Italian Championship. Fabiano Caruana took the title in this twelve-player round robin with a resounding three-point victory and a 2740 performance, which exceeded a theoretical GM norm by a point and a half (Fabiano already has the GM title). Lase week we featured this achievement in a special report. Today we bring you a key game annotated by the champ.

New: Mega Database 2008 is out!
17.12.2007 – It once started as a disk. Now the new ChessBase Databases Big and Mega 2008 come on DVDs, with 3.8 million games. Mega Database 2008 with 61,000 commented games is the starting point for any serious study of chess. All games are classified by ECO key, names, tournaments, etc. and include the Playerbase 2008 with 30,000 pictures. Buy Mega 2008 now or read more.

Khanty-Mansiysk Final: Kamsky wins, to challenge Topalov
16.12.2007 – American GM Gata Kamsky has won the FIDE World Cup. In the fourth game he was able to force a perpetual check and hold Alexei Shirov to a draw, which meant that he had won the Final with a score of 2.5:1.5 (three draws, one win). Kamsky won, did not lose a single game and performed 102 points higher than his nominal 2714 rating. Congratulations Gata!

Arpad Elo and the Elo Rating System
16.12.2007 – Ask chess players about their rating you will get an immediate response, ask them where the term "Elo" comes from and you get a puzzled look. Most think it is some kind of abbreviation or acronym. In Reality it comes from a Hungarian-born chess player and physicist, Árpád Imre Élö, who gained immortailty with his rating system. It is comprehensively described in this article by Daniel Ross.

Khanty-Mansiysk Final: Shirov fails to equalise
15.12.2007 – In his second must-win game with the white pieces Alexei Shirov had a promising position, but once again his American opponent, Gata Kamsky, defended solidly and held the Latvian-Spanish GM to a draw. This means that Kamsky leads by 2.0:1.0 points and Shirov has to win the final game with the black pieces. The adage for tomorrow must be: fire on the board! Pictorial report.

Bisik-Bisik with Viktor Moskalenko
15.12.2007 – Bisik-Bisik is a word from the Malay Archipelago, and means the act of “whispering” from one person to another. Starting with this inaugural article Edwin Lam will seek to “whisper” to all our readers out there the previously unknown other side of his interview partners. He kicks off with a conversation between Edwin and Ukrainian Viktor Moskalenko, grandmaster, teacher and chess author.

Khanty-Mansiysk Final: Kamsky draws first blood
14.12.2007 – Gata Kamsky has scored a first victory in game two of this four-game match. Avoiding a theoretical fight in the Sveshnikov the American GM produced a novelty on move nine and then went on to outplay his opponent Alexei Shirov, a world-famous firebrand, in a very volatile position. Kamsky now leads 1.5:0.5. Full report with analysis by GM Dorian Rogozenko.

ChessBase Magazine 121: Two European Team Championships
14.12.2007 – The December issue of CBM covers two big European events with superb lists of players and lots of beautiful games. World-cup finalist Shirov shows you one of his recent brilliancies in video format. Radjabov, Movsesian, Karjakin, and others analyse their best games from the EU championship. 12 up-to-date opening surveys and the regular columns make this DVD a superb training course.

Valeriy Aveskulov is the 2007 Ukrainian Champion
14.12.2007 – He is 21 years old, has played since he was five, won multiple youth medals and received his GM title a year ago. Now Valeriy Aveskulov has won the 76th Ukrainian Chess Championship. Top players Ivanchuk, Karjakin, Ponomariov and Moiseenko, were absent, but still Valeriy had to compete with 19 other GMs. He finished sole winner with 6.5/9 points. Illustrated report by Olena Boytsun.

Khanty-Mansiysk Final: First game drawn
13.12.2007 – As expected by many the first encounter in the FIDE World Cup final ended in a draw, but it was a high-quality game from both players. Kamsky showed once again that he came to Khanty-Mansiysk very well prepared. Meanwhile, promped by readers, our annotator GM Dorian Rogozenko discovered that in the semi-finals Shirov had overlooked a clear win – in 208 moves!

Fabiano Caruana, Italian Champion 2007
13.12.2007 – Our recent article which called 15-year-old Fabiano Caruana "Italy's top grandmaster" drew some criticism. While the youngster was definitely very talented, we were told, he was not the Italian champion or even clearly the strongest player in the country. Last week Fabiano put an end to the debate with a resounding three-point victory in the 2007 Italian Championship. Interview.