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The chess brain – on the road to Siberia
23.02.2010
– When did the chess brain develop? Turns out that Caissa made it some 50 km south of Nairobi, Kenya, in the pre-historic wastelands of Olegersaille. She called the bipedal primate Homo Sapiens. Today, 200,000 years later, the Kenyans are picking a national team to join their cousins from all over the world at the Siberian Olympiad.
Spectacular pictorial by Mahul Gohil.
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The Vietnamese dragons are coming
22.02.2010
– 19-year-old Le Quang Liem has won a string of very strong events, jumping from practically nowhere into the top 50 in the world (expect to see him in the top 20 soon). His achievements are in the news all over the world. And he is joined by Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son. High time for us to learn these names and understand how they work.
Nguyen Hong Son helps us.
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Linares R8: Grischuk beats Gashimov, Topalov misses a win
21.02.2010
– "Two exciting games – and one Petroff," writes our commentator GM Anish Giri. Gelfand used the latter in a colorless draw against Vallejo. The other two games were more entartaining. Topalov had a clear win against Aronian but missed the killer move; and Grischuk profited from a non-obvious error in Gashimov's Benoni to narrow the gap to the leading Topalov.
Big illustrated report with commentary.
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Linares R7: All games drawn, Topalov leads
21.02.2010
– Once again: the result sounds boring, the games on the other hand were electrifying. Not, we hasten to add, due to their flawless perfection – on the contrary, they demonstrate that these are humans playing at the boards. Humans with nerves and frailties. The result left Veselin Topalov still in the lead by a point and a half, and the tail ender Vallejo the
tragic hero of the event.
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Linares R6: Topalov wins again, leads world rankings
20.02.2010
– It was a very complicated game, and with Veselin Topalov pressing hard and Francisco Vallejo in terrible time trouble the Spaniard, who had had winning chances, blundered a full rook. This third victory put the Bulgarian GM a point and a half ahead of the field – and two points ahead of Magnus Carlsen in the live world rankings.
Game with commentary by GM Anish Giri.
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Open f-file versus open c-file...
19.02.2010
– ... was the scenario in this game from the Austrian Bundesliga, where White had just played
28.Bf4-c1, giving his rooks free view to the black king. How would you assess the situation now?
A) White wins due to the threat 29.Rf1+;
B) the game should end in a perpetual check
C) Black wins.
The solution is here,
but first ponder over it with a
larger version of the diagram.
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Linares R5: Gashimov, Topalov win, Topalov leads
19.02.2010
– All three games were full of fight: Aronian came close to defeating Gelfand but drew; Vallejo even closer to defeating Gashimov but lost; and Alexander Grischuk had clear winning chances against Veselin Topalov but was outplayed by the Bulgarian in the end. We bring you extensive and deeply insightful commentary on this exciting struggle, provided by GM Anish Giri.
Miss it at your own peril.
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Le Quang Liem – a new star in the Vietnam sky
18.02.2010
– Every so often a player has a run for the ages, and this incredible series inevitably ushers in a new name to be reckoned with at the highest echelons of chess. 19-year-old Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem has just had such a run, passing through the fiercest trial by fire the chess world has to offer, coming first or equal first in two super-strong Russian tournaments.
Albert Silver reports.
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Pocket Fritz 4: my keys, your keys...
18.02.2010
– The first pocket PCs all had very similar designs, with standard button and key arrangements. With the improvement of touch screens and the incorporation of mobile phone features, the design has changed, as have the number and functions of the keys in each device. So we need to allow every user to configure our program according to his/her preferences and needs.
Here's how it is done.
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Duel of the minor pieces
18.02.2010
– In the analysis of Short-Kramnik ("the wrong choice of ending") we saw a knight that had everything under its
control triumph over the bishop. But having the superior minor piece
does not always guarantee the full point, as can be seen in the game McShane-Sebag.
White has an extra pawn and the last black pawn is fixed on the same colour
square as the bishop. Black should be able to save the game here, because
the winning potential in the position is just too
slight. However, the reason for 134....Kd7? being the wrong move and how
Black could have held the draw can be seen in Karsten Müller's analysis for
ChessBase Magazine Online.
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Aeroflot Open – Le Quang Liem victorious
18.02.2010
– This young Vietnamese grandmaster is having an incredible run: after finishing joint first in the very strong Moscow Open, and without a single day's rest, he played in the Aeroflot and clinched sole first with a fine win over Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final round. Second was Ukrainian GM Anton Korobov. Final results, games and
pictures from Moscow.
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Order now – Deep Fritz 12 is shipping
17.02.2010
– The wait is over, the multi-processor version of our flagship program is now available and shipping. The parallel algorithms have been further optimised and now support up to 16 cores. The new dynamic scaling will also work well with the next generations of multi-core processors. All this make it one of the strongest chess engines around. Here's an
interview with the author Frans Morsch.
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