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Interview with the World Junior Champion 2009
12.11.2009
– On November 4th the World Junior Championship in Patagonia, Argentina, ended, with a final-round surge by the French participant (and top seed) Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who caught his main rival, Sergei Zhigalko from Belarus, to take the title. Maxime has given us an exclusive English language interviews, while we use the opportunity to take a nostalgic look back at past events.
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Tal R06: Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Gelfand win
11.11.2009
– And Vladimir Kramnik has once again taken the sole lead, with plus three and a 2955 performance. In a remarkable game against former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov, Kramnik pressed for 81 moves until the Ukrainian's succumbed to zugzwang. Gelfand laid Aronian's Meran System to waste, Morozevich-Ivanchuk ended in a black victory by the masked chessplayer!
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Fischer's daughter Jinky files claim to his estate
11.11.2009
– Yesterday we published a report on an Islandic court awarding Fischer's estate to his lawfully wedded wife Miyoko Watai. Today we received a message from Marilyn Young, Fischer's "Filipina live-in partner", who is seeking justice for her and Fischer's eight-year-old daughter Jinky. The two are on their way to Iceland to file their claim. Marilyn has sent us some fairly compelling photographic evidence.
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Knight in the corner
11.11.2009
– "A knight on the rim is dim" - there is no aphorism which is known more widely to amateur players than this one. And although there are more than enough
exceptions to this rule, the phrase naturally is also fully justified. All the more so
when the case involves not just a knight on the edge of the board, but that
rarely spotted example of the species: a knight in the corner. Recently, one
such example caused Ivan Cheparinov all sorts of problems, when the sad-looking steed was corralled in the corner with the help of a bishop. GM Karsten Müller analyses the ending
Cheparinov-Caruana for
ChessBase Magazine Online.
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Wednesday night training on Playchess
11.11.2009
– Sammy Reshevsky (1911-1992) was at one time one of the strongest players in the world.
He did have some weird weaknesses, though.
Apart from time trouble and carelessness in opening preparation he had an apparent
blind spot to stalemate. This is the subject of the Playchess
lecture at 9 p.m. ET by FM Dennis Monokroussos. Before that IM Merijn van
Delft discusses current games. Schedule.
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Tal R05: Anand beats Leko, joins Kramnik in the lead
11.11.2009
– Almost exactly a year ago the two were playing for the title of World Champion. Now Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand are battling each other for the lead in the Tal Memorial in Moscow. Kramnik worked very hard in an 81-mover against Boris Gelfand, but had to concede a draw. Anand beat Peter Leko in a Semi-Slav and joined Kramnik in the lead. Round five report.
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Iceland: Fischer's estate, his final resting place
10.11.2009
– The chess legend Bobby Fischer died in Iceland on January 17, 2008. He was buried in the compound of a church in Selfoss, 60 km from the capital Reykjavik. Since then there has been a battle over his estate, which is claimed by his nephews Alexander and Nicholas Targ. Now the Reykjavik Discrict Court has ruled in favour of Fischer's lawfully wedded wife, Miyoko Watai. Pictorial report.
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Gong interview with Silvio Danailov
09.11.2009
– "Veselin will rest on the Canary Islands, Anand rests on old laurels," is the title of the telephone interview by the Topalov manager in the Bulgarian sports newspaper Gong. Danailov expects that in the six months before the World Championship match in Sofia "the team of Anand will do everything possible to make us nervous." But they are ready, steeled by experience in Elista. Highlights.
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The secrets of a top grandmaster
09.11.2009
– On the latest Elo rating list we find Pavel Eljanov at 2729 Elo points on place 17. In the live rankings, with his extraordinary European Team Championship results evaluated, he is number 11 in the world. The Ukrainian GM has been climbing steadly since April. His secret: enormous talent, hard work – and marriage! We bring you a photo report and an annotated brilliancy by Pavel Eljanov.
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Tal R04: Kramnik beats Svidler, leads in Moscow
08.11.2009
– All games were drawn, except one: Vladimir Kramnik beat Peter Svidler in an Exchange Grünfeld that looked quite effortless on the part of the former World Champion. Magnus Carlsen, it was revealed, is suffering from a throat infection and has played his last three games with A fever. The Norwegian is now on antibiotics. Full report to follow, but here are the games and results.
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Tal R03: Anand, Aronian, Kramnik draw first blood
07.11.2009
– At last: after ten drawn games in the first two rounds the public suddenly had three decisive games on the third day. Vishy Anand piled the pressure on Peter Svidler in an Exchange Grünfeld until the latter cracked; Levon Aronian outplayed Peter Leko in a Semi-Slav; and Vladimir Kramnik played another splendid game, defeating Alexander Morozevich with the black pieces. Round three report.
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Measuring the 'hotness' and watching the 'Mate-o-meter'
07.11.2009
– "There can’t be many chess players who have not heard of Fritz,"
writes Sean Marsh on his chess blog. "This latest version looks like being
THE must-have chess item of 2009." He examines the new "hotness"
display and the "Mate-o-meter" and concludes that Karpov would have
done better in a certain line against the Catalan if he had used Fritz. Order
it now or read
Sean's review.
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Tal R02: All games drawn – first win expected tomorrow
06.11.2009
– We are not complaining – yet. Two or three of today's games were quite exciting. But somehow we miss the rush of wins, and a table in which not everyone is in the lead. That will happen tomorrow. It must. Today it was Ponomariov and Ivanchuk who put some token pressure on Aronian and Svidler, but in the end the result was five draws. Round two report.
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Five pieces lined up on the h-file...
06.11.2009
– ... we see in this position, where Black had just played ...Ng6-f4, attacking White's queen and rook. How would you assess the situation now?
A) The fork wins for Black;
B) White can get away with perpetual check;
C) He can actually give mate.
The solution is here,
but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.
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Tal R01: All games drawn – with plenty of excitement
05.11.2009
– Organisers don't like the 'all games drawn' headline. But in round one of the
very strong Tal Memorial all were more or less hard fought. Carlsen, Anand and
Leko had at some stage shaky positions against Kramnik, Ivanchuk and Morozevich
respectively, but all three pulled it together and held draws. On Playchess the spectators spotted some fairly prominent
kibitzers. Round one report.
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Israeli double agent shot dead in Moscow
05.11.2009
– Shabtai Kalmanovich, a former Israeli double agent who penetrated Golda Meir's government on behalf of the KGB, has been shot dead in Moscow. An unidentified gunman fired at least 20 shots into his chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz. Why do we report this? Because Kalmanovich was a patron of women's basketball – and chess. News reports.
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World Junior Championship – Impressions from Patagonia
05.11.2009
– This event, which ended on Tuesday, brought us lively games and a dramatic finish. But being staged in a remote place at the other end of the world there was a dearth of pictorial material. Which was a shame, since the venue, the southern end of South America, is scenically beautiful. Well, thank heavens for Åse Østebø, captain of the Norwegian squad. She has sent us this spectacular report.
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Tal Memorial begins today – live on Playchess
05.11.2009
– The annual Tal Memorial starts on Thursday, November 5th and ends on November
14th. At category 21 (average Elo 2764) it is one of the strongest of all time
and includes Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik and Aronian. After this the World Blitz
Championship will be held. We will be broadcasting the moves from Moscow live
on Playchess, which soon celebrates a
remarkable anniversary. Tournament details.
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A rook ending worth its weight in gold
05.11.2009
– The European Team Championship in Novi Sad witnessed an exciting final
round in which the decision as to who would win the gold medal came as the
result of a rook ending. Vugar Gashimov, White, absolutely had to win in order
to secure the title for the Azerbaijani team. Daniel Stellwagen, Black, was fighting
for a draw. In the position shown in our diagram, which move would you have chosen as
Black? Think carefully.
GM Karsten Müller has analysed the decisive phase of the endgame
Gashimov-Stellwagen for ChessBase Magazine Online.
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ChessBase Workshop: tips and tricks in ChessBase 10
04.11.2009
– How do you create a new database, how do you copy new material into it –
e.g. all Caro-Kann Advanced Variation games from Mega Database – and how
do you correct a database that has become corrupted? These are questions that
are answered by Steven Lopez, who has been providing written ChessBase Workshop
installments for the last twelve years, in his second streaming
video lecture.
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Wednesday night training on Playchess
04.11.2009
– At 20:00h CET, IM Merijn van Delft holds his lecture on recent grandmaster
games on the Playchess server. At 9 p.m.
ET (03:00 a.m. CET) FM Dennis Monokroussos talks about the start of the Tal
Memorial in Moscow on Thursday, about chess prodigies in general and Bobby Fischer
in particular, with an instructive 1960 game. Free for Premium members.
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