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The Chinese are coming
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The annual match between the Chinese and Russian teams being held at Nizhny Novgorod is at the midway point. The Chinese include many of the players who are coming to Liverpool to play the UK next week. Ominously, the Chinese are in the lead although it is their women who are racking up the wins which means that for the UK team Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant and Jovanka Houska can expect a tough contest. The Russians are without their three leading players; Vladimir Kramnik, Peter Svidler and Alexander Morozevich who are preparing for the World Championship tournament in Mexico City in September but they are still a formidable force. After five rounds the overall score is 31.5-28.5 to China with the Russian men leading 16.5-13.5 and Chinese women 18-12 ahead.
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On the attack
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The Grand Hotel Amsterdam hosts the second match between five ‘Rising Stars’ and five ‘Experienced Grandmasters’ which runs until September 1st. At stake for the youngsters is an extremely valuable prize; a berth in the 2008 Amber Rapid and Blindfold extravaganza hosted by the Association Max Euwe in Monaco. The older generation have only rating points to lose and if the previous edition is anything to go by, lose them they will. Last year the juniors ran out comfortable winners 28-22 in the ten round Scheveningen tournament in which each player faces all his opposite numbers with both colours. However this year, the relative strengths of the teams at least on paper, are much closer. The juniors are without Magnus Carlsen who as the best performing player last year was invited to the 2007 Amber tournament.
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Wizard on the web
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The Armenian GM Tigran Petrosian was the winner of a qualifying tournament staged on the Internet Chess Club and won an expenses paid trip to the Mainz Chess Classic to play in the Ordix Open. As reported last week this immensely strong tournament was won by David Navara. Petrosian finished a very creditable fourth, half a point behind the winner on 9/11. The young Tigran Petrosian is not related to his countryman and namesake and their respective styles of play could not be more different. The tenth world champion was very positional and tied his opponents up in knots, occasionally he forced resignation with hardly a shot being fired.
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Jonathan Speelman. Sunday August 26, 2007
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Michael Adams became the winner of the 5th Howard Staunton Memorial Tournament in London's Simpson's-in-the-Strand last Saturday, after withstanding a sustained effort by Ivan Sokolov to catch him.
I left you last week with Adams and Loek Van Wely first equal, a point clear of Ivan Sokolov. Chess players are sociable beings and the Dutch reportedly had quite a night of it before the penultimate round last Friday. With the rounds starting at 2pm, this normally wouldn't have mattered and indeed Sokolov ploughed on, inveigling me into time trouble in a very complicated middlegame and then striking ruthlessly when the right moment came. However Van Wely, Black against Gawain Jones, took hideous risks and was dispatched accordingly. The young Englishman also beat Jan Timman in the final round to crown a terrific performance and looks set for a very bright future.
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Aspiring U.S. Grandmasters Might Be Able to Skip Europe
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Two American players have qualified for the grandmaster title over the last two years while making the bulk of their qualifying performances at home....
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Even 16-Year-Old Prodigies Sometimes Have Off Days
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The Arctic Chess Challenge was not kind of Magnus Carlsen, the world’s 17th ranked player.
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On Big Screen, the Right Play Can Help Advance the Plot
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That chess has cropped up again and again in movies, as well as in paintings and literature, is hardly surprising.
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Millfield heads the pack
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There was a double success for Millfield School as pupils Peter Poobalasingam and Sarah Hegarty took the plaudits at the Tera Final, the climax to the British Land UK Chess Challenge, held at North Leamington Community School on the 18th and 19th August. Poobalasingam won the event to take the title of STRAT and top prize of ?2000. He had previously been runner up in 2003, 2005 and 2006 and started with five straight wins. Hegarty shared the prize for the highest place female player.
Millfield, known as a centre of sporting excellence offers a chess scholarship worth up to ?65,000 and the chess activities at the school are supervised by Grandmaster Matthew Turner. Hegarty was the first chess scholar at Millfield and might have done even better had she spotted a draw in what appeared to be a hopeless situation. – see below.
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Navara storms back
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The Ordix Open held as part of the Mainz Chess Classic once again lived up to its reputation as the world’s strongest Rapid Chess tournament. A record 761 players competed. Vassily Ivanchuk was thirteenth. Although unbeaten, Ivanchuk conceded five draws on his way to 8.5/11. The tournament was won by the Czech David Navara who has recently had a horrid time in both the German Bundesliga and the 4NCL but returned to form with a vengeance and raced to an astonishing 9.5/10 before losing to the Indian Krisnan Sasikiran who joined him on the winning score. The Armenian Mikhail Mchedlishvili also scored 9/5/11. Navara’s reward is a place in the 2008 Grenke Leasing World Rapid Chess Championship the headline event of the Mainz Chess Classic.
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Pounce of the Tiger
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Vishy Anand remains the king of Rapid Chess after securing a remarkable 10th victory at the Mainz Chess Classic. This was also an eighth successive triumph for the ‘Tiger from Madras’ who avenged his defeat at the hands of Levon Aronian in the chess variant Chess960 earlier in the week. The final was a war of attrition and not surprisingly, with the World Championship tournament just weeks away the players were very cagey in the opening and careful not to release any information. As a consequence, neither player achieved any advantage in the opening and when Aronian’s slightly overdid the quiet approach in game four, Anand pounced and took the initiative eventually converting an extra pawn – see below.
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This way to the chess tournament: China leads Russia by 18:12
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23.08.2007 – The Fourth China vs Russia Chess Match is currently taking place from August 18th - 31st, 2007, in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia. After three rounds the Chinese men and women's teams are leading by a clear margin. The web site of the Russian Chess Federation is covering the event, in Russian and with something seldom seen in such reports: a nice dash of humour.
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Chess: the ultimate invisible game
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Chess is mostly an invisible game, in which the spectator sees very little happening. But that, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg. The overwhelming part of activity lies underneath the surface. This can be felt when you try to visualize a game without a board or pieces. Christian Hesse, a professor for mathematics, shows us a brilliant example and gives us a task in blindfold chess.
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Opening theory is out
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The Mainz Chess Classic is designed by founder Hans Walter Schmitt to provide maximum customer entertainment and he is always rewarded with large audiences. The event features both Rapid Chess and Chess960 which is similar to the chess variant known as Fischer Random in which the pieces are jumbled up on the first two ranks at the beginning of the game rendering conventional chess opening theory completely useless. Levon Aronian of Armenia was the winner of the Finet Chess960 Open and was crowned Chess960 World Champion. What I find quite amusing about this kind of chess is just how often the position rapidly starts to resemble a game from a normal opening. Here only two rooks ‘castled’ into the corner remain out of play. In the final position Black cannot prevent Rd8+ and Rxf6 which wins a piece as a recapture allows the White queen to make an entrance with threats of Nh6 and Qg7.
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Short held to draws
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Nigel Short is making another foray into Open tournaments and is the top seed at Banyoles in Spain. However he is not having things all his own way and has conceded two draws in his first two games. One of them was to ECF International Director Peter Sowray who played very sensible chess that defied Short’s attempts to unbalance the game. White’s position is very threatening for much of the game but he never appeared to miss an outright win and ultimately Short is able to close the position to such an extent that playing for a win would entail some risk.
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Mainz 2007 – Navara wins the Ordix Open
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21.08.2007 – With 762 players it is one of the biggest Rapid Chess Opens in the world. You will find a GM on place 188 in the final standings. At the top, after a long, nerve-wracking fight, was Czech Champion David Navara, who survived the final strech Indian onslaught of Harikrishna and Sasikiran to win the Ordix Open with 9.5/11 points.
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Adams' tactics pay off
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Michael Adams was made to sweat by Ivan Sokolov but emerged from their eleventh round game with tournament victory at the 5th Staunton Memorial staged by Dutch chess enthusiast Jan Mol at the historic chess venue of Simpsons in the Strand. Sokolov pressed for forty five moves but Adams held the draw with a mixture of first passive and then active defence. Adams avoided the argument in the opening and opted out of the sharp lines of the Queen’s Indian Defence but in doing so surrendering the centre. Adams conceded a lot of space and from an early stage he had a weak isolated pawn on d5. Sokolov pressed but Adams played very skilfully and always had a tactical resource whenever the pawn looked like it was about to fall.
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Van Wely falls to Jones
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Michael Adams is assured of at least a share of first place at the 5th Staunton Memorial as his main rival Loek van Wely was despatched by Gawain Jones in just 25 moves. Adams defeated Colin McNab to reach 8/10 a point clear of Van Wely and last year’s winner Ivan Sokolov. Van Wely is ranked in the world’s top 30 but he took some serious liberties playing black against Jones who has only recently qualified for the Grandmaster title and took the most notable scalp of his career so far.
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Mainz 2007 – Anand wins Rapid Final
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20.08.2007 – Vishy Anand won the Grenke Leasing Rapid World Championship, defeating Levon Aronian in the last game of their four-game match. Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Etienne Bacrot drew their match for third place, David Navara won the Ordix Open.
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Mainz 2007 – Anand and Aronian in the Rapid Final
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19.08.2007 – Rustam Kasimdzhanov made a brave effort to catch Levon Aronian in the preliminaries of the Rapid Chess Championship in Mainz, but in the end the Armenian held fast to qualify for the Sunday evening encounter, where he meets with Vishy Anand. The Ordix Rapid is under way with a record-breaking 761 participants.
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Mainz 2007 – Anand leads in Rapid World Championship
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17.08.2007 – With the Chess960 play finishing – Victor Bologan won the FiNet Open – the players at the Mainz Chess Classic return to regular unshuffled chess. In the Rapid Championship Vishy Anand used the Ruy Lopez to take a solid lead (2.5/3) ahead of his colleagues Levon Aronian, Etienne Bacrot and Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
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Speelman on Chess. Sunday August 19, 2007
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Many congratulations to the new British Champion: the Danish born Scottish IM Jacob Aagaard, who battled his way to tournament victory in Great Yarmouth last Friday, with the characteristically messy win as Black against Glenn Flear, below.
I left you last week with just that final round of the British to be played and everything up in the air, as Aagaard shared the lead with Stephen Gordon - to whom he'd just lost as White - ahead of six players on 7. Almost anything could have happened depending on the top six or seven boards. But in the event Aagaard completed an utterly topsy-turvy week, in which he'd won both his Blacks but lost both his Whites with the possibly "lucky" but certainly gritty win against Flear. Meanwhile a big battle between Gorden and Tony Kosten finished in a draw, Mark Hebden and Stewart Haslinger fought each other to a standstill and the defending champion Jonathan Rowson and David Howell moved up at the expense of Nick Pert and Simon Williams respectively.
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Barden on chess. Saturday August 18, 2007
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London's Staunton Memorial, now in its fifth year, is an evocative event for chess history. The Shakespearean scholar Howard Staunton was the best player in the world in the 1840s, and gave his name to what has become the universally accepted pattern for chess pieces. The tournament venue, Simpsons in the Strand, was a habitat for 19th century grandmasters, who could pass profitable hours by taking on amateurs for a shilling a game. Simpsons still displays a set and board on which the world champions Wilhelm Steinitz and Emanuel Lasker strutted their skills.
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Adams regains lead
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The battle between England number one Michael Adams and Dutch GM Loek Van Wely intensified again at the 5th Staunton Memorial being held at the historic chess venue of Simpsons in the Strand. Adams regained a share of the lead with a ninth round victory over Jan Werle and the pair are well clear of the field on 7/9. Gawain Jones put up a tremendous fight to draw with Ivan Sokolov ranked world number 44. Jones managed to hold a very difficult endgame a pawn down for over thirty moves after emerging from the opening, a Benko Gambit Declined, with a poor position.
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Bloodthirsty stuff
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The 5th Staunton Memorial continued in the same bloodthirsty fashion with once again only a short draw involving Jon Speelman prevented all six games ending decisively. It was Michael Adams who drew with Speelman playing black and he lost ground on Loek van Wely who ground out a win against the back marker Jovanka Houska. The game between Peter Wells and Jan Timman was very odd but went in favour of the Dutchman and there were two miniatures given below. The UK team now lags well behind the Dutch.
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Mainz 2007 – Aronian and Anand qualif for Chess960 Final
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16.08.2007 – Today one of them will win the world championship title – in Chess960, with shuffled pieces. Both the hot favourites Levon Aronian and Vishy Anand dutifully qualified, knocking Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Etienne Bacrot out of contention. The final will take place on Thursday, Aug. 16, at 6:30 p.m. local time (= 12:30 p.m. NY, 10:00 p.m. Chennai).
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Kingside, queenside...
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The British Women’s Championship was fiercely contested this year despite the absence of Harriet Hunt and Jovanka Houska. As reported earlier Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant from Edinburgh won with a score of 7/11 which was just enough to edge out Dagne Ciuksyte on 6.5. Susan Lalic’s challenge started brightly and she ended on 50%. Dagne Ciuksyte is a Lithuanian WGM who has settled in Ipswich and will be playing for England soon. She was undoubtedly a bit rusty having recently given birth to her first child and she lost her first two games including the tactical melee we saw last week against Charley Storey.
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Mainz 2007 – Levon Aronian leads in Chess960
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15.08.2007 – At the start of the Chess Classic in Mainz four world class GMs – Anand, Aronian, Bacrot and Kasimdzhanov – are battling it out in an extraordinary form of the game: Chess960, a Fischer Random variant where the pieces are shuffled at the start. But what are the rules and how can you replay these games?
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Too smart to swindle
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The 5th Staunton Memorial sprang into life in the seventh round at Simpsons in the Strand with only one drawn game from six. Michael Adams and Loek van Wely maintained their full point lead over the field with comfortable victories over Gawain Jones and Peter Wells respectively. Wells was on the cusp of a fine result but spoilt a great position against Ivan Sokolov in round six and was outplayed by Loek van Wely in the game below. Round seven results: Adams 1-0 Jones; Van Wely 1-0 Wells; Sokolov 1-0 Houska; McNab 0-1 L’Ami; Timman 0-1 Smeets; Speelman draw Werle
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Time to go for broke
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Michael Adams and Loek van Wely continue to make the running at the 5th Staunton Memorial being played at the historic chess venue of Simpsons in the Strand. The pair were the only winners in the fifth round as Van Wely outplayed Jan Timman and Michael Adams overcame Jovanka Houska in the game below. The Dutch players are comfortably ahead of the British with the combined scores of the six-player teams 16.5-13.5 in favour of the visitors.
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Chess serial killer 'slayed 49'
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A SUSPECTED serial killer has been charged with 49 MURDERS. Russian Alexander Pichushkin is accused of killing dozens of people over several years and marking his slayings on a chessboard. After his arrest last year, Pichushkin claimed that he had killed more than 60 people, but prosecutors said they had only gathered evidence to charge him with 49 murders. Pichushkin, 33, looked calm and aloof as he sat in the defendant’s cage of the Moscow City Court during a preliminary hearing today. The judge accepted his appeal for a jury trial and ruled that it should be open to the public. The trial is set to start on September 13 and Pichushkin faces life in prison if convicted.
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