|
Ivanchuk chucks Leko
|
In a recent interview, Alexander Morozevich stated that Vasily Ivanchuk is the best player in the world. Morozevich pointed out that Ivanchuk has risen to world number two without the assistance of a big analytical team.
Before travelling to Crete to play on the top board for Ukraine at the European Team Championships Ivanchuk played a challenge match against world number five Peter Leko of Hungary in the Ukrainian town of Mukachevo. Games were played at a rate of 10 minutes plus an increment of 10 seconds per move. Ivanchuk took a two game lead but Leko levelled the score in game eleven and the final Rapid game was drawn. The match went to a Blitz playoff which Ivanchuk won.
|
|
Nakamura triumphs
|
The nineteen year old American GM Hikaru Nakamura scored one of his finest tournament victories to date as he won the Casino Barcelona tournament by a clear point with a score of 7/9. A last round win over the Spanish GM Marc Narciso Dublan ensured his victory. Nakamura was his combative self and drew just two games. The Cuban Lenier Dominguez was second on 6/9.
The Israeli grandmaster Viktor Mikhalevski won the Calvia Open on the island of Majorca ahead of a very strong field after winning his first seven games. He slowed down and drew the last two but still finished a point clear of former WCC Candidate Kevin Spraggett who was second. The British Women’s Champion Ketevan Arakhamia Grant of Edinburgh scored her second GM norm after a last round win over Rauf Mamedov.
|
|
Jonathan Speelman. October 28, 2007
|
The 11th annual Essent Tournament took place in Hoogeveen in Holland from 12-20 October. First held in 1997, this always comprises several different sections with at the top an elite four player double rounder.
Last year's tournament was won jointly by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Judit Polgar and Mamedyarov was back together with Ruslan Ponomariov, Loek Van Wely and the 2006 World Junior Champion Zaven Andriasian (Armenia), who was invited since the World Junior Champion is traditionally included in the field.
|
|
A Grandmaster Who Rules the Problem-Solving Realm
|
John Nunn is the rare player who is both excels at tournaments and at chess problem-solving.
|
|
Leonard Barden on chess
|
It sounded an attractive event. The elite teens Sergey Karjakin, 17, and Magnus Carlsen, 16, the all-time No1 woman, Judit Polgar, and the combative Veselin Topalov were all in a six-player double-rounder in Bilbao last week.
Unfortunately the small print was that it was blind chess, played with a keyboard and an empty chessboard, at a fast time limit. The games were littered with blunders. Monaco's Amber event also has blind games but there the board is on a computer screen rather than physically on the table, and this factor seems to have disoriented the GM thought patterns in Bilbao. China's Bu Xiangzhi was the surprise winner.
|
|
Nonchalant Nakamura
|
Hikaru Nakamura continues to impress at the Casino Barcelona tournament. The nineteen year old American leads by half a point with a game to play. After suffering his first defeat Nakamura outplayed the Spanish GM Miguel Illescas to reach 6/8 with the Cuban Lenier Dominguez on 5.5.
Nakamura played typically aggressive chess in the first seven rounds but surprised his eighth opponent by playing the positional Catalan Opening. The Catalan has been the weapon of choice for the 14th world champion Vladimir Kramnik and Nakamura won in a style that would have pleased the former champion. Illescas never found counterplay and when he tried to break free Nakamura accepted a pawn sacrifice and won easily. This game was particularly impressive as Illescas is one of Kramnik’s former trainers.
|
|
The usual suspects...
|
The European Team Championships start tomorrow in Crete and run until 7th November at the Maris Conference Hotel. Forty countries have registered and I expect the medals to go to three of either: Russia, Ukraine, Armenia or Azerbaijan although France, Spain and Israel may also challenge. Hungary would have been amongst the favourites were it not for the absence of Peter Leko and Judit Polgar.
England’s days of challenging for medals are long gone and the team is weakened by the absence of Nigel Short and what appears to be the retirement of Luke McShane who has taken a job in the City of London. Scotland and Wales are represented although by amateur teams, presumably due to lack of funds.
Only three of the world’s top ten rated players will be missing: Vladimir Kramnik, Peter Leko and Vishy Anand, the latter because he is of course ineligible.
|
|
Bu plays a blinder
|
Bu plays a blinder
By Malcolm Pein
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 25/10/2007
It has been non-stop chess in Spain with tournaments in Barcelona, Bilbao and Calvia. Bu Xiangzhi of China won the Blindfold World Cup in Bilbao while the Israeli Viktor Mikhalevski has won seven games in a row at the Calvia Open where the Spanish Team Championship final is also taking place.
The American GM Hikaru Nakamura continued his tremendous run and extended his lead at Barcelona. A victory over Lenier Dominguez of Cuba took him to 5/6, 1.5 points clear with three to play.
|
|
'The H Bomb' explodes
|
The American GM Hikaru Nakamura has taken a break from college and is back to his brilliant best. Known as the ‘H Bomb’ for his explosive style of play, Nakamura detonated Michal Krasenkow’s position in the following game and forced a quick mate. After five rounds Nakamura leads with 4/5.
M Krasenkow – H Nakamura
|
|
Where Hip-Hop, Martial Arts and Chess Meet
|
 RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan won the Hip-Hop Chess Federation’s Kings Invitational tournament.
|
|
At Miami Open, Nakamura Lives Up to High Expectations
|
A tournament that made its debut last week in Miami may become an annual event. The Miami Open was the idea of Blas Lugo, an international master. It received some corporate backing, but was primarily supported by two sponsors who put up $20,000 each. Its guaranteed prize fund of $50,000 would have risen to $100,000 if more than 650 people had entered.
|
|
A wily win for Van Wely
|
Shakriyaz Mamedyarov won the Crown Group of the Essent tournament in Holland by virtue of his first round win over Loek Van Wely. Subsequently the three world class grandmasters concentrated on making life miserable for the debutant Devan Andriasian by defeating him in every game. The tournament was held in the town of Hoogeveen which is famous for its glass manufacturing and the players used glass pieces.
|
|
Britain's puzzle kings
|
British solvers have recorded a unique hat trick of victories by taking the gold medals at the World Chess Problem Solving Championship. The competition was held at the 50th World Congress for Chess Compositions in Rhodes and the British team was supported by Winton Capital Management whose assistance ensured the participation of our leading trio of solvers.
John Nunn’s magnificent individual performance was the foundation of the victory and his score of 89/90 secured his second individual world solving title ahead of a galaxy of former world champion solvers. Nunn’s team mates were David Friedgood and Jonathan Mestel and the team total of 163/180 was comfortably ahead of Russia on 158.5 and Germany on 158.
In chess problem solving, points are scored for the accuracy and completeness of the solutions which are hand written and submitted to the judges. The competition comprised six rounds and in each round the team’s score was the total of the best two performers. Each round presented the solvers with a different task. There were; mates in 2 moves, mates in 3 moves, mates in more than 3 moves, Endgame Studies, Helpmates; where both sides cooperate to ensure Black is mated, and Selfmates; where White forces Black to mate him.
|
|
Leonard Barden. October 20, 2007
|
An English gold medal at last! Not in the way you would expect it, though. Michael Adams scored 4.5/7 for Linex Magic Merida, the Spanish champions, who were seeded only fifth but won the European Club Cup in Turkey. The all-ex-Soviet No2 and 3 seeds, from Tomsk (winners of the last three cups) and Sverdlovsk, took silver and bronze.
It seems even easier in chess than in football for top European teams to field mercenaries. Besides Adams, Merida had grandmasters from the US, Russia, Armenia and Bulgaria, with one token Spaniard. Nigel Short played fifth board for Sarajevo, and in contrast Hilsmark Kingfisher, sole representatives from the UK league, fielded only one GM.
|
|
'Blind' leading the Blind
|
Six of the world’s finest players are contesting the Blindfold World Cup at the Sheraton Hotel in Bilbao and some interesting games have been interspersed with terrible blunders. Former Fide champion Veselin Topalov has been a victim twice, losing a knight and a bishop and the Indian GM Pentyla Harekrishna blundered his queen. Mistakes are bound to happen without sight of the board but there have been more than usual for this type of contest.
After four rounds the Chinese GM Bu Xiangzhi led the field with the prodigies Magnus Carlsen and Sergei Karjakin in pursuit. Players get three points for a win and draw offers are not allowed under the ‘Sofia Rules’, so named as the idea was introduced at the MTel events in the Bulgarian capital.
Polgar and Topalov drew their match 1-1 but were in last place at the end of the first day.
|
|
Aggressive Adly aces it
|
The Egyptian GM Ahmed Adly has pulled off a famous victory at the World Junior Championship held at Yerevan and becomes the first player from the Arab world to win a world title and the first from Africa. Adly played consistently aggressive chess even though he avoided the main lines of opening theory, particularly with the white pieces.
Adly played so uncompromisingly he did not draw a single game out of thirteen played. After losing in round one he won seven on the trot before losing twice and then winning his last three. Adly follows in the steps of four world champions, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vishy Anand who all won the world junior.
Tony Miles is the only English player ever to have won the event. Miles was victorious in 1974 at Manila. This time around Gawain Jones was in contention and as we saw earlier in the week he played some fine chess but ended half a point from a medal position on 8.5/13 in joint fifth.
David Howell also performed well and finished with 7/13. Ivan Popov of Russia took the silver medal and Wang Hao of China the bronze.
|
|
Black days at Essent
|
The Armenian GM Zaven Andriasian is having a baptism of fire at the 11th Essent tournament and if his dreams are being shattered, it is due to more to a lack of opening preparation than the frequency his pieces, made of glass, are going into the box.
Andriasian was also very unlucky. Greatly out-rated by his three rivals he must have hoped for a couple of early games with the white pieces but, horror of horrors, he was the only player to get two successive blacks in the first two rounds. We saw his defeat by former Fide champion Ruslan Ponomariov on Monday and he fared no better against Shakriyaz Mamedyarov. If you concede the two bishops and space to a world class player, he will take advantage.
|
|
Defeat at the double
|
The winning run of the Egyptian GM Ahmed Adly came to an end at the World Junior in Yerevan when he was defeated by Wang Hao of China in the ninth round. After seven straight wins Adly’s loss led to another as so often happens when momentum is lost.
GM Ivan Popov of Russia led by half a point on 8.5/11 with Adly, Georg Meier of Germany and Wang Hao half a point behind, but Adly won again to join Popov on 9/12 with a game to play. The English challenge started well but faltered, however both Gawain Jones, who is on 7.5/12 and David Howell, on 7/12, have played some fine, aggressive chess.
|
|
A Team Led by an American Wins the European Club Title
|
A team led by Gata Kamsky of the United States won the European Club Championships by eking out narrow victories in all but one match.
|
|
A touch of glass
|
The Dutch town of Hoogeven is known for its glass manufacturing and in the 11th Essent tournament the players traditionally use glass pieces. The Crown group, once again is a four player double round all play all tournament.
In the first round 'white was right' as Shakriyaz Mamedyarov defeated Loek van Wely while Ruslan Ponomariov had little difficulty overcoming Zaven Andrasian a former world U-20 champion who is hugely out-rated by the other three.
|
|
Gruesome slaughter
|
In the mid 1960s the Yugoslav grandmaster Dragoljbub Velimirovic developed a system that was to terrorise a generation of Sicilian Scheveningen adherents. The Scheveningen Variation was popularised at a tournament in a Dutch town of the same name in 1923 and involves Black playing with pawns on e6 and d6. In Velimirovic’s plan White plays Bc4, Qe2, castles queenside and launches a quick attack with g2-g4-g5.
Velimirovic and others found numerous sacrificial ideas involving the sacrifice of the bishop on e6 or the sacrifice of knights on d5 or f5 to destroy Black’s defensive line. Over the years antidotes were found and the Velimirovic Attack became something of a rarity in comparison to the plan of Be3 and Qd2 which we see so often nowadays. So I was curious to see the line repeated at the recent European Club Cup by Sergei Azarov, particularly as he followed one of the inventor’s original ideas first seen in 1965.
|
|
Jonathan Speelman
|
The 23rd European Club Cup for Men and 12th European Club Cup for Women took place in the Turkish holiday village of Kemer near Antalya from 2-10 October.
The world's premier international club competition, this brings together the winners of all the various European leagues and since these vary wildly in strength so do the teams, ranging from purely amateur outfits, via clubs with one or two professionals and some good amateurs, up finally to a hard core of about a dozen-and-a-half fully professional teams with some absolute monsters at the pinnacle.
Of those monsters the greatest behemoth of all was OSC Baden Baden, led by none other than the new world champion Viswanathan Anand. Chess is a hectic business nowadays and just a few day after the end of Mexico, the players and their erstwhile seconds began to trickle back into circulation. The seconds were mostly first and Anand's, Peter Heine Nielsen, turned out for Baden Baden from the start, making a respectable 4/6. But Alexander Grischuk, no doubt steaming after his bottom place in Mexico also began from the beginning and played every game to make 5/7.
|
|
Leonard Barden. October 13, 2007
|
The annual world junior championship has an impressive history of producing winners who go on to capture the senior world crown. Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vishy Anand all took that route.
In recent years the junior title has become rather devalued as most of the elite teens have stayed away. One reason is that the U20 champion's automatic grandmaster title award is not much of an incentive if you have already been a GM for some years.
It is still a strong event, though. The current contest in Yerevan, Armenia, includes 15 GMs, among them England's bright young duo Gawain Jones, 19, and David Howell, 16. There were hopes that one of them might emulate the late Tony Miles, whose 1974 victory is still our only world junior gold medal.
|
|
A whiff of controversy
|
The field for the Tal Memorial at Moscow has been announced with all ten players ranked in the world’s top 20. The World Blitz Championship will follow the elite tournament which runs from November 9th -19th. Fixture congestion looks likely as the first stage of the World Chess Championship, the World Cup, starts in Siberia just three days afterwards.
The whiff of scandal blows over the Blitz event as the title holder Alexander Grischuk has reportedly been denied automatic qualification for the final and will have to play the qualifier. Grischuk won the 2006 World Blitz at Rishon le Zion in Israel after an epic last round battle with Peter Svidler.
|
|
A shock from Spain
|
The Spanish team Linex Magic Merida lead the European Club Cup at Kemer in Turkey with one to play after upsetting the holders Tomsk-400 in the sixth round. Despite the loss of Michael Adams to Sergei Karjakin on board two Merida won 3.5-2.5. Gata Kamsky drew with Alexander Morozevich.
Ural Sverdlosk were held to a 3-3 draw by Clichy, a fine result for the Parisians. Alberto David from Luxembourg scored the key win over Alexander Malakhov, one of three WCC Candidates on the Russian team.
Bundesliga champions Baden Baden are pretty much out of the running after they could only draw with Ashdod of Israel for whom Ukrainian mercenary Pavel Eljanov held world champion Vishy Anand to a draw on top board.
|
|
Business as usual
|
The pretenders were put in their place at the European Club Cup as the favourites all scored big wins in the fifth round. England number one Michael Adams won for his Spanish team Merida against Kiril Georgiev of Alkaloid Skopje as Merida joined the two leading Russian teams in the lead.
Ural Sverdlosk and Tomsk-400 both won easily with the latter particularly severe on their Czech opponents, beating them 6-0. Nigel Short’s Bosna Sarajevo team won their local derby against Zeleznicar Sarajevo. Short drew his game.
The world champion Vishy Anand entered the fray for his German team Baden Baden but was probably worse when he agreed a draw with Murtaz Kazhgalyev of Cannes.
|
|
Watch out for Skopje!
|
Alkaloid of Skopje were the surprise leaders of the European Club Cup after four rounds. The Croatians, with the Azeri Shakriyaz Mamedyarov on top board defeated Keystone of the Ukraine to remain the only team with four match wins. Mamedyarov drew solidly with black in the Ruy Lopez against former Fide champion Ruslan Ponomariov. The leading Russian teams Ural Sverdlosk and Tomsk-400 played out six draws in their match.
Bosna Sarajevo drew with the Bundesliga champions Baden Baden who brought in Peter Svidler who had a little time off to recover from his exertions and jet lag after the WCC at Mexico City. Svidler held Vasily Ivanchuk to a draw and Sarajevo suffered two defeats before Short saved a 3-3 draw by defeating Pentyla Harekrishna of India.
Hilsmark Kingfisher have scored two match wins while Nidum Liberals and Cwmbran have to get off the mark but have scored 5.5 and 3 game points respectively.
|
|
Chess Group Officials Accused of Using Internet to Hurt Rivals
|
Two officers of the nation’s leading chess organization have been accused of posting inflammatory remarks on the Internet under false names to win election to the group’s board....
|
|
Anand, the New Champion, Dominates in Mexico City
|
Viswanathan Anand of India, the world’s top-ranked player, dominated the 14-round World Chess Championship that ended Saturday.
|
|
At Miami Open, Nakamura Lives Up to High Expectations
|
A highlight of the first Miami Open was the play of Hikaru Nakamura, who had not stood out since winning the National Open in June and tying for first in the World Open in July....
|