Archive for February 25th, 2009

“Who said beating a World Champion is easy?” asks our annotator. And indeed, after running into an opening problem against Vassily Ivanchuk, Vishy Anand used some miraculous stalemate motifs to save the game. All the other games were also drawn, Dominguez-Radjabov being the most volatile. Pictures, annotations by GM Dorian Rogozenco, video interviews and another truly atrocious pun.

It is hard to assess whether chess is becoming more popular, but one chess activity is rapidly expanding: problem solving. Most European countries now have a national solving championship, and every year there is a world championship for individuals and countries. The 2009 British Championship was held at Oakham School and won by guess who. Report by John Nunn (with problems).

After a month of training – mainly walking and saunas – Kiril Georgiev was ready to take the challenge and play a simultaneous exhibition against 360 opponents. For every move the Bulgarian GM had to walk half a kilometer, and after six hours of play had made only eight moves. After 14 hours it was over, he had scored 88% with 284 wins, 70 draws and 6 losses. The record was broken!

Many of the games from this legendary tournament, which included three world
champions and three challengers, are well-known – they are included in
anthologies and textbooks. But here’s one that you probably do not know. In
his Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos
shows us the fantasy adventure that occurred in Janowski-Ed. Lasker. See you at 9 p.m. ET.

“Who said beating a World Champion is easy?” asks our annotator. And indeed, after running into an opening problem against Vassily Ivanchuk, Vishy Anand used some miraculous stalemate motifs to save the game. All the other games were also drawn, Dominguez-Radjabov being the most volatile. Pictures, annotations by GM Dorian Rogozenco, video interviews and another truly atrocious pun.