Archive for April, 2009

High drama in Nalchik: five decisive games, with Aronian, Leko, Akopian, Mamedyarov and Grischuk scoring. After the dust has settled we see Levon Aronian once again in the sole lead, with Peter Leko half a point behind. Three players share 3rd-5th places, a full point behind Aronian. We bring you commentary by GM Sergey Shipov and pictures from the Grand Prix in our round ten report.

High drama in Nalchik: five decisive games, with Aronian, Leko, Mamedyarov, Akopian and Grischuk scoring. After the dust has settled we see Levon Aronian once again leading all by himself, but with Peter Leko having crawled up to a point behind. Three players are a full point behind Aronian. Full commentary to follow later tonight, for now here’s an express report.

On this warm and sunny Sunday the reinvigorated Gata Kamsky plays Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
Alexander Grischuk has white and will be eager to regain some ground by beating
the new pretender Evgeny Alekseev. You can watch all seven games
from Nalchik live – and discuss them with other visitors – on Playchess,
or follow the moves on our Flash client.

Last December Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh proposed a solution to the perceived problem of too many unforced draws in chess (force everyone to play to mate). There ensued a lively discussion. Now we have another proposal on the table, submitted by Ali Ferhat Tamur, a computer engineer and 2200 player, who differentiates between complete and slight wins. What do you think?

Another dramatic round, with Gata Kamsky coming back strongly from his two previous losses to grind down Alexander Grischuk in 101 moves – with the black pieces. Etienne Bacrot scored a full point against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Evgeny Alekseev defeated his young colleague Sergey Karjakin. Alekseev has now joined Aronian in the lead. Full report with GM commentary.

Alexander Grischuk vs Gata Kamsky – will the American GM recover from
the two consecutive losses and come out fighting? Evgeny Alekseev vs
Sergey Karjakin in a battle of the two youngest players. Svidler
vs Leko and Gelfand vs Aronian reeks of experience. You can watch all games live
– and discuss them with other visitors – on Playchess,
or follow the moves on our Flash client.

Our beloved game has been used to promote a variety of human activities: financial institutions use it – ad nauseam –, car sales people too. Even in Victorian times it was a popular image. Now the National Basketball Association (NBA), North America’s a professional men’s basketball league, has picked chess to convey a message. Check out the newest chess promo for the NBA on TNT.

The Ellner Memorial pairings for tonight are :

1. Kernighan – Mangion
2. Tomkovich – Minkov
3. Moldovan – Wojcio
4. Shiffman – Mann
5. Mazzillo – Renna
6. Balint – Sturniolo

The round starts at 8:30 p.m.

The Checkmate Chess Club in Springfield will run a Knock-Out Tournament starting May 10th. Details here.

The Sicilian Najdorf Variation is hard to tackle, so hard, in fact, that many
players simply want to evade it. The anti-Najdorf-system presented by Alexey
Kuzmin in CBM 129 starts with 2.Ne2, and only after 2…d6 – i.e. the
attempt to enter the Najdorf – dispenses with the direct advance of the
d-pawn. Take a look at the article in our ChessBase
Magazine blog.

For Ukrainian GM Pavel Eljanov it was the second win in succession – in two rounds he has disposed of Gelfand and Kamsky with the black pieces. On the other hand US grandmaster Gata Kamsky lost for the second time in a row, to take up residence at the bottom of the table (half a point ahead of Ivanchuk). Lev Aronian continues to lead, with 5.0/8 and a 2814 performance.
Full illustrated report.

The games start at 15:00h local time – 13:00h CEST, 7 a.m. (with hot
coffee) in New York. Levon Aronian vs Peter Svidler could produce a very high-level
game, while Sergey Karjakin vs Alexander Grischuk may be fraught with drama.
Once again you can watch all seven games live – and discuss them with
other visitors – on Playchess,
or follow the moves on our further improved Flash client.

Sergey Karjakin played an explosive game against Gata Kamsky, and at one stage (move 27) was basically lost. He fought back to win after his opponent had let the opportunity slip. Boris Gelfand got hammered by a heavy pieces attack on his exposed king, with Pavel Eljanov doing the attacking with the black pieces. Levon Aronian continues to lead. Full report with GM commentary.

In Nalchik there is a player coming up from behind. Vladimir
Akopian started badly, but won his last two games to move up the table. People
forget that the Armenian was runner-up in the FIDE knockout world
championship in 1999, and has a plus score against Garry Kasparov. Dennis Monokroussos, our Playchess
lecturer, shows us a stunning Akopian win against the greatest player ever.

“Major pieces vs. Minor pieces” is the subject of Daniel King’s latest Powerplay-DVD. These positions are not only difficult to play but
hard to evaluate because a wide range of criteria must be considered. Amateurs can learn more from the masters here than in any other middlegame theme. Mark Donlan reviews the DVD at
chesscafe.com. Buy
“Powerplay 9″ or read this review.

Grischuk vs Akopian could be quite exciting. The two players were at the top
and bottom of the table, Grischuk will want to regain his lead while Akopian
has just won two in a row. What will down-in-the-dumps Ivanchuk do against Leko?
Lev Aronian has black against Etienne Bacrot. And Peter Svidler is bound to
go after Rustam Kasimdzhanov. Live coverage on Playchess
and on our Flash client.

Sergey Karjakin played an explosive game against Gata Kamsky, and at one stage (move 27) was basically lost. He fought back to win after his opponent had let the opportunity slip. Boris Gelfand got hammered by a heavy pieces attack on his exposed king, with Pavel Eljanov doing the attacking with the black pieces. Pictures and GM commentary to follow, here for now is our express report.

In Nalchik there is a player coming up from behind. Vladimir
Akopian started badly, but won his last two games to move up the table. People
forget that the Armenian was runner-up in the FIDE knockout world
championship in 1999, and has a plus score against Garry Kasparov. Dennis Monokroussos, our Playchess
lecturer, shows us a stunning Akopian win against the greatest player ever.

In Nalchik there is a player coming up from behind. Vladimir
Akopian started badly, but won his last two games to move up the table. People
forget that the Armenian was runner-up in the FIDE knockout world
championship in 1999, and has a plus score against Garry Kasparov. Dennis Monokroussos, our Playchess
lecturer, shows us a stunning Akopian win against the greatest player ever.

There are two rest days in the FIDE Grand Prix tournaments, and they are used to give the players an outing in the local surroundings. After round five in Nalchik they were taken to the spectacular Chereksky region of Kabardino-Balkaria, which contains the second-deepest lake in the world. “It is difficult to describe in words the beauty surrounding us,” said Levon Aronian. Pictorial.

There are two rest days in the FIDE Grand Prix tournaments, and they are used to give the players an outing in the local surroundings. After round five in Nalchik they were taken to the spectacular Chereksky region of Kabardino-Balkaria, which contains the second-deepest lake in the world. “It is difficult to describe in words the beauty surrounding us,” said Levon Aronian. Pictorial.

Forget Sunday’s table. In round six Shakhriyar Mamedyarov beat the leader Alexander Grischuk, while Levon Aronian beat a completely out-of-form Vassily Ivanchuk. Peter Svidler won with black against Pavel Eljanov and Vladimir Akopian moved up the ladder with a victory over Sergey Karjakin. Now Aronian leads, with four players behind him. Full report with commentary.

The 2009 PWC Toronto Open Chess Championship took place from April 17th to 19th, 2009 – five rounds Swiss, prize fund $17,000+, entry fee $90 + bring your own clocks. Two players, Russian GM Bator Sambuev, 2498, and US GM Joshua Friedel took first place, with 5.0/5 points, leaving the likes of Nakamura, Perelshteyn and Shabalov in their wake. Illustrated report and games.

After receiving a large number of (mainly laudatory) emails from our readers we used the free day to implement improvements to our Flash broadcast client. The automatic replay has been speeded up, you can replay games using the keyboard, load the previous/next game that way too, and (Hallelujah!) flip the board. Hope you enjoy watching the games of round six on the improved Flash client.

In 1963 the artist Marcel Duchamp posed for a picture at the Pasadena Art Museum in which he played a game of chess against a naked model. Inspired by this picture and the circumstances surrounding it two-time US Women’s Champion WGM Jennifer Shahade, who has worked on a book on Duchamp, engaged in a one-sided nude chess game at the Philidelphia Soundstages. Here’s the video.