Archive for July 15th, 2009

They are GMs Victor Mikhalevski, Hua Ni, Mark Bluvshtein, Surya Ganguly and FM Raja Panjwani – the latter is the top player on his team at the University of Western Ontario. Top seed Alexei Shirov conceded a draw against Chinese GM Zhao Xue and dropped to second berth, which he shares with 12 other players. Big illustrated report with annotations by GM Alexander Shabalov.

There is nothing (too) wrong with Philidor’s Defense, and its notable advocates
include stars like Nisipeanu, Beliavsky, Azmaiparashvili and –- at least
in the 2009 World Open – Joel Benjamin. It seemed to go pretty well for
him, at least until his round seven game against Polish IM Jacek Stopa, which
is the subject In this week’s Playchess
lecture by Dennis Monokroussos. 9 p.m. ET.