Archive for November 2nd, 2009

Karpov is definitely not the player he once was. In the second half of his rapid chess match against Viswanathan Anand the former World Champion took a 0:2 beating. Surely this is due to lack of practice and modern training methods – a deficiency that can be remedied. We bring you the games and pictures from a chess event held in the birthplace of Napoléon Bonaparte.

“Think fast. Think under pressure. Think strategically. That’s how
you win in business – and in chess.” That’s the motto of Your
Next Move, an organisation that for the third time staged a chess
event near Antwerp centered around Garry Kasparov. It
was captured by the Belgian Sports TV company EXQI and is now available in extraordinary
high definition. Must watch.

The Catalan Opening has one specific peculiarity: White’s strategy in the
opening is often aimed at achieving a good endgame. If Black sooner or later decies to
play …d5xc4, then he must be confident that the development of his Bc8 to, e.g.
b7 or c6 will actually take place. If he fails in this, Black frequently ends up
in a hopeless “Catalan” ending, in which the Bg2 exerts enormously strong pressure on b7
and sometimes cripples the whole black queenside (Ra8, Bc8). IM Michael Kopylov
has annotated six typical
games for ChessBase
Magazine Online.

Top seed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, rated 2718, is josting for top place with third seed Sergei Zhigalko of Belarus, rated 2646. In round nine both won their games and were equal first, in round ten Vachier played a quick draw, while Zhigalko won again to take the sole lead. No pictures of the chess action in Puerto Madryn, but we have received some very nice shots of whales.

Everyone knows the big news: Magnus Carlsen has crossed the 2800 barrier, the fifth player in history to do so, and is now in second place in the world rankings, just nine points behind the leader Veselin Topalov. World Champion Vishwanathan Anand remains in third place, with Levon Aronian in fourth and Vladimir Kramnik in fifth. Top rankings and statistics.