Archive for January 6th, 2010

Whereas the main attention was focussed on Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia at
the start of the World Team Championship, the hosts Turkey had the joy of a
spectacular win: 19-year-old Emre Can defeated Yuri Shulman, almost 200 Elo points
stronger, in a Tarrasch French with the help of a bishop sacrifice
on h7. The 2008 USA champion, however, was not following the recommendations of
Hannes Langrock, whose four-part article in CBMs 126-129 presents the theory of
the 3…Be7 system in great detail and with a lot of original analysis. Here is
the game with brief notes.
Full analysis by Igor Stohl will follow, in February in CBM 134.

In 1910 Emanuel Lasker was World Champion, but the arguably strongest player
in the world was the Polish master Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein (1882–1961),
a dominant figure in tournament chess who was winning most events and in glorious
style. In this week’s Playchess lecture
Dennis Monokroussos looks at a game or two of his from the 1911 tournament in
Karlsbad. 9 p.m. ET

The 2009-10 Hastings Masters ended in a fourway tie for first place, between Mark Hebden of England, British Champion David Howell, Andrei Istratescu of Roumania, and Romain Edouard of France. In the final round Hebden and Istratescu halved out in 11 moves, but Howell had to fight for a black victory. Our report on the last two rounds includes a big pictorial of lesser-known players.

With one round to go the seven-time Hungarian champion Zoltan Almasi has scored 6.5/8, a full point ahead of his nearest rival, Gata Kamsky. Almasi has won five of his last six games, including a key game against Viktor Bologan in round six. His performance: 2859. Kamsky and Almasi face each other tomorrow in the final round. Pictorial report.