Archive for January, 2010

What if you are a young chess fan – with crooked teeth? Braces is the answer, but now an orthodontic doctor has come up with a way to combine a healthy set of straight teeth with your love for the game. Chessmile offers braces in the form of chess pieces. You can set up endgames, puzzles and even checkmates. And this is the brainchild of? WIM Dr Carolina Blanco,
that’s who.

The schedule is set for the three groups (see A, B, and C) participating in the 72nd Corus Chess 2010 tournament at Wijk aan Zee.  Players include Carlsen, Anand, and Kramnik in an all-star field, with U.S. players Hikaru Nakamura (A), Varuzhan Akobian (B), and young Ray Robson (C) taking part, fresh off their silver medal in the World Team Championship in Bursa, Turkey.  The tournament should receive daily coverage at ChessBase (see “Wijk aan Zee Super-GM Starts Saturday“), TWIC (see preview), The Chess Mind, Chessdom, ICC, ChessVibes, Chessgames, the official site, and numerous other places around the net.

Just one more day without top-level chess. On Saturday the action starts, in the Dutch seaside town, with three incredibly strong invitationals. Friday was the opening ceremony and pairings, on Saturday we will see the first round at 13:30h local time. Live coverage is available on Playchess, with audio commentary by GMs Yasser Seirawan and Daniel King. Pictures and video report.

Our endgame blog started the New Year on the subject of barriers. Just a week later, we can offer you two more examples on this important theme. In Getz-O’Toole, played in the Masters in Hastings, White won in exemplary fashion with the help of a horizontal barrier. A vertical barrier could be seen in Sasikiran-Aronian, where a draw would have been the correct result. But the world class Armenian GM went wrong, allowing Sasikiran to win with flawless technique. Would you have found the correct move in the diagram? Black to play and draw! The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.

A new version of our pocket-sized grandmaster was released in mid December.
It contains the chess engine Hiarcs 13, about which you may have read
in our Copa
Mercosur report. The program, as it is suggested by the DVD cover, is
a complete multitask tool for training and enjoying chess. In a new series
we introduce you to this Swiss penknife amongst chess programs, starting with the basics.

The 20th Kenilworth Chess Club Championship begins tonight at 8:20 (get there by 8:00 sharp if you want to play).  See Don Carrelli’s post at the KCC Minutes blog or The Chess Coroner for complete details.

The 20th Kenilworth Chess Club Championship begins tonight (Thursday 1/14) and runs through February 11th. Here are the details :

• USCF-rated!
• 5-round Swiss
• January 14th-February 11th
• G/90 time control
• Rounds to start at 8:20 p.m. every Thursday, for the duration of the event.
• Prizes : TBA
• EF: $10 entry fee + $15 dues + $5 anti-forfeit deposit = $30.
• KCC & USCF memberships required.
• Register with TD Geoff McAuliffe by 8:20 p.m. on 1/14

Please bring chess clocks & folding chairs if you have them.

Dennis Monokroussos draws our attention to the problem-like finish of the game Krasenkow – Swiercz, Polish Championship, Warsaw 2010 (java replay or PGN).  Having been challenging myself of late with Paata Gaprindashvili’s Imagination in Chess (a superb collection of 756 puzzles designed to improve your chess thinking), I naturally thought the critical position from the game (see diagram above) would be a great way to test your ability to discover hidden resources or “auxiliary ideas.”  Try it with 15 minutes on the clock.

The 20th Kenilworth Chess Club Championship will begin tomorrow night (Thursday 1/14) and run through February 11th. Here are the details :

• USCF-rated!
• 5-round Swiss
• January 14th-February 11th
• G/90 time control
• Rounds to start at 8:20 p.m. every Thursday, for the duration of the event.
• Prizes : TBA
• EF: $10 entry fee + $15 dues + $5 anti-forfeit deposit = $30.
• KCC & USCF memberships required.
• Register with TD Geoff McAuliffe by 8:20 p.m. on 1/14

Here are the latest USCF Ratings of Kenilworth Chess Club members & how they would be seeded in the 2010 KCC Championship :

We hear a collective sigh of relief: after the Tal Memorial, the World Blitz,
the London Chess Classic and the World Team Championship (ended yesterday),
some chess fans out there were feeling a twinge of withdrawal. Not to worry:
top GMs are currently arriving in the Dutch seaside town for the annual chess
festival. We will provide full coverage on Playchess.
Here are the tournament details.

Going into the final round with a one match point lead Russia cleared all doubts by defeating Israel 3-1. USA drew Azerbaijan on all four boards and came second, while India trounced Brazil 3.5:0.5 to overtake the Azeris and win Bronze. Best performers were Mamedyarov and Vitiugov, the best on the top boards was Hikaru Nakamura. Final report.

When you are the world’s number one player, and when your coach is the legendary Garry Kasparov, then you don’t go into training camp just anywhere. Magnus Carlsen travelled to Morocco, took residence in a five-star garden hotel, and conducted intense preparation for the Wijk aan Zee super-GM. The two also played a double simul for their hosts. We have games.

In chess it is the side with the best information that often comes out on top.
One means of accessing high quality information is Mega Database 2010, a database
containing more than 4.5 million games, 65,000 of which are annotated by top
players. Mega Database is automatically updated for one full year – on
a weekly basis, with approximately 200,000 games. Chess Cafe review in PDF
or online.

On February 18, 2010, during the Aeroflot tournament, a double nine-round Swiss blitz tournament will be held in Moscow – a qualifier for the World Blitz Championship to be held in November 2010 after the Tal Memorial. Would you like to take part in the Feb. 18 tournament? Three places, including flight expenses and hotel in Moscow, are available to the winners of this FIDE Playchess qualifier.

All good things come to an end, and Hikaru Nakamura’s 3061 was dampened by a loss to Levon Aronian (Hikaru is now playing at a modest 2894 level). Armenia beat USA 2½-½, while Russia crushed Egypt 3½-½ to take the lead with 13 match points to 12 for the US. Two teams are in striking distance before the last round, which starts three hours earlier. Report and games.

2010 West Orange Chess Club Championship

• USCF-rated
• 7-round Swiss
• January 26th-April 13th
• G/100 time control

Rounds, at 8 p.m. on the following Tuesdays:

1. January 26th
2. February 9th
3. February 23rd
4. March 9th
5. March 16th
6. March 23rd
7. April 13th

• Three half-point byes per player allowed.
• Byes may be taken for any round but TD must be notified by round 4.
• The Median System will be used to break ties in the standings.
• West Orange Chess Club & USCF memberships required.
• EF: $20
• Prizes: To be determined (depends on the number of players).

Site : Toby Katz Community Center, Degnan Park, 650 Pleasant Valley Way, West Orange NJ 70752.

John Hagerty will direct. If you have any questions, please contact him at 973-736-3433 or hagerty1@live.com

Gelfand – Nakamura
Black to play.

Commentators point out the similarities to Beliavsky – Nakamura 2009 and Roozmon – Charbonneau 2008. Here are some notes from around the web:

• Nakamura Annotates Gelfand Scorcher by GM Hikaru Nakamura at the USCF website
  
• Bursa WTC: Nakamura beats Gelfand in round five at ChessBase
• Ben’s Blog: Hikaru leads U.S. to victory over Israel, Robson draw clutch by Ben Finegold 
• Round 5 Games from Bursa by Dennis Monokroussos
  
• World Teams ‘10: Messing with Zohan by Mig Greengard
• Nakamura Brilliancy Beats Gelfand by Malcolm Pein at TWIC
• Russia and USA Lead at World Team Championship at ChessVibes
  
• Beliavsky and Gelfand Hopelessly Confused by Nakamura’s King’s Indian by Mark Ginsburg

The KCC Calendar posted earlier today had wrong dates for the USATE.

That event will be February 13th thru 15th (not 2/20-22). The error has been corrected.

We continue this week with our second look at the chess of the great Akiba
Rubinstein, one of the greatest players never to become world champion. Rubinstein
was a supreme master in all phases of the game, of course, but his endgame skill
was legendary. A lofty claim, but we’ll see clear evidence for this in this
week’s Playchess lecture by Dennis Monokroussos.
9 p.m. EST.

The big surprise in round seven was Turkey’s 2½-1½ win over Israel (Sutovsky and Rodshtein lost to Yilmaz and Esen). The USA beat Greece with the same score, while Russia drew Armenia. That meant that the US is now in the sole lead, with twelve match points to Russia’s eleven. Azerbaijan and India follow with nine match points each. Two rounds to go.

The 20th Kenilworth Chess Club Championship will begin this Thursday (1/14) and run through February 11th. Here are the details :

• USCF-rated!
• 5-round Swiss
• January 14th-February 11th
• G/90 time control
• Rounds to start at 8:20 p.m. every Thursday, for the duration of the event.
• Prizes : TBA
• EF: $10 entry fee + $15 dues + $5 anti-forfeit deposit = $30.
• KCC & USCF memberships required.
• Register with TD Geoff McAuliffe by 8:20 p.m. on 1/14

A record-tying 26 players took part in last year’s event.

The Kenilworth Chess Club’s Calendar for 2010 has been posted!

Events of note include :

• The 20th annual KCC Championship (Jan. 14-Feb. 11)
• Two USCF-rated Quads (Mar. 11-25 & Oct. 14-28)
• The Kenilworth Gauntlet (Apr. 8-29) – a new, knockout tourney
• The 3rd annual Irving Ellner & Sy Fish Memorials (May 6-20 & Nov. 11-18)
• The popular but grueling Summer Tournament (June 3-Aug. 26)

There were upsets galore in last week’s Garden State Chess League action. Sparta defeated West Orange… the Kramniks beat the Kortchnois… and Summit drew the Karpovs.

For full reports & some games, visit my GSCL blog.

Ted Mann & Bob Sherry tied for 1st in a New Year’s Eve Quad hosted by the latter. Both had 2-1 scores. Ari Minkov was 3rd with 1.5.

I forgot to bring my glasses, squandered won positions against the co-victors & finished last at 0.5.

The quality of play was very poor but, in an attempt to make amends for the un-announced hiatus, I have annotated all 6 games for you.

Replay

PGN