New Jersey GM Joel Benjamin bids farewell to his Ask GM Joel column at USCF Online with “GM Joel on the Question He Always Wanted,” in which he answers the question that I would have most liked to ask him myself this past year: what is his improvement on Stopa – Benjamin, World Open 2009? A very satisfying answer for fans of the Antoshin Philidor.
Once a month a world-renowned tournament is conducted in Budapest. It provides budding players with an opportunity to test their skills and achieve title norms. Carlsen, Sutovsky, Milov, Radjabov, Sofia Polgar, Nakamura have passed through the grinding mill of the tournament that has been running for 17 years now, organised by a former chemist in the Hungarian army. Big pictorial report.
… has become Alexei Shirov’s trademark. In the tournament in Wijk aan
Zee, which Shirov started with five wins in a row, the 37-year-old chess
magician from Riga once more justified this reputation.
In many middlegame positions he managed to put his opponents under
pressure with inventive attacking play. And even in the endgame, one
always has to take into account that Shirov might set the board on fire.
This happened in the eleventh round in his game against Vladimir Kramnik, where he played 35.c5! in the diagram position. GM Karsten Müller has analysed the endgame for ChessBase Magazine Online.