http://gameknot.com/ World chess news digest by GameKnot.com, where you can play chess online! en-us David Howell’s magnificent effort just failed to clinch the world Junior Chess Championship as he lost to the winner Abhijeet Gupta of India in the in thirteenth and final last round held at Gaziantep in Turkey. Gupta, who won his last five games took the gold medal with 10/13 as Howell ended in joint third on 9/13. Howell’s chess performance was outstanding, at one point his performance was over 2700, the elite chess Grandmaster level and seven of his eight wins were against very strong opponents. He also displayed great determination, fighting to the end in two consecutive games that lasted over 120 moves, winning one and losing one. At this level it is extremely hard to win ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=10042;ext=1 Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:43:59 GMT Disaster struck David Howell yesterday. The Sussex 17-year-old was in the gold medal position with one round to go in the world junior (U20) chess championship in Turkey, a legendary chess event where Tony Miles in 1974 has been the UK's only winner. But in the final game Howell played a nervous and insipid opening followed by a king's side pawn push with his queen's side undeveloped. His Indian opponent, Abhijeet Gupta, took full advantage, poured pieces into the weakened defences and gained decisive material and the title. Parimarjan Negi, 15, also of India, won silver and Howell finished out of the medals. Despite the limp conclusion Howell's play showed that ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=10035;ext=1 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:57:57 GMT David Howell’s rollercoaster chess tournament continued at the world Junior Chess Championship in Turkey as he won for a seventh time in eleven games and climbed back to joint second as the leader Maxim Rodshtein of Israel lost to Ngoc Nguyen of Vietnam. In the previous round Rodshtein totally Arik Braun in the game below but the German bounced back to defeat the world’s youngest GM Wesley So, 14, of the Philippines and reach 8.5/11, half a point ahead of Howell and five other GMs. M Rodshtein – A Braun; World Junior Gaziantep (10.1); Slav Defence; 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 c6 ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=10027;ext=1 Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:25:41 GMT The most pleasing aspect of this year’s Staunton Memorial is that it brings together England’s two leading chess players Michael Adams and Nigel Short in an all play all chess event for the first time ever in the UK. This sad statistic is of course a reflection of England’s decline as a chess nation and it is only thanks to a Dutchman, Jan Mol whose generous support ensures the continuance of the chess event, that the pair are both playing. They met in round six and Adam’s unbeaten run with white was nearly ended when he overlooked a neat tactic after being surprised by Short’s choice of the Alekhine Defence. It was the kind of oversight that can easily lead to a loss when one is Black but ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=10019;ext=1 Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:34:58 GMT David Howell’s herculean effort continued at the World Junior Chess Championship taking place at Gaziantep in Turkey. Following his 132 move defeat in round eight Howell nearly surpassed this effort as he defeated Ivan Popov of Russia in another epic chess game that lasted 127 moves. Howell is in joint second, half a point behind the leader Arik Braun of Germany who has 7.5/9 after defeating the 14 year old Chinese girl Hou Yifan. Hopefully Howell will have enough energy left to confront his next opponent, the world’s youngest GM, Wesley So from the Philippines. Howell’s game came down to queen v rook which is far from trivial. I imagine both chess players were down to ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=10017;ext=1 Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:18:40 GMT David Howell shares the lead at the World Junior Chess Championships taking place at Gaziantep Turkey. Howell warmed up with one of the best results of his career when he won the Andorra Open ahead of a strong field and his fine form has continued. After seven rounds the chess Grandmaster from Seaford in Sussex has 6/7 level with the German GM Arik Braun who was so impressive at Wijk aan Zee earlier this year. The World Junior is very strong with four chess players rated over 2600 and Howell is 14th seed but on current form his rating will quickly surpass the 2600 mark. D Howell – R Pruijssers; World Junior Gaziantep (2) ; Giuoco Piano. ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=10005;ext=1 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:06:33 GMT Stuart Conquest emerged victorious as the 95th British chess championship went to a play off at St Georges Hall in Liverpool. Conquest defeated Keith Arkell 1.5-0.5 in a Rapid Chess tie break, drawing the first and winning the second game in style. Conquest received £5000 for his efforts and rarely can a victory at the British have been so popular or well deserved. Conquest has been a professional chess player for over 20 years, this was his first championship victory and he always produced original and fighting chess. At Liverpool his aggressive style proved too good for many and he won several fine chess games. Conquest drew his last round game against Simon Williams and ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=10002;ext=1 Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:39:07 GMT "There is no solution, because there is no problem," quipped Marcel Duchamp. In a recent issue of The Sienese Shredder, Francis Neumann discussed this chess diagram composed by Duchamp for a New York exhibition in 1943. Many years ago Neumann also submitted it to my column in Chess Life, offering a reward of $15 to anyone who either could solve it or prove there was no possible solution. "I have since subjected this problem to the most powerful chess computers and I am now convinced that Duchamp has given us, in effect, a problem with no solution." The position was accompanied by an image of a Cupid with a bow and arrow. "Closer examination revealed ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9997;ext=1 Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:01:35 GMT Stuart Conquest emerged as the sole leader of the 95th British chess championship with one game to play at St Georges Hall in Liverpool. Novel and imaginative play in the opening enabled Conquest to build a fine attacking position and he outplayed Stewart Haslinger in just 29 moves to become the only chess player on 7.5/10. The other four joint leaders all drew. Bogdan Lalic’s Petroff Defence held against Gawain Jones and there was another short draw but Stephen Gordon and Simon Williams entertained the crowd although there too the game ended in a draw. Keith Arkell and Dietmar Kolbus advanced to 7/10 at the expense of Andrew Ledger and David Eggleston ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9990;ext=1 Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:47:18 GMT In July 2007, researchers announced that they had, for all intents and purposes, solved checkers. There seems to be no danger of that happening in chess, which is many orders of magnitude more complex, in the foreseeable future. (There are roughly 10 to the 120th power possible games in chess vs. 5 x 10 to the 20th power possible positions in checkers.) Computers, nevertheless, have had a profound impact on chess. In some openings, it is possible to make 20 or even 25 moves before leaving well-known theory, a development that some chess players say has sapped creativity from the game. What to do? One answer is to play Chess960. Also known as Fischer Random Chess after ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9982;ext=1 Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:32:52 GMT Grandmaster Danny Gormally has not lost for a year and Bogdan Lalic is very solid with black so a draw on top board was no surprise in round eight of the British chess championship at St Georges Hall in Liverpool. However elsewhere chess battle was joined and with three to play, three share the lead on 6/8. Stephen Gordon took advantage of a blunder by Nigel Davies while Stuart Conquest engineered the kind of unbalanced position in which revels and overpowered Andrew Ledger and these two joined Lalic on 6/8. Yang Fan Zhou scored a wonderful win over England international GM Nick Pert, one ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9975;ext=1 Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:52:44 GMT The Croatian chess Grandmaster Bogdan Lalic emerged as sole leader in the seventh round of the British Chess Championship taking place in the splendour of Liverpool’s St Georges Hall, one of Europe’s finest neo-classical buildings recently restored to its former glory. Lalic is notoriously hard to beat and is often content to split the point but when he achieves an advantage in the opening he is very dangerous and he proved this against Lawrence Trent. Lalic has 5.5/7 with most of his main chess rivals half a point behind. Mark Hebden fell further back to 4.5/7 after losing Andrew Ledger. Hebden lost a piece but then put up stern resistance before succumbing on ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9967;ext=1 Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:18:54 GMT The world chess champion Vishy Anand slayed the Dragon and defeated the seventeen year old chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen in the final of the 13th Grenkeleasing Rapid World Chess Championship, the headline event of the Mainz Chess Classic. Carlsen has recently enjoyed success with the Dragon, one of Black’s sharpest replies to 1.e4 but in the first game of the four game chess match Anand stormed the kingside and won the black queen. Carlsen continued to resist and it took some deft endgame play from Anand to force the win a queen for rook ahead. Anand won the second game with black and completed a 3-1 win. The pair had first competed in a double round all play ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9962;ext=1 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:24:28 GMT The British Chess Championship is wide open as the second week’s play commences this afternoon at St Georges Hall in Liverpool. With six games played and five remaining, six chess players share the lead on 4.5/6 but realistically up to twenty remain in the hunt as the field is so tightly packed at the top. Nigel Davies was unlucky not to end the week in the lead as only desperate, and it must be said ingenuous defence from Stuart Conquest saved a lost endgame in the seventh hour of play. Davies appeared to be smoothly converting an extra pawn, the fruit of his superior chess play in the middlegame but found his king unable to cross to the queenside to support his pawn’s ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9952;ext=1 Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:24:03 GMT In the 1960s and 1970s, it was Fischer fear. The American's intense eyes, long arms, talon-like fingers and air of effortless superiority overawed many chess opponents. Come the 1980s, and Kasparov fear took over. The Russian's hostile glare, ready sneer, huge opening knowledge and instant tactics terrorised normal chess grandmasters. Jon Speelman called it "bombardment by thought waves". The new disease is Carlsen fear. The Norwegian 17-year-old's histrionics are limited to a teenage slouch while at the board and copious refuelling with raisins and orange juice, but he is still today's charismatic chess superstar and that is sufficient to make experienced GMs freeze into ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9941;ext=1 Sat, 02 Aug 2008 17:11:10 GMT People who go to Cuba often say it is a country caught in a time warp, a result of the long trade embargo imposed on it by the United States. Cuba has a proud tradition when it comes to chess, but, in some ways it, too, was stagnant for many years. The country, which was host to two world chess championship matches in the 19th century and which produced José Raul Capablanca, the supremely gifted third world chess champion (1921-27), had not been home to any top-flight chess players for decades. That is until recently. Cuba now has more than a dozen chess grandmasters, most in their 20s. The two most talented are unquestionably Lázaro Bruzón Batista and Leinier Dominguez Perez. ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9928;ext=1 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:35:58 GMT The Croydon schoolboy Yang Fan Zhou confirmed his recent promise by producing the upset result of the first round of the British Chess Championship being staged at St Georges Hall in Liverpool. The youngster defeated IM Richard Pert with the black pieces and his reward is white against one of the two GMs from the north west, Nigel Davies of Southport, who got proceedings under way on Sunday as he took on forty chess players simultaneously. GM Stewart Haslinger also of Southport, the winner of the South Wales International earlier this month lost to IM Thomas Rendle. Top seed GM Gawain Jones started in style as he outfoxed Graeme Buckley in the opening and ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9914;ext=1 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:31:46 GMT England’s youngest GM David Howell had a fabulous result at the Andorra Open winning with a score of 8/9. Howell finished ahead of many other chess Grandmasters including Maxim Rodshtein of Israel a former world under 16 chess champion and Peruvian Julio Granda Zuniga the reigning Pan American chess champion. Also in the field was Mihail Marin of Romania the leading chess trainer and theoretician. It is a shame that Howell was unable to hot foot it to Liverpool for the British Chess Championship but he has other commitments and won’t be playing the Staunton Memorial either. Three of England’s leading senior chess players competed. Ray Edwards and Professor Julian Farand ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9910;ext=1 Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:47:07 GMT The British Chess Championships start today at St Georges Hall in Liverpool with a new name destined to appear on the trophy in the absence of Nigel Short and Michael Adams as well as defending chess champion Jacob Aagaard. Adams, Short, Peter Wells and Jon Speelman will be playing at the Staunton Memorial in London and in their absence Gawain Jones is top seed. The ladies chess championship will be a straight fight between Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant now officially playing for Scotland, Jovanka Houska and Susan Lalic. Magnus Carlsen duly took the sole lead at Biel with three to play after shrugging aside the challenge of Yannick Pelletier whose planless chess play gave him ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9898;ext=1 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:30:44 GMT How much chess is too much? Top chess competitors must play an official game at least once a year to maintain their rankings, but chess players have long held varying opinions about how often they should compete to maintain an edge. Viswanathan Anand of India, the world chess champion, has played only two games in the last few months as he has prepared for a world championship semifinal match in October against Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. And Kramnik has entered only two chess tournaments this year. Last week, it was announced that Gata Kamsky, who will play in the other semifinal, will be part of the United States team at the Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany, in ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9891;ext=1 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:24:25 GMT The annual British Chess Championship starts at St George's Hall, Liverpool, on Monday. As the British Chess Magazine website points out, there are no previous chess champions in the field for the first time since 1952. Both Michael Adams and Nigel Short will be absentees. Instead England's top pair will be in action in the Staunton Memorial at Simpson's-in-the-Strand, London, in August and also at the European Union Chess Championship in Liverpool in September. Liverpool's two fine chess events are part of the city's European City of Culture programme. The director, Stewart Reuben, has still secured a good grandmaster entry for the British Chess Championship in ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9887;ext=1 Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:54:41 GMT Readers may recall the travails of the teenage Peruvian International Master Emilio Cordova who failed to return home from a chess tournament in Argentina last year and ended up in the arms of a dancer is one of Sao Paulo’s more high profile night clubs. Well, it seems to have done him no harm at all as he recently took the honours at the IV Alajuela Open in Costa Rica scoring 8/9 to finish ahead of a strong field that included the European Individual Chess Champion Sergei Tiviakov. E Moncayo – E Cordova; IV Open Alajuela (3); French Defence. ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9881;ext=1 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:35:02 GMT A little good fortune for Magnus Carlsen gave him victory over French chess number 1 Etienne Bacrot in the 3rd round at Biel and the lead on 2.5/3. Bacrot’s solid defence to the Queen’s Gambit was working out very well but when Carlsen complicated matters with a dubious pawn sacrifice his opponent collapsed and was lost just a few moves later. M Carlsen – E Bacrot; 41st Biel Festival (3); Queen’s Gambit. 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 Nbd7 6.cxd5 exd5 7.e3 Be7 8.Qc2 Nh5 (This simplifying and solid line was favoured by Ulf Andersson, it is notoriously hard to beat) ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9874;ext=1 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:24:34 GMT The top seeds Evgeny Alexseev and Magnus Carlsen met in the second round at Biel with Carlsen black. The teenage chess prodigy managed to stir up huge complications from a quiet position when he broke out of his cramped formation but his opponent, a former Russian chess champion managed to defend himself and reach a drawn endgame despite the invasion of a black knight into the heart of his position. E Alekseev – M Carlsen; 41st Biel Festival (2); Queen’s Indian. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.Qa4 Bb7 6.Bg2 c5 7.dxc5 bxc5 8.0–0 Be7 9.Nc3 0–0 10.Rd1 Qb6 11.Bf4 Rd8 (11...Qxb2 12.Rab1 Qxc3 13.Rxb7 Nc6 14.Bd2 traps the queen) ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9868;ext=1 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:27:01 GMT There was a four way tie for first at the 9th Karpov Poikovsky chess tournament in Siberia. Alexey Shirov could not hold onto his lead after an eighth round defeat at the hands of the 21 year old Azerbaijani GM Vugar Gashimov who was a surprise winner of the inaugural FIDE Grand Prix chess tournament at Baku earlier this year. Gashimov joined Shirov on the winning score of 5.5/9 and the leading quartet was completed by 2005 Russian chess champion Sergei Rublevsky and 2006 co winner Dmitry Jakovenko. A Volokitin – A Shirov; 9th Karpov Poikovsky chess ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9848;ext=1 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:10:07 GMT The Norwegian teenager Magnus Carlsen ranked world number six is back in action today and starts as the clear favourite to win the 2008 Biel chess tournament. Although Biel is a strong tournament Carlsen has advanced so much since his invitation has announced that he is expected to win and win well. The full line up is: Magnus Carlsen (Norway 2775) (6) ; Leinier Dominguez (Cuba 2708) (25); Evgeny Alekseev (Russia 2708) (26) ; Etienne Bacrot (France 2691) (33) ; Alexander Onischuk (USA 2670) (50) ; Yannick Pelletier (Switzerland 2569) - outside the world’s top 100. Carlsen is too strong to play in the Norwegian chess championship. A smooth victory from one of chess ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9840;ext=1 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:28:15 GMT When faced with his favourite weapon, the Sicilian Najdorf, Bobby Fischer countered with Bc4. Garry Kasparov also used the move and it has had a renaissance recently. On c4 the bishop is immensely powerful as it attacks f7 and if Black castles kingside the bishop’s influence extends all the way to the king on g8. Black typically plays the move e7-e6 to limit the bishop but often has to reckon with a White sacrifice on e6 that gains two pawns and access to the black king. This year we have seen many chess games where Black has failed to exchange the bishop after its customary retreat to b3 and suffered the consequences. The games Naiditsch – Van Wely from Dortmund and Nisipiean-Grischuk ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9837;ext=1 Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:27:28 GMT World chess champions have tremendous influence on the development of chess with the openings they choose and their style of play. But some great chess players have shaped the game through their contributions to theory. Aron Nimzowitsch, for example, never played for the title, but he is remembered for his writing, in particular his book "My System," which is considered required reading by many serious chess players. Another player, Reuben Fine, who missed a shot at playing for the world chess championship because of World War II, wrote books on opening, middle game and endgame theory that are still influential. Pal Benko, a Hungarian chess grandmaster who ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9831;ext=1 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:33:38 GMT Nikolay Sazhin almost knocked out his opponent with a blow to the chin in the second round. But he had to take the queen to win the match. In front of 1,000 cheering fans one recent Saturday night, Sazhin moved his bishop to go in for the kill and won the world championship of chess boxing, a weird hybrid sport that combines as many as five rounds of pugilism with a game of chess. The combatants switch back and forth between boxing and chess — repeatedly putting their gloves on and taking them off, so that they can move the pieces around the board without clumsily knocking them over — in a sort of brains-and-brawn biathlon. "It's the No. 1 thinking game and ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9818;ext=1 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:28:18 GMT There is plenty of entertaining chess at the 9th Karpov Poikovsky chess tournament. Alexei Shirov played another sparkling chess game, Ernesto Inarkiev really shouldn’t have provoked him. E Inarkiev – A Shirov; 9th Karpov Poikovsky; Slav Defence. 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 c6 3.c4 Nf6 4.e3 Bf5 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nh4 Bg6 7.Be2 Nbd7 8.0–0 (8.Nxg6 hxg6 9.g3 keeps all options open, Whites' king can stay on e1 or go either side) 8...Ne4!? (Another new and ingenious idea from the Shirov laboratory) 9.g3 (9.Nxe4 Qxh4 10.Nc3 dxc4 11.Bxc4 Bd6 12.g3 Qe7 is fine for Black) 9...Nd6! (Black continues to tempt White to take on g6) 10.b3 (10.c5 Nf5 11.Nxf5 Bxf5 with a good game) ... http://gameknot.com/news.pl?id=9817;ext=1 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:59:03 GMT