Intelligent mistakes

8/21/2005 – A few owners of chessplaying software have sometimes wished that their chess engines would make more "intelligent mistakes" when set to a handicap level. Columnist Steve Lopez dissects this apparent oxymoron and delves into the nature of errors in chess in his latest ChessBase Workshop.

British and French championships

8/20/2005 – The first is over and was won – again– by Scotsman Jonathan Rowson. Trick question: when was the last time an Englishman won the title? In the French championship a 14-year-old boy – yes, another one of those – and a 21-year-old lady are in the lead. We bring you games, results and pictures.

All the action in Igualada and Reykjavic

8/20/2005 – The Catalan town north-west of Barcelona is hosting the Magistral Ciutat d'Igualada, featuring Kortchnoi, Beliavsky, Volokitin and McShane, while in Iceland the national championship is under way – lots of interesting activity over the weekend. Status reports.

Leko: decision in the last round or tiebreak

8/20/2005 – As the FIDE World Chess Championship draws closer the organisers are interviewing each of the eight participants, asking them the same set of ten questions. After Vishy Anand it is Peter Leko who gets into the hot seat. The Hungarian GM predicts that the tournament will be very tight and will only be decided in the final phases.

'Checkmate for great aspirations'

8/19/2005 – At the American Continental Championship, which ended some days ago, the hero was clearly 15-year-old Gastón Needleman, who tied with seven other players for second. In the tie-break tournament for six tickets to the FIDE World Cup a local paper reported that the GMs ganged up against the boy to force him out. Carlos Ilardo reports.

Material searches in ChessBase 9 – part three

8/19/2005 – In the third in a series of ChessBase Workshop columns on Material searches, we go a bit more in-depth to show you how to find total material on the board as well as locate material imbalances (Jeremy Silman will love it). Read all about it here. Workshop...

Bruzón wins Continental, Kamsky equal second

8/18/2005 – Cuba's top GM Lázaro Bruzón won the American Continental Championship, which was staged in Buenos Aires from August 5–17. Gata Kamsky, coming out of retirement, almost joined him on first, but was stopped in the final round by a 15-year-old lad. From now on we will be watching a new chess prodigy: Gastón Needleman.

Liepajas Rokade won by Loek van Wely

8/17/2005 – The annual chess festival on the west coast of Latvia is played in two sections: a rapid chess open and a "Superturnirs" with invited and qualified players. The latter was won by the very much in-form Dutch captain. We bring you an illustrated report with a lot of pictures and with a whole bunch of bright new faces.

High-level instruction...

8/17/2005 – In the new ChessBase Workshop, we preview two "high-level instruction" disks. The first is the Chess Media System DVD "How to Play the Najdorf, Vol. 1", latest in the "Mr. Kasparov" series, the second is Alexander Bangiev's CD "Squares Strategy 2: The Opening". More...

Glasgow Radio ChessBase back on the air

8/16/2005 – After the horrors of the European Team Championships in Gothenburg (for Scottland, not the Netherlands) IMs Jacob Aagaard and John Shaw return for their regular Wednesday night radio show, with dramatic and entertaining chess played during the last week.

The Governor and the World Chess Championship

8/16/2005 – He is the man who brought information technology, film and music industry to his corner of Argentina, reducing unemployment there from 14.7% to a national low of 1.2%. Now flamboyant Governor Alberto Rodríguez Saá, who is an avid and accomplished chess player, is bringing the World Championship to the town of San Luis. GM Miguel Quinteros sent us a portrait and interview.

Chess Classic: Anand, Svidler, Radjabov win

8/16/2005 – The hot favourite Vishy Anand won the rapid chess match against Alexander Grischuk with a round to spare – and went on to lose a very dramatic last game. Peter Svidler considers himself lucky to have beaten Zoltan Almasi in Chess960, and the giant Ordix Open with 55 GMs has a bright young winner: 18-year-old Teimour Radjabov.

The brief glory of Reuben Fine

8/15/2005 – Reuben Fine was perhaps the only player to have a total plus score against world champions without being a world champion himself. Unfortunately for chess – but fortunately for his bank balance – he retired from the game at an early age to pursue and utilize a Ph.D. in psychology. In his Monday night Playchess lecturer Dennis Monokroussos shows a fine Fine game.

Mastering The Game: A History of Computer Chess

8/14/2005 – In September the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, is opening a new physical and online exhibit on Computer Chess. It follows a chronological plan from Turing and Shannon to the development of PC chess software and the drama of Deep Blue. It also has a lot of other fascinating exhibits.

Mainz Rapid: Grischuk strikes back

8/14/2005 – At 22 you have boundless energy. Even if you are facing the world's highest-ranked active player in the evening you can still take part in the giant rapid chess open in the afternoon. After all, what else is there to do when you have missed your breakfast? Alexander Grischuk played 1½:½ on day three in Mainz.

Greetings from the other side

8/14/2005 – Over a year ago we staged an interesting move-a-week match between ChessBase.com visitors and the Uzbek GM Saidali Yuldashev. The event was covered in Uzbekistan TV. Three participants won copies of Fritz with personal dedication by GM Yuldashev. These have long been delivered, as explained in this illustrated report by organiser Jamshid Begmatov.

Team Championship – The Homecoming

8/13/2005 – Last Sunday the European Team Championship ended with a great victory by the Netherlands. The Dutch players were given an enthusiastic welcome by officials and fans at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. We have great pictures by Frits Agterdenbos, and also bring you some interesting performance statistics in our Gothenburg retrospect.

Mainz Rapid: Anand marches on

8/13/2005 – On the second day he was a bit lucky. After overcoming losing chances in both rapid chess games against Alexander Grischuk, Indian chess superstar Vishy Anand came out of the hall with 1½:½ points. Levon Aronian won the Chess960 section and the amateur program Spike the Chess960 computer tournament. Illustrated report.

Anand takes the first two games

8/12/2005 – Alexander Grischuk, one of the young turks challenging the supremacy of the top players, started badly at the Chess Classic in Mainz, when he ran into the rapid chess firewall of Vishy Anand. The score: 2:0 for Anand. Meanwhile Peter Svidler took a 1½:½ lead in his Chess960 match against Zoltan Almasi. Report and pictures...

Looking ahead: FIDE World Championship in San Luis

8/11/2005 – The FIDE Classical Chess World Championship is set to take place in San Luis, Argentina, from September 27 to October 16 this year. The venue is a beautiful lake-side hotel complex, the eight participants are amongst the strongest players in the world. Top seed Vishy Anand talks about the event.

Karpov, Kortchnoi win Unzicker Gala

8/11/2005 – They are still mortal enemies – Anatoly Karpov moved his seat from next to Viktor Kortchnoi at the openings ceremony, the latter wore the trade-mark shades against Karpov's gaze. In the Gala Exhibition in honour of Wolfgang Unzicker's 80th birthday Karpov and Kortchnoi both scored 3.5/6. Unzicker Gala and 960 man vs machine reports.

Material searches in ChessBase 9 – part two

8/10/2005 – ChessBase's material search feature is a valuable tool for researching specific material balances (and, more importantly, imbalances). Here's a detailed explanation of this feature in the latest ChessBase Workshop.

'No they aren't', say 76% (correction: 84%, no 88%)

8/9/2005 – Recently we reported on an article about science and chess attracting more men than women, and the possibility that this might be due to a difference in the general intelligence level of the genders. The questionnaire attached to the article brought an overwhelming result: neither gender is smarter. Interesting how the 50 personalities are ranked.

Open letter by GM Vadim Milov

8/9/2005 – Last year FIDE organised its knock-out world championship in Tripoli, Libya. But not all eligible participants were able to attend. Although the world chess organisation and apparently also the Libyan authorities assured the Israeli players they would be issued visas, none of them made it. One of them, Vadim Milov, sued FIDE and lost. Milov sent us an open letter on the subject.