London Chess Classic 2012: Participants, pairings, simuls

11/8/2012 – In just over three week this wonderful annual event starts in the Olympia Conference Centre in Hammersmith, London. The nine top GMs, including the first three of the world rankings and the World Champion, with a rating average of 2751, have been paired already, allowing for more specific preparation and better planning for spectators. There are also interesting subsidiary event. Full event info.

Watson on Bojkov: Meet the English Opening in 60-minutes

11/7/2012 – "It's interesting to compare Mihail Marin's massive three-volume repertoire book with Dejan Bojkov's ChessBase DVDs," writes John Watson. After checking where the two overlap in an important line he shows us Bojkov's analsis of Carlsen vs Kramnik. His conclusion: "Bojkov comes out very well indeed in the comparison with written theory, even within the 60-minute format." Review.

Krush on Georgia: touring Batumi

11/7/2012 – The Georgian city of Batumi, on the Black Sea coast, an important port and a commercial center. It is also a hotbed of chess events – type "Batumi" in the search mask on the top right to see reports of them. After playing the women's rapid and blitz world championship in Georgia IM Irina Krush toured the country. In part two of her report she tells us about the Georgian passion for good food.

Power moves in politics and on the chessboard

11/7/2012 – It wasn't the cliff-hanger people had predicted: minutes before midnight (Pacific Time) Mitt Romney conceded and Barack Obama had won the 2012 US Presidential election, taking eight of the nine battleground states and 50.3% of the popular vote. Do you know how many of the past presidents, Republican and Democrats, were chess players? Here are stats and some topical chess cartoons.

Andreikin wins friendly match against Nepomniachtchi

11/6/2012 – Inspired by the resounding success of the Kramnik-Aronian match earlier this year, Dmitry Andreikin, reigning Russian champion, and Ian Nepomniachtchi, the former European and Russian champion played a six game match in Moscow, Russia. The match was broadcast on ChessTV and enjoyed live commentary, in Russian, by GM Sergey Shipov. Andreikin took the laurels.

Chess Oscar winner Carlsen to be tested for doping

11/6/2012 – There is no connection: Norwegian GM Magnus Carlsen has just been awarded the Chess Oscar for 2011 – and FIDE has just announced that he will be involved in a pilot project to test players for drug abuse. The World Chess Federation has been trying to get chess recognised as an Olympic sport, and the IOC insists on drug testing as a condition. Oscar results and report on the drug testing.

CHESS Magazine: An interview with... Andrew Paulson

11/6/2012 – He is a man with a mission for world championship chess. Early this year Andrew Paulson and his company Agon were handed the rights for all of FIDE’s major events – the Grand Prix series, the Candidates and the title match itself. Last month John Saunders and Matthew Read of Britain's CHESS Magazine were invited to meet him at his office in Whitehall for an indepth interview. Here is part one.

Henrik Danielsen: Pressing Straightaway – The London System

11/5/2012 – "Recently ChessBase has hit upon a formula which I suspect will be a great success," writes John Watson. "They've introduced a series of videos limited to an hour, and available by download." Watson has studied the London System and watched Henrik Danielsen's "60 Minutes", in which the Icelandic GM not only gives a repertoire versus Black's most common setups, but presents some new ideas.

Draw okay?

11/5/2012 – In the diagram position there followed 41...Ne5 42.f6 Qd7+ 43.Kg2 Qd5+, and after 44.Kh3 Qd7+ the game ended with a perpetual check. Who missed the win in this sequence?
A) White;
B) Black;
C) neither, everything was correct.

ChessBase Magazine, larger diagram and solution.

Shabalov is gold at Bahamas International

11/5/2012 – The Bahamas International & Amateur was held from October 24-28, 2012 at the Wyndham Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino, in Nassau, Bahamas. GM Alex Shabalov won the International Section, finishing with an undefeated 6.5/9 and taking home the first prize, and just behind was GM Alexander Goldin in second. Several norms were also scored at this traditional event.

Movie chess scenes where the board is set up wrong

11/5/2012 – "Once you start to look for them, you see chessboards everywhere," writes Arika Okrent in Mental Floss. "In commercials, print ads, TV shows, and movies, chess is a go-to symbol for class, intelligence and the drama of strategic one-upmanship. However, very often the board is set up wrong." Arika has documented eleven famous movies with bad boards. Can you find more?

M.Chigorin Memorial 2012: Areschenko and Socko stand apart

11/4/2012 – Going into the final round eight players shared first with 6.5/8 and it was a hard fought round as they each tried to be the one to make a difference and get that larger share of the plunder. Only two were able to shine and share the top honors: Ukrainian Alexander Areschenko who bested Alexander Lenderman, and Polish Bartosz Socko who overcame Ilia Smirin. Final report and games.

Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (91)

11/4/2012 – 'My 61 Memorable Games' claims to be Fischer's update of his masterpiece first published in 1969, but is it genuine? Although the 753-page volume is almost impossible to find on sale, the Editor of Chess Notes recently acquired it. He advocates careful, rigorous scrutiny of the contents, and enables readers to enjoy a riveting literary, historical and analytical conundrum with a multitude of clues.

M.Chigorin Memorial 2012: Only in Russia

11/3/2012 – The traditional Chigorin Memorial is underway in St. Petersburg, Russia, and includes a plethora of very strong players, including four rated 2700, the most famous of whom is Mr. Fire-on-the-Board Shirov. It also includes a typical Russian oddity: a high-rated non-GM: IM Anton Demchenko, rated 2610, and tied for first with an impressive 2800 performance.

Cap d'Agde: The Ivanchuk - Karpov showdown

11/3/2012 – The tenth edition of the "Cap d'Agde Rencontres" chess festival saw 850 chess lovers meet in the famous Mediterranean holiday resort, from the 26th of October to the 3rd of November. The main event, however, featured eight chess gladiators, four men and four women, competing for the "Anatoly Karpov Trophy", but it came down to Vassily Ivanchuk and Anatoly Karpov in a thrilling finish.

CBM training: L'Ami's Lasso, Brynell's Burners, Timman's Timing

11/2/2012 – The games of today's lesson by our ChessBase Magazine columnist GM Karsten Müller have been taken from the 16th Unive Open in Hoogeveen, Holland. The first is the final round decider, in which Erwin L'Ami with black defeated tournament leader Friso Nijboer in a knight ending that was probably defensible. It is very instructive to see how L'Ami roped in the enemy steed. Learn and enjoy.

FIDE November ratings – Carlsen leads by 33 points

11/1/2012 – This is domination – the kind we have not seen since the Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov days. The world's top GM, Magnus Carlsen, keep increasing his lead and is now 33 points ahead of his nearest rival, Levon Aronian – and just a few points shy of Kasparov's all-time record. There were record gains (24) and losses (31) in this one-month rating period. Have fun perusing the FIDE November rankings.

Bacrot wins 16th Corsica Masters

11/1/2012 – The event started with a 153-player Open, followed the first three rounds of a knockout phase, which all took place in Bastia on the east coast of the Mediterranean island of Corsica. The players then moved to Ajaccio, on the opposite coast, where the finals were held. In this Etienne Bacrot, rated 2705, beat his compatriot Laurent Fressinet, 2702. Report with videos.

Chess on a cliff – super tournament in Norway next May

11/1/2012 – The Norway Chess 2013 Super Tournament will feature Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand and other top ten players. It will be held from May 7th to 18th 2013 in four different locations in the Stavanger region. To promote it the organisers made a music video with Hanne Sørvaag and had Magnus playing chess at a dizzying height. Watch it if you have good nerves.

Which chess player beat the most World Champions?

10/31/2012 – In September Garry Kasparov visited ChessBase in Hamburg and brough us a little puzzle: which chess player has recorded wins over the greatest number of World Champions. We passed this on to our readers. Result: nope, it is not Kasparov himself, as many had assumed, but... well, read the article! Three readers won the special prize: a personally dedicated DVD by Kasparov.

ChessBase Magazine 150 – plenty of material for everyone

10/31/2012 – "The new issue of ChessBase Magazine is packed with enough material to keep even the greediest of chess students feel that their hunger has been satiated for some time to come." With these words Sean Marsh introduces a publication of which he writes: "No other chess product offers as much instruction and entertainment as ChessBase Magazine." Marsh Towers review.

Cheating scandal in the Bundesliga – readers' reactions

10/30/2012 – It will surprise nobody that there were a very large number of messages that poured in regarding our recent report on the disqualification of a Bundesliga player for carrying a cellphone to the bathroom during his games. Here's a small selection of letters, plus a thoughtful article by Assistant Professor Kung-Ming Tiong of Malaysia, comparing the problem in chess with academic cheating.

Houdini 3 – the world's strongest chess engine in the Fritz interface

10/29/2012 – In 2009 Robert Houdart, a Belgian structural engineer working on nuclear power plants and astronomy, wiled away his time waiting for a telescope mirror by writing a chess program. To everyone's suprise it turned out to be the strongest engine around. Now version three is out and will be soon available from ChessBase. We asked the author to explain the genesis of this remarkable chess engine.

Unive Hoogeveen: Nakamura wins with 2855 performance

10/28/2012 – A draw in the final round would have sufficed to take victory, but Hikaru Nakamura, hungry for rating points to hoist him back into the world's top ten, played a masterpiece against his only rival in the 16th Univé Crown Group, Sergey Tiviakov, to finish 1½ points ahead of the field. In a tense final round of the Unive Open Erwin L'Ami caught Frizo Nijboer for joint first. Final report with GM commentary.