Master Moves #25

4/3/2012 – All the deepest plans or endgame technique are useless if you fall victim to a shot that leaves you in a lost position. Likewise, sometimes that superior play will only offer a single window of opportunity to deliver that final blow, so it is vital to be ready for it when it does. All the shots below are from recent events. Show you can find these shots that shocked.

Rajlich: Busting the King's Gambit, this time for sure

4/2/2012 – Fifty years ago Bobby Fischer published a famous article, "A Bust to the King's Gambit", in which he claimed to have refuted this formerly popular opening. Now chess programmer IM Vasik Rajlich has actually done it, with technical means. 3000 processor cores, running for over four months, exhaustively analysed all lines that follow after 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 and came to some extraordinary conclusions.

Chess Festival of El Haouaria – Tunisia

4/2/2012 – A very ambitious international chess event is currently unfolding in Tunisia, he most modern, enlightened and prosperous African country. The 1st International Chess Festival of El Haouaria is the brainchild of "the two Ks": Kamel Meddeb and Kamel Njili. After a few hiccups and with better weather it has become a great success, as Diana Mihajlova reports.

European Championship: Jakovenko is champion with last round victory

4/1/2012 – It’s never over until it’s over, and the last round of the embattled European Championship merely reiterated this truism. Laurent Fressinet was the clear favorite as he held a half-point lead over the rest, but Dmitry Jakovenko crowned his final sprint to the top with a decisive victory taking the title. Fressinet came second, and Vladimir Malakhov third. Final report with GM commentary.

Capablanca's Chess + Billiards match

4/1/2012 – We all know chess boxing – where two players engage in alternating rounds of chess and pugilism. It was introduced eight years ago, and some people still profess to like it. But did you know about an earlier, less crude, attempt to combine chess with a disparate sport? It was tried by the great J.R. Capablanca, who played a chess-billiards match in 1922. It unsurprisingly ended 1-1.

The 'Let's Check' Crystal Ball

4/1/2012 – Wouldn't it be nice to see your opponent's preparation? Follow what the chess community is currently studying? Or even predict novelties before they are played? Well, it can be done. Our cloud database Let's Check creates a special LiveBook which you can use to look into the future, and follow other people's work – in real time, as it is happening. We can tell you how.

Chess Match of the Century table up for sale

4/1/2012 – Wondering what to do with all that extra cash lying around? Looking for a nice present for your chess-fanatic husband? Well, the international auction house Bruun Rasmussen in Copenhagen may have just the thing for you: the board, chess pieces, table and clock used in parts of the 1972 Reyjkavik match. Price estimate: up to 1,800,000 Krone = Euros 241,000 or US $324,000. Press release.

Zero Tolerance, Sofia Rules and Dress Code

3/31/2012 – The events that have clouded the European Chess Championship in Plovdiv – after Shakhriyar Mamedyarov another Azeri GM, Eltaj Safarli, has abandoned the event after defaulting in round nine – have generated a great deal of discussion: is "zero tolerance" really necessary, how should one regulate draw offers, and should arbiters be measuring skirt lengths? Reader feedback.

CBM training: More endgames from Plovdiv

3/31/2012 – 350 participants, a number rated over 2700 – that is a guarantee for interesting endgames cropping up in every round. Our ChessBase Magazin expert Dr Karsten Müller continues to scour the games of the European Individual Championship for interesting and instructive endings, and brings you four examples to peruse over the weekend. Learn and enjoy.

Chinese Championship 2012 – Ding Liren takes off

3/31/2012 – The Chinese championship recently started and once more Hou Yifan is playing in the men's group. This time she is actually fourth in the starting ranks, currently ahead of Ni Hua. Her opening round was a mini-disaster as she lost to 19-year-old IM Wang Chen, but top-seed Wang Yue also fell to reigning champion, 19-year-old Ding Liren, who caught fire and is leading with 3.5/4. Report.

Kramnik on Chess, Anand, Topalov and his future – Part 1

3/31/2012 – "This is an interview I’ve long dreamt about," writes GM Vlad Tkachiev. However: "it’s not easy to wear someone down with tricky, controversial questions when they’re so pleasant – so impeccably polite, even aristocratic..." This long interview, conducted for the Russian news portal WhyChess, last year, starts with Vladimir Kramnik's take on chess and one of his main rivals in the game.

European Championship: Mamedyarov defaulted again, quits tournament

3/30/2012 – The second seed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who lost a game owing to the "zero tolerance" rule yesterday, today defaulted by breaking the "Sofia Rule", which does not allow draw offers to be made before move 40, and always through the arbiter. A second game, Baron-Safarli, was similarly defaulted. Mamedyarov quit the tournament and will not be playing in the remaining rounds. What a mess.

Mate threats

3/30/2012 – White has just thrown his strongest piece into the attack with 18.Qh5 (diagram), whereupon 18...hxg5? now would obviously be suicidal. Instead, what is the best defence for Black?
A) 18...Bf6
B) 18...dxe3
C) 18...Bxg5 19.hxg5 dxe3

ChessBase Magazine, larger diagram and solution.

European Championship: Mamedyarov defaulted 'for ten second delay'

3/29/2012 – The "Zero Tolerance" rule strikes again. This time it was second seed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov who ran afoul of a rule that punishes any player who is not seated at the board when the starting gong for a round sounds with immediate forfeit. As the Azeri wrote in his Twitter, he arrived about ten seconds late for a game that was supposed to cement his second half comeback. Round eight report.

Alina's Tunisian Chess Adventure

3/29/2012 – Chess tournaments are not just about moves and norms, trophies and prize sums. When a very dedicated sponsor and organiser like Kamel Meddeb takes it into his mind to stage a big event in Tunisia, and concentrates on making all participants feel good about it, you get something culturally enjoyable as well, as our roving reporter Alina L'Ami shows us in this big pictorial report.

Breaking news: FIDE announced new dates for Candidates

3/28/2012 – After numerous protests about the scheduling of the next Candidates Tournament – in October, in the middle of the high season of chess – FIDE and its new organiser Andrew Paulson have relented and moved the Candidates to March 2013, where it will clash with nothing. For a second time Magnus Carlsen, who is intimately affected by the decision, was surprised – this time pleasantly so.

The Lewis Chessmen: Lilleøren's final remark

3/27/2012 – The Icelandic-Norwegian battle over the origin of the famous (infamous?) Lewis Chessmen – a collection of chess pieces, handcrafted in the 12th century – has been waging for almost two years now. The Norwegian critic of the Icelandic theory, Morten Lilleøren, has sent us final remarks. With it we close our discussion of the subject, which may be continued in archeological and historical journals.

Chess Problems: The Self-block Put to Bed

3/27/2012 – This popular theme in problem chess – a piece on the defending side blocks a flight square of the king, thus enabling the attacker to mate – is also seen in normal games. In its pure form, or as a weakening with a delayed effect, examples on a par with composed problems are rare. Our problem expert David Friedgood asked our readers to look for OTB self-blocks. Here are some results.

Martin: First Steps in Positional Play

3/27/2012 – "IM Andrew Martin is a well-organised presenter. He is clearly in command of his material, appears practiced, addresses the audience direct to the camera, and explains lucidly at an appropriate learner level. Rather than just talking chess, chugging dourly click-click-click through games, I found Martin to be engaging, good-humoured and easy viewing." BCM Review by Simon Bibby.

Chess in the birthplace of Modern Persian

3/27/2012 – Mashhad is known as the city of Ferdowsi (940–1020), the Iranian poet and author of Shahnameh (“Book of Kings”), which is considered to be the most important work in Persian literature. Ferdowsi also loved chess, and wrote poetry about its emergence. In his honor, the 2nd Ferdowsi International Chess Open was recently held. 16-year-old FM Nima Javanbakht has the report. | Pictured: Courtiers of Bayasanghori playing chess in the Shahnameh | Public domain

Official web site of the World Championship match

3/27/2012 – In one month and 13 days the opening ceremony of the World Chess Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and his challenger Boris Gelfand will be opened, in the world famous Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. The event now has its official web site, where you can find out all about the players, the venue, sponsors, rules and the schedule. Take a look.

Kavalek in Huffington: The Road to Chess Mastery

3/26/2012 – How much do you have to know to become a strong chess player? According to Russian folklore you have to know 300 chess positions to become a grandmaster, but nobody knows what exactly these positions are. Clearly there is is something in the number 300 that attracts chess writers, as GM Lubomir Kavalek explains in his latest Huffington Post column, which is all about books.

Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (81)

3/26/2012 – We have more on the fascinating topic of the Fischer v Gligorić training match played in 1992. The previous Chess Explorations article gave a reader's inspired reconstruction of one of the games from Fischer's almost illegible score-sheet. Now the Editor of Chess Notes shows further archive material and also quotes some disclosures which he has received from Gligorić about the secret match.

European Championship: six players default on DST

3/26/2012 – Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks so that evenings have more daylight and mornings less. Clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and backward in autumn. The date for the spring adjustment was Saturday night. Unfortunately the Georgian squad, with two players set to break performance records, did a Darwinian screw-up of the time switch.