Mikhail Tal: Triumph and Tragedy (Part II)

7/4/2012 – Twenty years ago one of the greatest and most popular champions of all time, Mikhail Tal, passed away. In a previous column Prof. Nagesh Havanur described how the Magician from Riga spent his final days. Today he describes the friendship and rivalry between Tal and another world-class player, GM Paul Keres. Two encounters between the two are presented as deeply annotated games.

Endgame Magic with GM Karsten Müller

7/3/2012 – Endgame knowledge is not easy to acquire and for this reason it is a valuable weapon in practical tournament play. In his Endgame Magic Show on Playchess, the well-known endgame expert GM Karsten Müller will assist you with a bunch of practical endgames. He shows how to handle the positions, which will help improve your results. An example and more information.

Nigel Short wins 7th Edmonton International

7/3/2012 – This ten-player round robin took place from June 27 to July 2nd at the Edmonton Chess Club in Alberta, Canada. It started with a shock: top seed Nigel Short lost his first game against Israeli GM GM Victor Mikhalevski, 200 points below him on the rating scale. However the British GM went on to win six games and draw two. Our report contains two challenge questions for our readers.

Business Insider: 24 executives who are exceptional at chess

7/2/2012 – Games like bridge, poker, and chess all use methods that can be incorporated into the way you view and make business decisions. Chess in particular requires strategic decision-making, concentration, tactics, and evaluation. The US business/entertainment news website Business Insider lists chess masters and amateurs who moved on to successful financial careers.

Deep Fritz 13: how to use the engine cloud

7/2/2012 – Our new flagship program is shipping, vigorously, and customers seem delighted with it. But do they know how the premium new feature works? How to use your portable notebook to access chess engines on powerful computers in remote locations? How to set up your own desktop computer or rent computing power from others? All this is explained in a series of instructional videos by Nick Murphy.

Agon appoints Pentagram to reposition chess

7/2/2012 – As we recently reported, American media entrepreneur Andrew Paulson has founded a venture to host the World Chess Championships – with a prize fund of 5.4 million Euros! He has now appointed a leading design agency, Pentagram (in London) to rebrand the championships, which will be broadcast live on iPads, smartphones and cable TV channels. Press release (revised).

FIDE July ratings – Carlsen at a record 2837

7/1/2012 – "The gap is narrowing," we wrote in May, when Armenian GM Levon Aronian was just ten points behind the Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen. The difference has now grown to a whopping 21 points, with Magnus setting his sights on the all-time 2851 record set by Garry Kasparov. FIDE has announced that it will in future publish its ratings on a monthly basis and include Rapid and Blitz.

CBM training: Caruana's king, activating the rook, pushing passed pawns

7/1/2012 – These are the subjects of this weekend's series of lessons that our endgame expert Dr Karsten Müller has pulled out for you from the 7th Tal Memorial and the 65th Russian Higher League Championships. This is extremely valuable material that will increase your practical strength. ChessBase Magazine has many more of them, but the selection on our newspage is free. Learn and enjoy.

IV International Chess Festival Eforie Nord

7/1/2012 – The IV Chess Festival of Eforie Nord took place and enjoyed the participation of players such as GM Sergey Tiviakov, GM Viorel Iordachescu, GM Bela Badea, and WGM Adriana Nikolova. Sadly, due to an outright interdiction by the Romanian Federation and clubs, only eleven players showed up. Not giving up, the organizer formed a round-robin and still honored his prizes! Illustrated report.

Daniel King: What happens next #2?

6/30/2012 – ChessBase and British GM Danny King's interactive YouTube format for chess training is resonating well with our readers ("Marvellous!! Thank you so much for such a wonderful idea. I thoroughly enjoyed episode #1."). Here is a second annotated game in which you are led to a key position and then asked to choose one of two strategical continuations. Have fun.

2012 'Yicheng cup' Chinese Chess League Division A

6/30/2012 – The mammoth Chinese Chess League Division A continued its run, and three more rounds were played out this week, reaching round seven of the full 22 to be completed. The top player of the event is reigning three-time Chinese champion, Ding Liren, whose performance exceeds 2800. One wonders merely when the 19-year-old will break into the 2700 club, not if. Report and pictures.

Octopus

6/29/2012 – White possesses the infamous knight on d6, against which Black has just prepared the doubling of rooks on the d-file with 20...Rd7 (diagram). Backing up this piece with 21.Rf2 Rad8 22.Rfd2 now leads to ...
A)... a clear positional advantage for White;
B)... balanced chances;
C)... material gains for Black.

ChessBase Magazine, larger diagram and solution.

2012 Russian qualifier reveals new star: Daniil Dubov

6/29/2012 – Of all the national championships, the Russian has long been the strongest, and thus it is no surprise that many aspire to just play in it, much less win it. The Russian Higher League is a monster qualifier Swiss open with 28 GMs and several 2700 players. Though the winner on tiebreak was Dmitry Andreikin, the story was 16-year-old Daniil Dubov's domination throughout. Illustrated report.

Anand at Accenture: How memory works in chess

6/28/2012 – Accenture plc, the largest management consulting company in the world, recently staged a conference in Madrid, Spain and invited World Champion Viswanathan Anand to speak. Anand dealt with subjects like pattern recognition, decision-making, computers and the strategies used in World Championship matches. The lecture is three quarters of an hour long, but well worth watching.

Mikhail Tal: Triumph and Tragedy (Part I)

6/28/2012 – Exactly 20 years ago, on June 28, 1992, one of the greatest and most popular champions of all time, Mikhail Tal, passed away. In a fitting conclusion to his own legacy of chess before all, the Magician from Riga had escaped from the hospital on May 28, where he was dying from kidney failure, to play in the Moscow Blitz championship where he faced Kasparov. A tribute by Prof. Nagesh Havanur.

Gelfandmania in Israel and the online Israel-Spain match

6/27/2012 – Gelfandmania has officially taken over Israel after Boris Gelfand's title run. He has appeared on TV, met the prime minister, given countless interviews and even been parodied by a famous comedy show. More importantly, he has sparked a huge interest in chess, leading to the match between Israeli and Spanish schools made possible through Playchess. GM Boris Alterman shares all.

Alan Turing Plays Garry Kasparov At Chess 58 Years After His Death

6/27/2012 – That is the title of a Huffington Post story on an historic encounter during the Turing Centenary Conference in Manchester last weekend. After his lecture on the reconstruction of the Turing "Paper Machine" for chess Garry Kasparov actually played a game against the reconstructed version of the machine, which you can download and test yourself. We have video reports and the moves of the game.

Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (85)

6/27/2012 – In his latest prize quiz the Editor of Chess Notes offered readers the challenge of identifying the authors of eight autobiographical works related to chess, on the basis of front covers from which relevant textual information had been blocked out. There was quite a strong entry, and now the answers are revealed. So too are the identities of the three prize-winners.

A paradise for children

6/26/2012 – The 7th "Türkiye Is Bankasi" chess tournament, which was held from 13-17 June in Istanbul, one of the biggest pre-schooler tournaments of all times, was so much more than just a chess tournament. Nearly 800 children took part in this amazing event in which the organizers included every activity imaginable to make it unforgettable for all involved. Enjoy this beautiful pictorial by Elisabeth Pähtz.

Daniel King: What happens next?

6/26/2012 – ChessBase and British GM Danny King have come up with a new YouTube format for chess training. It consists of an annotated game in which the grandmaster leads the student to a key position and asks him to choose one of two strategical continuations. Depending on what you decide the video continues with a confirmation or refutation. It's an entertaining way to improve your chess.

Viktor Korchnoi: My Life for Chess (Part two)

6/26/2012 – Born in 1931, twice contender for the world championship, Viktor Korchnoi is a living chess legend. In his career spanning over 60 years he has crossed swords with practically every great player of the past and present, including Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov. In this special Monograph DVD, "Viktor the Terrible" describes a life devoted to chess. Review by Prof. Nagesh Havanur.

The Personal Island of Anastasia Golubenko (Part two)

6/25/2012 – She was one of the most dedicated and successful coaches Estonia ever had, producing national, European and even world champions in the junior categories. But as a Russian she was ostracized, as were some of her students. Her tireless battle for their rights ended when Anastasia passed away at the age of 46. Her loving family and friends are planning a tribute for her. You can contribute.

The 100-board Austria-Slovenia match – a unique spectacle

6/25/2012 – On the 16th of June 2012, the city of Maribor hosted a true spectacle – a friendly match on 100 chess boards between Slovenian Styria and Austrian Styria. This singular initiative was a part of Georg Mohr's Black and White World project, and brought together politicians, artists, and players of all kinds and strengths. Read about this amazing match in the report by Miša Hrenic.

PokerListings: Chess Players Win Big at WSOP

6/24/2012 – For some years chess players have been a threat at the World Series of Poker tournaments, and now, more than ever there’s reason to expect big things from them. Ylon Schwartz, a 2300 chess master, outlasted 889 players to take a first place prize of $267,081. Not bad, except that Ylon earned more than $3.7 million finishing fourth in the 2008 Main Event. There's money in them thar cards.