Kavalek in Huffington: Women in chess – a few tales (Part 1)

5/7/2012 – Lurking in the background, hiding their identity, they seem mysterious, magical, beautiful. At first they observed the game from a distance, but as centuries went by, women were drawn closer to the chessboard. Still, for ages they could not play chess in public and it took courage and determination to break into the male dominated game. GM Lubomir Kavalek takes a look at some who paved the way.

CBM training: Caruana's King – Endgames from Italy

5/6/2012 – Distant opposition; via the queenside to the kingside; the blockade; Caruana's king – these are the themes that crop up in the positions that our endgame specialist Dr Karsten Müller – of ChessBase Magazin fame – has extracted from the recent Italian Team Championships. His analysis and annotations will give your practical tournament rating a boost. Don't miss it.

Norwegian Chess Festival – great fun in beautiful Fagernes

5/6/2012 – The second "Norsk Sjakkfestival" took place from 28th of April to 5th of May at Norway’s new “Chess Hotel” Quality Hotel & Resort Fagernes, with a central placement in Southern Norway, 2½ hours from Oslo airport. There were several events for players of different categories, from beginner to grandmaster. We received an informative report and some wonderful pictures by WFM Maria Bolshakova.

Georgian Women Championship 2012

5/5/2012 – This strong event is being staged in the beautiful Black Sea costal town of Anaklia – a name that translates to "Ana is crying" (explained in our report). The press officer of the championship, WIM Sopho Nikoladze, has sent us some lovely pictures and, thankfully, full captions that acquaint us to the players. We can only share half of them in our current report – the rest will follow soon.

ChessBase Magazine 147 review

5/5/2012 – Explaining he has had a love affair with ChessBase Magazine ever since its historic inclusion of multimedia material, Albert Silver takes a look at the latest edition, noting its evolution and growth. With fifteen openings articles, endgame articles, move-by-move testing, game comments by the world's best, and over three hours of video material on openings, endgames and more, what is not to like?

47th Capablanca Memorial starts

5/4/2012 – The 47th Capablanca Memorial started and as is customary includes both top Cuban players with elite foreign GMs. There are two tournaments, the Elite group as well as the Premier. The Elite brings top Latin American player Leinier Domínguez, his compatriot Quesada, followed by Ivanchuk, Nepomniachtchi, Laznicka, and Potkin. In the first round, Domínguez drew first blood.

Chess and Shogi – GM Alexander Chernin in Japan

5/4/2012 – It is astonishing that Japan, the third largest economy on the planet, with a population of 127 million, ranks at a paltry 92th on FIDE's chess world rankings, just behind Monaco. On the other hand the national version of chess, Shogi, is played by millions. Jacques-Marie Pineau has tried to rectify the situation by inviting a strong GM and trainer to motivated students – with resounding success.

Bologan takes Taça Cuca by storm

5/3/2012 – One of Africa’s major oil producers, Angola, is also becoming one of the world’s most interesting places to…play chess. There are enough beautiful and exotic locations to make it deserving of a detour to enjoy a once in a lifetime chess experience. With an absolutely 'insane' 8.0/9, Victor Bologan convincingly won the men's section. Illustrated report by WGM Alina L'Ami.

The 2012 Russian Youth Championships

5/3/2012 – The Russian Youth Championships (under 10/12/14/16/18) were recently held in classical, rapid and blitz time controls. Aside from the obvious honor of being crowned national champion, at stake was also the right to represent Russian in the next World and European Youth Championships. Vladimir Barsky was on scene and took a number of lovely photographs.

ChessBase 25 Composing Tourney Awards – Part two

5/3/2012 – This tourney attracted wide participation – 73 entries, from which the tourney judge GM John Nunn selected 22 prize winners and commendations. In a second instalment of new studies, selected by the tourney judge, Dr Nunn, in his wonderful explanatory style, presents some dramatic themes, and also looks at two predecessors to one of the prize winning entries.

Extreme X Chess Championships Finale

5/2/2012 – In the dramatic finals of these Championships 13-year-old Justus Williams played Stanford student Elliott Liu, 22. Justus' school was featured on the Rachel Maddow show ("Best new thing in the world for a long time!"), Elliott is a fun-loving college senior who attends music festivals on weekends while maintaining a strong international chess ranking. Great videos on the final and by Maddow.

Vaibhav Suri, grandmaster at fifteen

5/2/2012 – The student of Modern School in New Delhi won the 3rd Luc Open at salle Debeyre in Lille, France, on Sunday, defeating four GMs and drawing four. That brought Vaibhav Suri his third and final norm, making him India's 27th grandmaster, and at 15 years, 2 months and 21 days the 27th youngest in history. Vaibhav is being trained by Ukrainian GM Alexander Goloschapov. Portrait and statistics.

The Power Play Show with GM Daniel King: Anand - Gelfand

5/2/2012 – Improvement of your own play is one of the main aims when you are engaged in chess training. GM Daniel King is an expert who can guide you in achieving this goal. In his Power Play show he will present a bunch of practical examples and show you how to handle different kinds of positions, which will help improve your practical results. An example and more information.

Risarcimento Padova wins Italian Team Championship

5/2/2012 – If you look at the final results you will see that the first four places in this seven-round event were occupied in exactly their seeding order. So the Elo system does actually work. The winners, with 13/14 match points, fielded GMs Caruana, Nakamura, Georgiev, Efimov and Godena, the runners up Datagest Pesaro had GMs Sutovsky, Brunello, Vocaturo and Marin. Illustrated report.

GM Czebe Attila wins First International Open in Melaka

5/2/2012 – Prizes galore were given away at the multi-event chess festival in the quaint Malaysian city, a product of Islamic, Dutch, Portuguese and British influences through the ages. A look at the first emergence of international chess in a place that’s keen to put itself on the global chess map. Where it would be a colorful jewel of tropical beauty, as you can see in WGM Kruttika Nadig's big illustrated report.

Grand Prix Rapid won by Vachier-Lagrave

5/1/2012 – The introduction of FIDE Rapid ratings has given new life to events which previously were only considered light chess fun, with the the added ratings that allow players to keep track of their relative strengths at different time controls. With nearly 200 players, grandmasters and masters, and prizes for all categories, everyone was served. In the end, Vachier-Lagrave was served a bit more.

FIDE May ratings – Aronian ten points behind Carlsen

5/1/2012 – The gap is narrowing, Magnus! 29-year-old Armenian GM Levon Aronian, who first broke 2600 at the ripe old age of twenty, keeps crawling up the ratings ladder and is five points closer to the leader than in the previous rankings. In the current list we see many huge gains and losses, like the +29 by Viktor Bologan or the –26 by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Workers' Day list.

ChessBase 25 Composing Tourney Awards – Part one

4/30/2012 – Special occasions in the chess world are often celebrated by chess problemists with a composition tourney. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of ChessBase we staged a commemorative tourney. A total of 73 eligible entries were received for this tourney, an excellent response. The tourney judge Dr John Nunn selected 22 prize winners and commendations. Today we bring you the top four.

Ilyumzhinov visits Bachar Assad in Damascus

4/30/2012 – Is anybody surprised? Yesterday FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was in the Syrian capital and had a three-hour talk with beleaguered President Bachar Assad, who, according to Ilyumzhinov, "plays chess very well – since his studies in London". During their discussions Assad "pledged on a number of occasions his allegiance to the peace plan proposed by Mr. Kofi Annan". Press release.

CBM training: Endgames from the Chinese Championship 2012

4/28/2012 – China has broken onto the chess scene with an awe-inspiring phalanx of top grandmasters. During the recent national championships we saw some highly instructive games. Our ChessBase Magazin expert Dr Karsten Müller was, of course, scanning the interesting endings and he gives us our week-end dose of useful chess instructions. It's free of charge! Learn and enjoy.

Zurich Challenge G6: Exciting draw after 43 moves

4/28/2012 – Levon Aronian again opened with the unusual (for him) 1.e4 and Vladimir Kramnik played his pet Berlin Defence. The game remained fairly balanced, with Kramnik waiting for a chance to strike. And strike he did, with an exchange sacrifice on move 31 which almost won him the match. It was only time trouble that saved his Armenian opponent. Final report with annotated game.

Central knight duo

4/27/2012 – The sortie 17.Ne5 (diagram) attacks the black queen which is tied to the defence of the Ne4, but also opens the diagonal to g2. What is the bottom line? White ...
A) ... wins material
B) ... loses material
C) ... gets checkmated

ChessBase Magazine, larger diagram and solution.

Ilyumzhinov at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates

4/27/2012 – From April 23-25 Chicago hosted the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, chaired by the former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Among the guests was the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who is the patron of the Chess in Schools programme. Ilyumzhinov met with many prominent political, religious and public figures, as our star-studded gallery shows.

Zurich Challenge G5: Draw in 43 moves

4/27/2012 – Coming into the penultimate game tied at 2.5-2.5 Vladimir Kramnik deviated from game one on move eight, but his opponent Levon Aronian was well prepared with a quiet line in the Moscow Variation. The Armenian was able to equalise and offered a draw. But his Russian opponent pressed on and introduced some lively complications. At move 43 they repeated moves for a draw.