12/8/2009 – He was unstoppable: Israeli GM Boris Gelfand, who needed just a draw after yesterday black-piece win, went ahead and beat the elegantly posing Ukainian GM Sergey Karjakin to go through on a 2-0 score. Meanwhile Vladimir Malakhov, Russia, and Ruslan Ponomariov played a second draw and have tiebreak games on Tuesday. Illustrated report.

12/8/2009 – The tournament, the strongest in London in a quarter century, began with a press conference, the drawing of colours, and a first match – a sharp encounter between Magnus Carlsen and Pat Cash, the 1987 winner of Wimbledon. In tennis. Cash won. The chess games start on Tuesday, with Carlsen playing Kramnik in the first round. Watch it with audio commentary from London on Playchess.

12/8/2009 – Chess is more fun when you are winning. That is why it has become the gold standard for chess database users. With ChessBase 10 you have immediate online access to almost five million games, from the beginning of chess history to the latest top tournament. The new ChessBase 10 packages also come with the new Big or Mega Database 2010. Place your order now or read more.

12/8/2009 – Ruslan Ponomariov, who in 2002 won the FIDE knockout world championship, has made it to the final of the World Cup 2009. In four rapid chess tiebreak games the Ukrainian GM lost the first but came back strongly to defeat Vladimir Malakhov, Russia, in the next three games and finish with an overall score of 4.0-2.0. Illustrated report.

12/8/2009 – The London Chess Classic began with a very convincing victory by top seed Magnus Carlsen over second seed and former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who was subtly outplayed by his 19-year-old Norwegian opponent. Luke McShane ground down Nigel Short in a 163-move marathon that lasted seven hours. Game commentary to follow, here's our first picture report.

12/7/2009 – The Tal Memorial this year in Moscow? It has been billed as such, but it all depends on how you evaluate such events. If you correct for rating inflation, and especially if you consider the world ranking of the participants, other tournaments easily outstrip this one. Very plausibly AVRO 1938 was the strongest – or at least the most elite, since players #1-8 were present. Jeff Sonas explains.

12/6/2009 – With the masters now fine-tuning their preparations for the London Chess Classic, the Editor of Chess Notes passes on some advice on mastery of the game culled from old books. Both the advice and the books have long been forgotten, but could the tips provide the players with a fresh perspective, just in time? The great tournament is about to begin, and we shall soon see...

12/6/2009 – The semifinals of the FIDE World Cup saw Boris Gelfand, 41, beating his 19-year-opponent Sergey Karjakin in impressive style with the black pieces. Karjakin now has the daunting task of having to win the second game on Monday or say goodbye to Khanty Mansiysk. In the other game Ponomariov and Malakhov drew a Slav game in 40 moves. Illustrated report.

12/5/2009 – As we reported some weeks ago, Marilyn young, Bobby Fischer's "Filipina live-in partner", is claiming rights to the late champion's estate for their common daughter Jinky. The claim has been filed with Icelandic courts, and during their visit a blood sample was drawn from Jinky and submitted for DNA analysis. Marilyn's lawyer Samuel Estimo sent us the following report from Reykjavik.

12/5/2009 – It was not a protracted tiebreak, which can theoretically go over 15 games. It took just three for Boris Gelfand and Ruslan Ponomariov to get into the semifinals. The Israeli GM beat Dmitry Jakovenko in two rapid games, and drew one; the Ukrainian took out Vugar Gashimov with the same result (that makes it 2:0 for Ukraine over Azerbaijan in the quarterfinals). Full illustrated report.

12/4/2009 – In two games the players were obviously quite content to leave everything to the tiebreaks: Jakovenko-Gelfand and Gashimov-Ponomariov were both drawn in 15 moves. Peter Svidler tried a King's Indian against Vladimir Malakhov but got nowhere; Shakhriyar Mamedyarov missed a clear chance against Sergey Karjakin, so he and Svidler were eliminated. Illustrated report.

12/4/2009 – ... usually means a strong positional trump. However, sometimes this alone is not enough to win the game. Here Black was facing the question whether closing the queenside with 20...b3 21.a3 (diagram) would be beneficial for him. What do you think? A) this enhances Black's spacial superiority, but doesn't yield anything concrete; B) it is a powerful continuation, considerably increasing his positional advantage; C) it's not good, White has one worry less and will be able to successfully defend himself in the centre and on the kingside.
The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a  larger version of the diagram.