1/19/2010 – A complicated position arose during time trouble in Tomashevsky (2708) vs Fier (2653). The pawn structure leaves us in no doubt: it was a King's Indian. The sacrifice 35...Bxg4 is on the cards, but calculating through all the consequences accurately is hardly possible. What does your intuition tell you?
A) The sacrifice is unsound. Black does not get sufficient compensation.
B) The sacrifice is playable. The position remains balanced.
C) 35...Bxg4 decides the game in Black's favour.
The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.

1/19/2010 – Vassily Ivanchuk needed 26 moves to finish off Loek van Wely. Magnus Carlsen had Nigel Short on the ropes, but let the British GM escape with a draw. Kramnik was in trouble against Tiviakov but survived. Alexei Shirov scored his fourth win in succession, to lead with a 4.0/4 score and a 3483 performance. You'd think that was a record, but he will have to win the next five games to do that. Curious?

1/19/2010 – Edgar Colle (1897–1932) was a Belgian chess who scored excellent results in world-class tournaments. He died tragically at the age of 34, and is mainly remembered for the Colle Opening System 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e3. This, as Dennis Monokroussos relates in this week's Playchess lecture, was not what he was able to play in a beautiful game against Ernst Grünfeld. Be there at 9 p.m. EST.

1/18/2010 – Shirov won two in a row, Carlsen and Nakamura drew first blood – those are the stories from the Super-GM in Wijk aan Zee. But there is something extraordinary in the B-Group: a 15-year-old has won his first two games, both in dashing style, to take the lead. According to a Dutch newspaper Anish Giri holds the "promise of greatness in Dutch chess". Special report.

1/18/2010 – What a round: White lost no fewer than four games in the top group, without winning any. Alexei Shirov continued his storm in the Dutch resort with a third victory in succession, beating Tiviakov. Nakamura, Ivanchuk and Carlsen also won their black games (Garry Kasparov was pleased as Punch about his protégé's victory). Round three report with beautiful photos by Fred Lucas.

1/17/2010 – With the world's strongest kibitzer watching anxiously Magnus Carlsen pulled off his first win in the Super-GM in Wijk aan Zee, beating Dutch GM Jan Smeets in a tense 41-move game. Nakamura played an aggressive, exciting win over Loek van Wely, and Alexei Shirov scored a second full point against Fabiano Caruana. In Group B Anish Giri won a second game and leads. Full report.

1/16/2010 – ... Jan Timman wrote about this encounter between two absolute top grandmasters of the 70s and 80s. Here Black played 21...Bb5 and later succumbed in a remarkable attack. How would you assess the position after 21...Nxc7 instead?
A) The second player maintains his plus pawn without risk;
B) White gets the advantage;
C) the result is a draw by perpetual check.

The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.

1/16/2010 – What if you are a young chess fan – with crooked teeth? Braces is the answer, but now an orthodontic doctor has come up with a way to combine a healthy set of straight teeth with your love for the game. Chessmile offers braces in the form of chess pieces. You can set up endgames, puzzles and even checkmates. And this is the brainchild of? WIM Dr Carolina Blanco, that's who.

1/16/2010 – Loek van Wely, playing in Wijk an Zee for the 19th time is succession, started off with a fine text-book victory over Nigel Short, while Alexei Shirov, playing the black side of Ruy Lopez Moeller, punished Peter Leko's exchange sacrifice in a fine endgame performance. Live coverage with audio commentary is available on the Playchess server. Big pictorial report.

1/15/2010 – Just one more day without top-level chess. On Saturday the action starts, in the Dutch seaside town, with three incredibly strong invitationals. Friday was the opening ceremony and pairings, on Saturday we will see the first round at 13:30h local time. Live coverage is available on Playchess, with audio commentary by GMs Yasser Seirawan and Daniel King. Pictures and video report.

1/15/2010 – Our endgame blog started the New Year on the subject of barriers. Just a week later, we can offer you two more examples on this important theme. In Getz-O'Toole, played in the Masters in Hastings, White won in exemplary fashion with the help of a horizontal barrier. A vertical barrier could be seen in Sasikiran-Aronian, where a draw would have been the correct result. But the world class Armenian GM went wrong, allowing Sasikiran to win with flawless technique. Would you have found the correct move in the diagram? Black to play and draw! The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.

1/15/2010 – A new version of our pocket-sized grandmaster was released in mid December. It contains the chess engine Hiarcs 13, about which you may have read in our Copa Mercosur report. The program, as it is suggested by the DVD cover, is a complete multitask tool for training and enjoying chess. In a new series we introduce you to this Swiss penknife amongst chess programs, starting with the basics.