4/16/2010 – Problem solving is a parallel world next to the regular chess scene. Many OTB players will find the ideas and execution daunting, but the twomove, threemove, helpmate and other varieties of problems have their own addictive beauty. Last weekend the annual European Chess Solving Championship took place at Sunningdale, England. Guess who made a clean sweep of the prizes.

4/16/2010 – Like most of Europe, Budapest had a very persistent winter, and blocks of ice could still be seen floating down the Danube. However, Spring is well and truly there, and is celebrated in Budapest with its traditional Spring Festival of Arts with outstanding theatre, music, dance, and art exhibitions. And the Spring Chess Festival marked by a large number of boys and girls. Pictorial report.

4/16/2010 – We recently reported on this event, won by the 16-year-old "wonder-girl from China", and shared the video reports produced by our colleagues at Europe Echecs with you. Today we bring you regular pictorial impressions from the event in the capital and largest city of Malaysia. They were shot by our roving reporter WGM Yana Melnikova, to whose report we have added some spine-chilling videos.

4/16/2010 – ... White had achieved with an exchange sacrifice in this game. The compensation is obvious, but here the best continuation had to be found. In order to get decisive advantage, which piece should be moved?
A) pawn;
B) bishop;
C) queen.

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

4/15/2010 – "After a lifetime dedicated to playing and promoting the game of chess, 12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov is running for the office of President of the International Chess Federation." This is the beginning of a formal announcement, released by Karpov's New York campaign headquarters. It outlines the main goals and themes of the campaign and is available in Russian, English and Spanish.

4/15/2010 – The Najdorf with 6.Bg5 has become popular again. Plans which for years have shown no success are being tried out again and, lo and behold, they are suddenly playable. And so even 6...Nbd7 is being put to the test once more. The innovation occurs straight after what has been considered the best reply, 7.Bc4. Black now replies 7...Qb6! and after 8.Bb3 e6 the Nd7 is frequently exchanged for the Bb3 – with comfortable play for Black. Alexey Kuzmin examines this setup in detail, but also thoroughly investigates the alternative 7.f4. CBM 135 contains another twelve openings articles. Read Kuzmin: Najdorf 6.Bg5 Nbd7.

4/15/2010 – Next Friday, April 23rd, the World Championship match between Vishy Anand and Veselin Topalov begins in Sofia, Bulgaria. Tonight on Playchess.com GM Daniel King previews the event. What does the form book say? Which player has the better stats? What are the players' strengths and weaknesses? The programme begins at 19:00 London (20:00 in Germany, 2 p.m. NY). Schedule.

4/14/2010 – Many strong players are branching into poker. This is especially true of women, since their chess tournament prizes often hardly cover travel expenses and incidentals. And when in addition players discover they have a natural talent for poker they take to it as a lucrative alternative source of much-needed income. One player such, IM Almira Skripchenko, has done this with great success.

4/14/2010 – We have recently seen how hard it can be to hold the draw against a rook in a simplified position when you have only a bishop - there were the examples of McShane-Danin ("The fortress breaker") and Dragun-Leniart ("Zugzwang"). This position too is certainly not an easy one to evaluate. What do think is true here?
A) White can only hold the draw with 73.Ke3.
B) White can only hold the draw with 73.Kg3.
C) No matter where the king goes, Black can never ever win.
Larger diagram and analysis by Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine Online.

4/14/2010 – In the first part of our report on the Georgy Agzamov Memorial Tournament, which was held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, we – actually the author Jamshid Begmatov – provided you with pictures and descriptions of a large number of players. There were too many to put into a single report. Here is part two with the rest of his pictures. New faces and portraits.

4/13/2010 – Today is Garry Kasparov's 47th birthday. Reader Ben Vinyard of Woodstock, USA, sent us a YouTube link with "a cool video on a simul Kasparov gave in 1988". A perfect birthday gift for the former World Champion, who was 24 at the time. We know for a fact that Garry has not seen the video – at least not in the last fifteen or twenty years. Happy Birthday Garry Kimovich!

4/12/2010 – This "wonder-girl from China" has just turned 16 and is winning strong opens like the one in Malaysia, where she finished ahead of a bunch of grown-up GMs and picked up a cool 10,000 Malaysia Ringgits (= US $3,100 or €2,300). Instead of packing our report with photos, this time we give you round by round video impressions provided by our colleagues at Europe Echecs.