Nanjing: Bu draws first blood in Super-GM

12/12/2008 – Aronian-Topalov and Ivanchuk-Svidler were drawn, but the Chinese GM and ex-prodigy Bu Xiangzhi outplayed Sergey Movsesian of Slovakia in an interesting endgame to pick up two pawns and take the full point. Before the games began there was a spectacular opening ceremony, like none that the chess journalist Leontxo Garcia has witnessed in 25 years. Here is his report from Nanjing.

Nanjing R2: Aronian, Movsesian win

12/12/2008 – Peter Svidler fell into trouble against the Slovakian GM Sergey Movsesian after the time control, and then blundered badly to lose the game with the white pieces. Levon Aronian outplayed the second seed Vassily Ivanchuk to take a full point. And the local hero Bu Xiangzhi as Black in a Slav held the top seed Veselin Topalov to an iron draw. Games, commentary, pictures from Nanjing.

125,000 pages – or one DVD

12/12/2008 – The new Mega Database 2009 is an exclusive annotated database. More than 62,000 of a total of four million games contain commentary from top players. A printout of the annotated games alone would come to approximately 125,000 pages. Of course we recommend using the Mega 2009 with the powerful database features of ChessBase 10 instead. Read more.

Adams withdraws from Grand Prix cycle

12/11/2008 – It was in the air and speculated on by many, especially after his name disappeared from the list of players for the Grand Prix in Elista (originally Doha, Qatar). Now the British GM Michael Adams has issued a formal statement on his withdrawal from the cycle. The reasons he gives are the sudden switch of venues, replacement of players, and the uncertainty of future GP events. Open letter.

Mind Games: Who is Doing the Playing?

12/10/2008 – Discoveries on consciousness have inspired the Norwegian philosopher Rune Vik-Hansen to forge a new view on development of chess skills. Challenging the current pedagogical climate, which claims that talent is insignificant and exposure to material a magic formula, he clarifies why blunders in chess are caused by a lack of interplay between consciousness and mind. Treatise with summary.

Ivanchuk wins Benidorm, Shirov second

12/9/2008 – In the first eight rounds of the "Torneo de las Estrellas" (tournament of the stars), a six player double round robin, Vassily Ivanchuk had 7½/8 and was leading by two points. Then he drew and lost a game to finish just half a point ahead of Alexei Shirov. More than five hundred points separated the strongest from the weakest player. Illustrated report with video.

Europe Echecs – Anand goes Bollywood

12/9/2008 – The latest issue of the French chess magazine Europe Echecs is devoted to the triumph of Anand in Bonn and the new development of chess in India. The cover itself is quite spectacular – it is designed in the special style of Bollywood movie posters and shows the World Champion Vishy Anand, the “Tiger of Madras”, and his wife Aruna. Here are some extracts.

Fabiano in the lead in Italian Championship

12/9/2008 – After five rounds he led the field by a full point. In round six Fabiano Caruana, one of the great youth talents in international chess – at 16 he is already rated 2640 – suffered a shock defeat against another 16-year-old, who is three hundred points below him on the rating list. But Fab Fab remains in the lead and looks poised to bounce back and win the championship. Report by Dario Mione.

Ulf Andersson's 'do not hurry' approach

12/9/2008 – Some games require analyzing loads of complicated variations to understand them. No so with the one in this Wednesday's Playchess lecture, which Dennis Monokroussos dedicates to a 2000 win by the Swedish GM over Sergey Ivanov. For this game, he says, we have to use some different tools.

Hou Yifan – the youngest female grandmaster in history

12/8/2008 – In 1991 Judit Polgar became a grandmaster, at the age of 15 years, four months and 28 days – breaking Bobby Fischer's 1958 record of 15 years six months and one day. Now Judit has been surpassed, by a 14-year-old Chinese prodigy: Hou Yifan, born three years after Judit's GM award, has obtained her title at the age of 14 years, six months and two days. Congratulations, Yifan!

Super-GM tournament in Nanjing, China

12/7/2008 – Just when you thought we were in for a Christmas break, the next Super tournament in the category of Wijk, Linares and Dortmund starts. It includes Topalov, Ivanchuk, Aronian, Movsesian, Svidler, and Bu Xiangzhi and will be staged in the beautiful Mingfa Pearl Spring Hotel in Nanjing, a subtropical city that used to be the capital of China. The tournament web site has pictures and videos.

12-year-old in contention in Ukraine Championship

12/6/2008 – The 2008 Ukraine Championship is missing Ivanchuk, Ponomariov and Karjakin, but is still very strong, with 26 participants, including 17 GMs. The player to watch is IM Illya Nyzhnyk. At twelve he sports a 2444 rating, and after four rounds he has three points (two wins, two draws). His performance: 2783. From Poltava we bring you a big pictorial report by Anastasiya Karlovich.

Levon Aronian: FIDE must reverse its decision!

12/6/2008 – "I must request you to critically view and question the GA's latest decisions," writes Levon Aronian, the world's number seven ranked player, to the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. "Why should we go through several tournaments over several years and fight for a place in a tournament that another player gets by losing a match?" The winner of the second Grand Prix sent us this open letter.

Should kings really decide the result of a game?

12/6/2008 – Which recent report generated the fastest and most vigorous reader responses? Not the new cycle of FIDE, not Ivanchuk's run-in with the doping commission. It was Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh's proposal to force players to play out every game until mate. In 24 hours we received a slew of letters ranging from "silly idea" to "most brilliant proposal since the inception of the game". Feedback.

The future of all databases

12/5/2008 – If you want to compete successfully, you must know the current state of affairs: which variations are played and why some old ideas are just no good any more. In short, you need a database which is up-to-date, complete, reliable, and ready to get going at once. All this is guaranteed by the new ChessBase Mega Database 2009, which is now ready for shipping. Buy it now or read more.

Let kings decide the result of a game on the board

12/5/2008 – Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh is imaginative, innovative, eccentric. In other words: our kind of person. Once a year he approaches us with a radical idea – last year it was video cameras and intelligent object recognition software tracking games and replacing sensor boards. This year at the Olympiad in Dresden he had a proposal to change how a chess game ends. Judge for yourself.

Magnus Carlsen withdraws from Grand Prix

12/5/2008 – After a week of correspondence with the FIDE office in Athens, and after receiving replies he deemed unsatisfactory, Magnus Carlsen, the world's number four ranked player, has decided to withdraw from the 2008-2009 FIDE Grand Prix cycle. Instead, the Norwegian GM, who turned 18 last Sunday, will "concentrate on playing well organised and interesting top level events elsewhere". From Magnus' blog.

FIDE announces bidding procedure for World Championship

12/4/2008 – Are you the mayor of an affluent town or community? The head of PR for a major corporation? If you are seeking world-wide publicity you can obtain it by staging the Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship – or the World Championship itself. The price of the former has been slashed from a million to €400,000; the latter needs a million Euros in prize money. Announcement.

Wijk aan Zee 2009 – players, places, dates and times

12/4/2008 – The annual Wijk aan Zee tournament takes place from January 16th to February 1st 2009. Anand, Topalov and Kramnik are missing, but Morozevich, Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Aronian and Radjabov make for a star-studded field. Groups B and C are also well equipped with interesting players, including a former world champion and the current junior world champions. Full information.

World Champion vs lowly IM – a crush

12/3/2008 – Mikhail Tal was winning Gold for the Soviet team at the Olympiad. In the final round he faced IM Jonathan Penrose. As one might expect, it was a crush – but the "crushee" was Tal. In his Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos introduces us to this remarkable player and his remarkable game. Be there at 9 p.m. ET.

Nigel Davies – The English Opening

12/3/2008 – "I don’t know many people who actually enjoy playing against the English Opening," the reviewer writes. "In my experience, club and tournament players are rarely well prepared to meet it. Thus it seems a very reasonable idea to add it to your collection of favourite openings." You can do this with Nigel Davies' trainer DVD. Order it now or read this review by Sean Marsh.

Carlsen on the Grand Prix + readers' feedback

12/3/2008 – The cauldron is on the boil, FIDE has changed the World Championship qualification regulations, Alexei Shirov has lodged a protest. Now Magnus Carlsen, represented by his father Henrik, hints at legal action and withdrawal from the cycle. We bring you a report from his blog and feedback from readers on this and other subjects (including Aronian on women and computers!). A long, interesting read.

Olympiad Dresden: statistics and stories

12/2/2008 – The games are over, but there are still plenty of stories to tell about one of the biggest and most spectacular chess Olympiads ever. We start our series of retrospective articles with one on the Elo winners, a medal-deciding game, on the most unusual results, the stolen diamond, the reception of the winners in their home countries and the trauma of a 0-4 loss against your arch rivals. Enjoy.

Alexei Shirov: 'Let us ban FIDE!'

12/2/2008 – "I don’t know how many times I have said to myself," says the world class GM and world championship runner-up, "that it makes no sense at all to keep getting involved in chess politics and that I should just concentrate on my work. But the recent FIDE 'developments' possibly made many late great champions turn in their graves. That means the living chess players should speak out." Press release.