Volokitin, Gelfand win Biel GM Tournament

7/28/2005 – After leading for seven rounds in Biel US champion Hikaru Nakamura crashed, losing the last three games to end fourth. Boris Gelfand and 19-year-old GM Andrej Volokitin ended on top. In the ladies' section it was Almira Skripchenko and Indian talent Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman. Final report.

The question of the week

7/28/2005 – Science, like chess, attracts bright people, and there are many more males in both fields. So can we conclude that men are smarter? Not necessarily, says Marilyn vos Savant in PARADE Magazine. "Chess was developed by males for intellectual sparring with other males. Maybe females simply don’t find the game as fascinating." Questionnaire...

'One should not expect any gratitude from Karpov''

7/27/2005 – After Anatoly Karpov's sharp-worded attack towards the current FIDE administration, we have received a second rejoinder, from Zurab Azmaiparashvili, FIDE Vice President, whom Karpov accused of "attacking policemen like a madman". Here it is, together with some feedback from our readers on the Karpov controversy.

Shredder 9.0 wins the Copa Mercosur

7/27/2005 – We have to admit: humans and computers are not in the same league anymore. A simply CD-based chess program, running on standard off-the-shelf hardware, will win any regular chess tournament, even if it drops a point due to a technical glitch. Here are the games and results of a typical event in Argentina.

Eljanov wins Amsterdam Chess Tournament

7/26/2005 – With strong GMs like Timman, Sokolov, Akopian and Timofeev participating, the winner of the Second ACT was 22-year-old Pavel Eljanov from Ukraine, who scored 7/9 with a 2757 performance. We bring you the results, all 450 games, and some remarkable photographic impressions by Fred Lucas.

FIDE: Bad opening by Anatoly Karpov

7/26/2005 – "It is unfortunate that Anatoly Karpov’s unconstrained desire to promote himself as a potential candidate for the FIDE Presidency has driven him down a slippery path of falsification of facts," writes FIDE Deputy President Georgios Makropoulos. It is a reaction to a recent interview with Karpov that we published on our pages. Here is FIDE's reply.

Nakamura leads the Biel GM Tournament

7/25/2005 – After seven rounds of the double round robin category 16 GM tournament in Biel US champion Hikaru Nakamura remains in the lead with 4.5/7. The draw rate in this section is 71%, while in the Ladies' tournament, where Gaponenko and Skripchenko lead, it is a fighting 47%. Games and pictures...

Bulgaria vs Turkey – preparing for Gothenburg

7/25/2005 – In a few days the European Team Championship begins in Göteborg (Gotenburg), Sweden. Both the Turkish and the Bulgarian teams are taking it very seriously. To prepare they played a friendly two-round match in Svilengrad, Bulgaria. We bring you games and pictures, and introduce you to the young Turkish team.

Dear Kirsan Nikolayevich, Alushta is for real!

7/24/2005 – Is the beautiful Black Sea resort of Alushta a place where Master norms are artificially manufactured? FIDE seems to have suspicions and refused to ratify the norms of several players gained in chess tournaments in the Ukrainian resort. Now 43 GMs have protested in an open letter to the FIDE President.

Spielmann vs Stoltz, a little-known classic

7/24/2005 – In his Monday night Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos looks at a fantastic 1930 games which contains a magnificent, albeit speculative, sacrificial idea, not by Spielmann, but his less famous adversary. The game is especially interesting for players of the French Defence. Come, listen and learn.

Ivanchuk, Shirov, et al. win Canadian Open

7/23/2005 – This is chess for the fans: a large and varied contingent of featured players, side events like a simul on the Santa Maria, a replica of the ship used by Christopher Columbus, at one of the world's most spectacular malls. Fighting spirit was evident in most games, and upsets were also plentiful, even on the top boards. Report and games.

The greatest (chess) show on earth

7/23/2005 – It is a two-hour extravaganza, which is theoretically viewable by a 300 million TV audience. A chess match between teams from Russia and the USA, playing against each other via the Internet. In the studio live commentary, and a bluegrass band called Bering Strait. You can watch it tomorrow on terrestrial, satellite, cable or web TV. Come and watch.

Deep Junior vs Deep Fritz – the truth within

7/23/2005 – At a time when machines are likely to take over not just how we play chess, but also how we learn the game, it is of paramount importance to distinguish between good and best chess programs. Aside from the sporting parameters we need to know how different programs have adapted to human-style chess. Aryan Argandewal has examined two top contenders.

Five hours on her heels – Judit in Jerusalem

7/22/2005 – It is a beautiful Sunday evening in Israel. So what does a chess lover do when the eighth best chess player in the world is giving a simultaneous exhibition, just a couple hours from his house? He fights the traffic and finds his way to the Municipal Building in Jerusalem so he can see her in the flesh and send us a story and pictures.

Azmai cleared by Spanish court

7/22/2005 – Remember the brutal beating received by FIDE Vice President Zurab Azmaiparashvili at the close of the Chess Olympiad in Calvià, Spain? He was accused of having attacked members of the Guardia Civil, who were trying to prevent him from mounting the stage at the closing ceremony. Today at a court hearing in Mallorca the Spanish authorities decided to drop all charges.

Current tournaments – Sanjin, Biel, Argentina, Israel

7/21/2005 – Recovered from Dortmund? Well, the chess circuit continues, with a number of interesting international events either finished (Harikrishna won Sanjin in China, Najer and Smirin won in Israel) or under way. In Argentina the program Shredder played a spectacular blunder, but leads the event anyway. We bring you games, results and pictures.

Radio ChessBase: What newspaper do chess players read?

7/20/2005 – IMs Jacob Aagaard and John Shaw go on a rampage through the world of chess for the last week or so in their weekly radio show on Playchess. There will be the usual snippets from all over the world, but also a puzzle show to guess the name of the newspaper that sponsors a major event. Come take part.

Dortmund – and now for the videos

7/20/2005 – The Sparkassen Chess Meeting was a great success, especially from the point of view of chess reporting. After every round TV ChessBase broadcast interviews with experts and with the players themselves, hot from the games they had just finished. If you missed these great shows not to worry: there are archive links to them.

Mikhail Tal – too complicated for one show

7/18/2005 – In last Monday's Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos looked at one of the most excruciating examples of a Tal game, one the great Latvian world champion had himself not dared to annotate. Dennis got up to Black's 21st move. Today he will show us the rest.

Dortmund R9 – Arkadij Naiditsch wins Super-GM

7/17/2005 – This is what everybody was waiting for: the underdog, bottom seed, finishes one of the strongest tournaments in the world in first place. And a local boy at that. Arkadij Naiditsch clinched it with a last-round draw against Peter Svidler, while his main rivals Loek van Wely and Vladimir Kramnik failed to catch him. Now with full report.

Dortmund R8 – Kramnik and Topalov win

7/16/2005 – Arkadij Naiditsch, the lowest-rated player, is still in the lead in Dortmund, but three top GMs are in hot pursuit one round before the end of the Sparkassen Chess Meeting: van Wely, Kramnik and Svidler. Kramnik achieved this by beating Nielsen, and both players afterwards analysed their game for a world-wide audience on TV ChessBase.

Winter on Zugzwang

7/15/2005 – Blurb... Full article.

Dortmund R7– Svidler, Bacrot and Naiditsch win

7/15/2005 – The excitement continues: Peter Svidler beat Peter Leko, Etienne Bacrot outplayed Michael Adams, and Arkadij Naiditsch took a full point off Peter Heine Nielsen with the black pieces. The games were transmitted live on the official web site and on Playchess.com. In the end Peter Svidler commented for TV ChessBase. Full report with video.

Two DVDs by Andrew Martin

7/15/2005 – Andrew Martin is a chess teacher of some renown, possessed of excellent communication skills and a flair for the metaphorical. He's already displayed his considerable talents on previous ChessBase DVD offerings. You can get a preview of his two newest training DVDs, The Basics of Winning Chess and The ABC of Chess Openings in the latest ChessBase Workshop.