Still no draws in Mainz

8/16/2003 – Are we onto something when we suggest the following theory: in rapid chess, if you come out of the opening with a healthy position, a nice little advantage even, you are doomed. Equally fatal is a clear advantage in the middlegame – boom, you lose. Take a look at what happened on day two of the Mainz Chess Classic.

Yet another fighting day in Mainz

8/16/2003 – With hundreds of spectators watching in the hall, and even more on the Playchess.com server, Vishy Anand and Judit Polgar delivered another two nerve-racking games at the Chess Classic in Frankfurt. You will not want to miss the final tomorrow evening. Meanwhile here is today's action.

Slugfest with Anand and Polgar in Mainz

8/15/2003 – The Chess Classic in Mainz, German, started off with two exciting rapid chess games between Vishy Anand and Judit Polgar. The first was a super-sharp Sicilian with Judit dealing the final blows. But the Indian rapid chess expert struck back in the very next game to tie the match 1:1. More...

Love, Metal and Jägermeister Chess

8/14/2003 – What do rock musicians do between concerts? Like in the evening, in strange cities, when they are looking for some lively entertainment. Wrong! They play chess. At least if they are Finnish Love and Metal rock stars with a taste for German herbal liquors. Confused? You will be after you read this somewhat raunchy report.

Chess Today turns 1000

8/14/2003 – The net-based news daily Chess Today is published by GM Alexander Baburin. This month the landmark 1000th edition was sent to subscribers. To commemorate the milestone Baburin took part in a chat on Playchess.com. Here's a transcript of this interesting discussion.

Terachess in Budapest

8/14/2003 – What is "Terachess". It's an experiment pitting two teams of top GMs, who can consult with each other and use any technical tools they like during the game. The first Terachess event is planned for early 2004 and will be covered on a major TV station. The players are of the highest calibre and the venue historically interesting. Here are further details...

Susan Polgar wins 2003 Open Blitz Championship

8/13/2003 – The 2003 US Open Blitz Championship fielded a lot of seasoned GMs, like Ehlvest, Wojtkiewicz, Browne, Sharavdorj, Blatny, plus lots of IMs, Senior Masters and Masters. This tournament, one of the strongest in recent history, was won by a woman! GM Susan Polgar, four-time women's world champion, took the title with a sensational 11:1 points. You'll be surprised to learn the circumstances under which she won.

Anand vs Judit – a sweet dilemma

8/13/2003 – It is not easy being a chess fan these days. The battle for the unofficial title of the "best rapid player in the world" will be fought in Mainz, starting August 14th. GM Vishy Anand will be playing GM Judit Polgar in a match of eight rapid games. Those of us who like to take sides in these matches are faced with a very sweet dilemma – who do we root for this time around? You decide.

ChessBase statistics -- part three

8/13/2003 – A few decades ago a mathematician named Arpad Elo devised a pretty slick ranking system based on statistical probability. FIDE (the World Chess Federation) adopted it as an official standard in 1971 and chessplayers the world over have greeted each other with "What's your rating?" ever since. More in this week's ChessBase Workshop

Peter Svidler prepares to dance the Mainz Shuffle

8/12/2003 – In recent years a part of the Mainz Classic events has been "Chess960," aka shuffle chess or Fischerrandom chess. Russian GM Peter Svidler won the open event last year and will face Peter Leko in a match of this curious variant in a few days. Svidler talks about that match, his return to the top 10, and what being a father has meant for his chess. More

Grandmasters brutalised in Lippstadt

8/10/2003 – The weather is sultry, but one participant at the Lippstadt GM tournament is keeping its cool. Our experimental hardware program Brutus is taking point after point from its opponents. Brutus has won all three games so far – the first one with a spectacular piece sacrifice against Ukrainian GM Oleg Romanishin. Here are the computer games.

Dortmund Round 10: Viorel Bologan sole winner

8/10/2003 – Viorel Bologan has created the sensation of the year. The 31-year-old Moldovan clinched sole victory in the Sparkassen Chess-Meetings 2003 in Dortmund, a full point ahead of Kramnik and Anand. Bologan led the tournament from the first round all the way to the end. With 6.5/10 his performance rating was 2814. Full report now up.

It's official – Garry Kasparov vs X3D Fritz

8/10/2003 – Newsweek broke the story and we reported on the preparations. Now it's official. X3D Technologies has announced that Garry Kasparov will take on the computer program X3D Fritz "in total virtual reality, with the chessboard floating in the air between man and computer". Here is the X3D press release.

Anand: 'Stop the circus!'

8/9/2003 – In 2001 Vishy Anand won the FIDE title of world champion, which he lost a year later to Ruslan Ponomariov. Now the the world's number three has been shut out of the championship cycles. Anand calls the current situation a complete mess. "It is tough to get sponsors, and people are still trying to hold three World Championship matches," he says in this critical interview.

Fritz – the ideal chess coach

8/9/2003 – Everyone knows that Fritz is strong – strong enough to take on world champions in match play. But is it weak enough to be genuinely useful to the chess amateur? Emphatically yes, according to a review published on the Deaf Gamers site. Mainly the author is impressed in how realistically the program plays weak chess. Here are excerpts.

Dortmund Round 9: Big guns quiet, showdown on Sunday

8/9/2003 – Just when you would expect things in Dortmund to be heating up they have gone stone cold. Bologan's pursuers, Anand and Kramnik, again played short draws. The only person happy about this is Viktor Bologan, who can wrap up the tournament with a draw tomorrow in the final round. He was held to a draw by Radjabov today and will have his hands full with black against Kramnik on Sunday. Report and games

Germany's new Grandmaster: Shredder!?

8/8/2003 – The Sixth Magistral de la Republica Argentina was won convincingly by the ChessBase program Shredder 7. It's 8.5/10 score was well above the GM norm and two points ahead of the pack of GMs and IMs chasing it. That's a 2752 performance rating! The human side of things was won by Andres Rodriguez of Uruguay. Report and games

Dortmund Round 8: Radjabov's revenge, leaders draw

8/8/2003 – Not all short games are created equal. Bologan-Leko went from slow to stop in 19 moves. Kramnik-Anand was a complicated 21-mover that required precise defense from Black. Then there was the 26-move battle of the teens rematch between Radjabov and Naiditsch. Black was under attack before his seat was warm and threw in the towel with mate not far off. Report and analysis

ChessBase 8.0 statistics – part two

8/8/2003 – In this week's ChessBase Workshop, Steve Lopez presents the second in a series on ChessBase 8's graphic statistical displays. This time out, Capablanca's wins as Black are broken down by ECO code in multiple bar graph displays. More...

Dortmund Round 7: The real Vishy Anand is in the house!

8/8/2003 – What a difference one game can make. Anand beat the player who defeated him in the second round, beat the leader, moved into a tie for second, and played a spectacular rook sacrifice. And he did it all in one game against Viktor Bologan. Radjabov swindled a draw against Leko, Naiditsch-Kramnik was a 27-move draw. Analysis and report are now up here.

Dortmund Round 6: Red-hot Bologan extends lead

8/7/2003 – Be on the lookout for this man. He's armed (with novelties) and dangerous (in any type of position). We've run out of superlatives for Viktor Bologan's performance in Dortmund. He won again on Wednesday to build an insurmountable lead with an incredible 5/6 score. This win came against Naiditsch's Marshall Gambit. Anand is back in the fight (for second place) after beating Leko. Report and analysis are now up.

Ladies and gentlemen, upgrade your ratings!

8/7/2003 – ChessBase 7 and 8 both contain a unique Players Encyclopedia. This contains full information on over 100,000 players and tens of thousands of pictures. Periodically the Elo ratings need to be upgraded. We show you how you can do this, step by step.

The Rogozenko-Bologan conspiracy

8/7/2003 – Why is everyone talking about Viorel Bologan? Because he is winning the Super-GM in Dortmund by some ridiculous score. But doesn't it strike you that two weeks ago, long before the tournament actually started, our Playchess.com trainer Dorian Rogozenko held a lecture on Bologan. We uncover details of a sinister plot.

Happy Birthday Helmut Pfleger!

8/6/2003 – Who is the best-known German chess player? If you count the number of people who know his name or would recognize him on the streets then GM Helmut Pfleger wins the contest hands down. Not because he was one of the most talented players in the sixties and seventies, but because he has brought chess into the mainstream media. Today Helmut turns sixty.