Tournaments from Poland to Paks

6/24/2005 – Summer just officially started but chess season is well underway. The European individual championships are both in progress and the strong Marx György tournament just finished in Paks, Hungary. You can check out all the standings and games here.

Michael Adams mauled by a machine

6/24/2005 – Currently the chess machine Hydra, consisting of 32 processors enhanced by special FPGA chess hardware and running at 200 million moves per second, is giving Britain's top GM Michael Adams a rough time. After half of their six-game match the score is 2.5:0.5 for the machine, which is located in Abu Dhabi. What has the future in store?

Kasim vs the Accoona Toolbar – draw in New York

6/23/2005 – On Tuesday FIDE world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov played an exciting game against the Accoona Toolbar, driven by a Fritz 9 prototype, in the ABC Times Square studios. With three hundred spectators and a dozen television cameras Kasim played a daring attacking game. Full analysis will follow, here's a pictorial report.

PAL / CSS report from the dark horse's mouth

6/22/2005 – Actually there were two of them, but "horses' mouths" is hard to say. Who were they? Where the heck is New Hampshire? A pair of amateurs from New England triumphed over the world's strongest computers and many Grandmasters using computer assistance. Impossible? Learn all about the players and their methods in their own words.

How to analyse your games

6/22/2005 – When you ask a grandmaster how to improve your play, there is probably a 50-50 chance that he will answer: Analyse your games. GM-elect Jacob Aagaard will try to give some advice, assisted by Ian Marks in the Wednesday night Glasgow Studios Playchess show.

Major changes for Fritz 9

6/22/2005 – The new version of Fritz 9 won't be out until the Fall, but we got a preview when the prototype engine battled FIDE champ Rustam Kasimdzhanov to a draw in New York. In his latest ChessCafe column, Mig Greengard interviews ChessBase honcho Frederic Friedel about a new direction for Fritz.

From New York: it's Kasim vs the Accoona Toolbar

6/21/2005 – Today's the big day. Reigning FIDE world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov will play a match against the "AI Accoona ToolBar" in the Times Square ABC Studios with live web coverage. This weekend "Kasim" arrived in New York City and got to know his computer opponent, which is driven by the latest version of Fritz.

GM Arno Nickel: Adams can beat Hydra

6/20/2005 – On Tuesday a chess spectacular is scheduled to begin in London: top UK grandmaster Michael Adams will face the awesome power of the Hydra chess machine, which has the processing power of more than 200 standard PCs and can calculate 200 million positions per second. Adams can achieve about two. Still, an expert in the field says the human can win.

Kortchnoi leads at Super-GM in Paks

6/20/2005 – He is fifty years older than the average of the other participants, and older that than almost any three opponents you pick from the field. But Viktor Kortchnoi is the driving force at the Super-GM tournament in Paks, Hungary. With 5½/7 points he is poised to chalk up another great victory.

Dark horse ZackS wins Freestyle Chess Tournament

6/19/2005 – The computer-assisted PAL/CSS Freestyle Chess Tournament, staged on Playchess.com, ended with a shock win by two amateurs: Steven Cramton, 1685 USCF and Zackary Stephen, 1398 USCF, using three computers for analysis, defeated teams of strong grandmasters all the way to victory in the finals. We bring you a first flash report with games and results.

Albin Planinc, the third wild man

6/19/2005 – In the 1970s, Yugoslavian chess featured three wild men: Ljubojevic, Velimirovic and Albin Planinc.The first two were internationally famous, while the third is almost completely unknown nowadays. In his Monday night lecture Dennis Monokroussos seeks to change that.

Bruzon fights back to take classical section

6/19/2005 – In the two-part match between Dutch GM Jan Timman and Cuban talent Lazaro Bruzon, the former took a 3½:½ lead in the rapid section. Then came the classical section, with very exciting games, intensely enjoyed by the spectators on the Internet and on the Caribbean island of Curaçao.

Six players lead in Moldova Women's Championship

6/18/2005 – Chisinau, Moldova, is staging the European Individual Women's Championship 2005. After seven rounds ther are six players with 5½ points each. One of them, Tatiana Grabuzova, started at 54th seed. Meanwhile some of the top players are languishing in the middle of the field. Standings and games.

The workings of the chess player's brain

6/18/2005 – How does the mind of a chess player work? How do memory, experience, analysis and inspiration work together to produce chess moves? The question has defied science – so far. Now a very imaginative young researcher has worked it all out and provides us with a vivid explanation, presented in an unusual form: a one-act play by Alex Shternshain.

The Sakkzseni from Szeged

6/17/2005 – Don't be afraid – sakkzseni means "Chess Genius", and the southern Hungarian city of Szeged is pronounced "segg-gedd". The person in question is the 25-year-old world championship challenger Peter Leko, who like Géza Maróczy and Franz Liszt is a great hero of the townfolk. Here's a big illustrated report of Peter's Szeged.

Scintillating chess in the PAL-CSS Freestyle tournament

6/15/2005 – This unusual event, in which players may use computer assistance during the games, is turning into a milestone experiment. After the main event and the quarter-finals (and with four players left) we can draw first tentative conclusions. One is that the most powerful chess playing entity on the planet is a GM armed with a computer.

The ladies battle it out in Moldova

6/15/2005 – The European Individual Women's Championship 2005 is under way in Chisinau, Moldova. 164 of the strongest female players from this part of the world are gathered together to crown a champion and to nominate twelve participants for the women's world championship. We bring you games, results and lots of beautiful pictures.

Give up the sissy version – play Chinese chess!

6/15/2005 – David H. Li is not too fond of chess – at least not the strange variety we play. The retired professor from Washington DC calls it Queen-Qi or the "Queen’s Game“. A much faster and more exciting version predates Western chess. It originated in ancient China and is called XiangQi, the Elephant Game.

Timman in great form – in the sea and out

6/14/2005 – Veteran Dutch GM Jan Timman is having a great time on the Caribbean island of Curaçao. Besides making friends with local dolphins, he had a great start in his match against Cuban talent Lazaro Bruzon. Timman won the Rapid part of the match with a 3.5:0.5 score.

Super-GM in Paks – it pays to know the rules

6/13/2005 – Our heart bleeds for Krishnan Sasikiran, India's second-highest ranked player. In his game against Emil Sutovsky, at the 3rd Marx György tournament in Paks, Hungary, he did not know that he could claim a draw in a totally drawn endgame. Instead Sasi lost on time on move 100. Report and games.

Anand bags his fifth León title

6/13/2005 – Former FIDE world champion Vishy Anand defeated the current FIDE champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov in the finals of the traditional Ciudad de León rapid chess event with an exciting 2½:1½ victory. It wasn't as easy as it sounded, since Kasimdzhanov threw a spanner in the works with a first-game win. Full illustrated report.

Svetozar Gligoric and the Botvinnik Plan

6/12/2005 – In his Monday night Playchess lecture Dennis Monokroussos talks about the Yugoslav Grandmaster, many-time world championship candidate, theoretician and all-around good guy, who was a very important figure in world chess from the early 1950s through the 1980s. Come, listen and learn.

Hydra misses the quarter-finals of Freestyle tournament

6/11/2005 – It was the shocker of the event: the massive Hydra machines, running on 16 and 32 processors and special FPGA chess hardware were both knocked out in the main section of the Freestyle chess tournament. On the other hand a dark horse named ZackS qualified with consummate ease. Today there will be tie-breaks, tomorrow the quarter-finals. Come and watch...

Kasimdzhanov and Anand win 3:1, 3:1

6/11/2005 – FIDE world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov made his mark at the traditional Ciudad de León rapid chess event by winning both his black games and knocking out Alexei Shirov with a 3:1 score. Former FIDE champ Vishy Anand defeated Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen by the same score. The final is on Sunday.