Light clothing, beautiful legs

91st British Championship 1st – 14th August 2004, Scarborough, Yorkshire

The 91st Smith & Williamson British Championships is being held from August 1st – 14th in the Spa Complex, Scarborough, Yorkshire. The top seeds are Mark Hebden, Jonathan Rowson and Paul Motwani are the top seeds. The prizes are £10,000; £5,000; £2,500; £1,500; £1,200; £900; £700; £500; £300. After eight (of nine) rounds the leaders are Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (2446) of Georgia ROWSON, and Jonathan W Rowson (2558) of Scotland with 6½ each, followed by Wells, Greet, Hanley, Houska, Jones, Motwani and Williams with 5½ points each.

• Official web site
• Live coverage and games
• All games played so far

8th Hogeschool Zeeland Tournament

7th – 14th August 2004

The tournament consists of 9 rounds, Swiss system. The rate of play is 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by 30 minutes for the completion of the game. The top seeds are Krishnan Sasikiran (India, 2666), Rustam Kasimdzhanov (FIDE world champion, Uzbekistan, 2640), Viorel Iordachescu (Moldavia, 2633) and Sergey Tiviakov (Holland, 2601).

The standings after six rounds were: 1. Krishnan Sasikiran, Merab Gagunashvili, Mikheil Mchedlishvili and Daniel Stellwagen: 5.5 points; 5. Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Sergey Tiviakov, Vyacheslav Ikonnikov, Lars Schandorff, Jan Werle, Harmen Jonkman, Georgios Souleidis and Holger Riedel: 5.0 points.

There are results, games, reports (in Dutch: "Het duel tussen de twee koplopers heeft geen beslissing opgeleverd..."), background information and a lot of uncaptioned photos on the home page of the organisers. Many of the pictures do have name plates visible, so you can often reconstruct who the players are, as in our small selection below.

Top seed Krishnan Sasikiran vs young Dutch talent Daniel Stellwagen

Dutch summer: light clothing and beautiful legs everywhere

• Official web site (with results, games, live coverage, reports, photos)

Tournoi d'échecs international de Montréal 2004 4th– 15th August 2004

This category 12 closed tournament sports seven GMs and five IMs. Alexander Moiseenko (Ukraine, 2640), Eduardas Rozentalis (Lithuania, 2619), Igor Novikov (USA, 2610), Alexander Huzman (Israel, 2588), Zahar Efimenko (Ukraine, 2572), Igor-Alexandre Nataf (France, 2553), Dmitry Tyomkin (Canada, 2498), Pascal Charbonneau (Canada, 2472), Kateryna Lahno (Ukraine, 2472), Igor Zugic (Canada, 2465), Mark Bluvshtein (Canada, 2461), Thomas Roussel-Roozmon (Canada, 2451).

• The official web site is in French (which is apparently what they speak in large swaths of Canada). It contains results, games, and pictures, with the navigation on the left thankfully understandable even to the most Francophobe visitor (for instance, can you guess what Résultats – Cumulatif or Photos – Participants could mean?).

Russia-China Team Match 10th – 16th August 2004

This match between the Russian and Chinese teams started on August 10 in Moscow Central Chess House. A team consists of six men, three women and three juniors (what a great way to promote chess for everybody!). The playing system is Scheveningen. Men play in one robin, women and juniors – in two. The Russian team is led by Aleksey Dreev (2690), Chinese team by Ye Jiangchuan (2681). Chinese male team is fielding the currently strongest players of their country, but their best female players, Xie Jun and Zhu Chen, are not in Moscow, the latter because she is in a late stage of pregnancy.

It is the second official duel of the two countries. The first match (China, 2001) was won by the Russians with a 41.5:30.5 score.

• Live coverage of the games
• Russiachess online coverage (Russian language only)

Picture gallery

The Central Chess House in Moscow, where the match is being held

Chinese team captain Ye Jiangchuan

His counterpart, the Russian team captain Alexey Dreev

A game under way in the men's team section

Xu Yuhua vs Natalija Pogonina in the women's section

Chinese team members analysing after a game

In the analysis room, Russian and Chinese players conduct a postmortem

The Russian women's team, with Olga Zimina, Polina Malysheva, Natalija Pogonina and Elena Zaiats

Alexey Dreev making a point to WIMs Olga Zimina and Natalija Pogonina

Watching and discussing the games in the press room