|
| 
|
Tata Steel Rd.6 bis: The Nak, the McChine, and GM Tom Thumb
22.01.2011
– The sixth round was such a rich day with so much interesting chess, that we found ourselves with quite simply too much material for a single report. As a result, we are making a second complementary report to give tribute to the many fighters who helped make it an exceptional day. Here are commented games from all three groups, and a gallery of pics of those future stars.
More games and pictures.
|
| 
|
Tata Steel Rd.6: Four wins with black, Nakamura joins Anand
21.01.2011
– An exciting day, with four black victories (and none with white) in group A, Carlsen, Kramnik, Nakamura and Nepomniachtchi being the winners. With that Hikaru Nakamura joins Vishy Anand in the lead, both with 2900+ performances. In the B-group six of the seven games were decisive, three with the black pieces. Luke McShane leads with 5.0/6 and a 2921 performance.
Round six report.
|
| 
|
Garry Kasparov as you have never seen him before
21.01.2011
– The idea for a series of commercial spots, produced with the former World Champion Dutch banking giant ING, is unique: Kasparov and a host wear the hats of different countries and speak about openings named after them: the English, Polish, Russian. The video clips, posted on the bank's home page and on YouTube, are multilingual, short and going viral in the chess community.
Enjoy.
|
| 
|
Tata Steel: looking with pleasure at B and C
21.01.2011
– The Wijk aan Zee “B” and “C” groups have traditionally served to herald rising stars, such as Karjakin, Carlsen, and Anish Giri the last two years. This year seems unlikely to be an exception with McShane having a breakthrough period since the London Classic, and 14-year-old GM Nyzhnyk in the "C" event just behind Italian GM Daniele Vocaturo. Illustrated report with
analysis by GM Karsten Mueller.
|
| 
|
Tata Steel Rd.5: Anand, Carlsen win, Grischuk loses to Wang
20.01.2011
– Viswanathan Anand applied systematic pressure on Jan Smeets until the Dutch GM blundered and gave the World Champion the sole tournament lead. Magnus Carlsen did pretty much the same to Erwin l'Ami, only to blunder the won position to a theoretical draw – which the amazingly determined Norwegian GM went on to win! Alexander Grischuk lost to Chinese GM Wang Hao.
Round five report.
|
| 
|
Christmas puzzle solutions – part one
20.01.2011
– As promised we provide you with the solutions to our 2010 Christmas Puzzles.
There were a very large number of entries, and our problem expert John Nunn
has put a lot of work into explaining the solutions as lucidly as possible.
This made it necessary to split the solutions into two parts, with the second
due in a few days. For today here is the
first part.
|
| 
|
TCF renews offer to host the 2011 European Women Championship
19.01.2011
– Three weeks ago the Turkish Chess Federation withdrew its offer to host this attractive event, due to a conflict with the European Chess Union. According to a New York Times report the ECU President Silvio Danailov implied that the TCF had simply run out of funds. Now the Turkish side is renewing its offer: we will stage if you will be polite.
Open letter + new NYT article.
|
| 
|
Tata Steel Rd.4: Anand joins Nakamura in lead
19.01.2011
– Shockingly, Nepomniachtchi blundered in ten moves against Aronian, but fortunately attention was drawn away to Anand's lovely positional piece sacrifice against Wang Hao. Anish Giri gave leader Nakamura no end of trouble, but was unable to win. Our report has analysis by GM Karsten Müller plus video commentary by GMs Daniel King and Sergey Shipov, and
photos by Fred Lucas.
|
| 
|
Open letter by Women's World Championship participants
18.01.2011
– It was an exciting event, and we reported
enthusiastically. But as it turns out not all the players were enchanted
by the conditions of the WWCCh in Antakya/Hatay (Turkey). They feel they were
overcharged, unappreciated and had to play in substandard conditions. Eighteen
participants have signed the highly critical letter – to which FIDE has
promised to respond.
Plus: a new NYT article.
|
| 
|
Chess prodigies and mini-grandmasters revisited
18.01.2011
– It is one of our most-quoted reports – a page
dating back to 2002, which we upgraded periodically. Now it is time for a general
overhaul. With the help of our readers we have collected the data of all prodigies
who became grandmasters at the age of fifteen or younger. In addition we address
the question: who were the strongest players in the different age categories?
Latest data and statistics.
|
| 
|
An unblocked passer ...
18.01.2011
– ... is always dangerous, particularly after having reached the 6th rank already. The second player was well aware of this when he went for
34...Be5 in this position, expecting a certain deflection move whereupon his queen is to stay in the e-file. What do you think? This...
A)... loses for Black;
B)... leads to an approximately balanced position;
C)... gets Black the advantage.
The solution is here,
but first ponder over it with a
larger version of the diagram.
|
| 
|
Tata Steel Rd.3: Nakamura leads A with 2.5/3; McShane on 3.0/3 in B
17.01.2011
– The tournament has certainly taken an unexpected turn, with the leaders taking a lackadaisical approach. What is one to make of Carlsen's colossal blunder, dropping a piece to Giri right out of the opening? Nakamura has shown that his arrival in the top ten is no fluke as he beat Shirov in a fine game taking sole lead, while McShane continues his rocket run with 3.0/3.
Round three report.
|
|
|
