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European Team Championship – a pictorial retrospect
14.11.2011
– Earlier this week Germany, starting as tenth seed, created a sensation by winning the title, with Azerbaijan and Hungary getting Silver and Bronze. But who were the strongest individual players in the open and women's sections? And who the most photogenic? We return to the ETCC in Porto Carras one more time with statistics and a
beautiful pictorial by WGM Anastasiya Karlovich.
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Germany wins the European Championship
14.11.2011
– Could anything be more dramatic or unexpected? Top seed Russia was never in contention, instead it was other strong teams like Armenia, Bulgaria or Azerbaijan, who each went into the lead. But then tenth seed Germany suddenly started to win, joined the leaders and finished with a clear win on match points. In the women's section it was of course Russia.
Updated with games and notes.
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CBM training: Polerio's Eckenspiel, Dominance, Excelsior
13.11.2011
– "Many thanks for the continual presentations of endgames," writes
Gene Bate of Kansas City, USA. "I cannot find words to tell you how much
I appreciate those news items!" To which we say: keep searching, Gene!
But seriously, so many people are writing in the same vein that we know we are
doing something right with Karsten Müller's ChessBase
Magazine column. Here are
this weekend's lessons.
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FIDE Women’s World Chess Championship starts on Monday
13.11.2011
– The two opponents – Hou Yifan of China and Koneru Humpy of India – represent over a third of humanity. They are playing their match in a country of three million people, one that not too many people have had an opportunity to visit. We undertook the trip to Tirana in Albania and, together with all the details of the upcoming match, bring you
pictorial impressions of the venue.
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Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (73)
12.11.2011
– Marking the tenth anniversary of the death of Tony Miles, at the age of only
46, the Editor of Chess
Notes discloses some tantalizing brief extracts from his correspondence with
the great British master. They include discussion of the 22-board blindfold exhibition which Miles gave in Roetgen, Germany in 1984. All the game-scores were passed on by Miles for safekeeping and
are given here now.
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VG Nett quotes Carlsen on the Kasparov-Nakamura cooperation
11.11.2011
– Magnus Carlsen, as you probably know, was trained by Garry Kasparov in 2009 and 2010, then in March 2010 the two terminated their collaboration. Last week it was revealed that Kasparov had taken on a new trainee, American GM Hikaru Nakamura – since January this year. After a long New in Chess interview with both proponents now Magnus has aired his views in this
VG Nett report.
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ETCC R8: Germany upturns tables with win over Azerbaijan
11.11.2011
– And the leader changes again! Germany scored a surprise 2.5-1.5 victory over Azerbaijan, with Arkadij Naiditsch convincingly defeating Teimour Radjabov on the top board. They (the Germans!) now share the lead with Armenia, who outplayed Netherlands. The Russian women moved closer to the title by beating France. Individual board ranking lists are out.
Round eight report.
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Using chess engines to estimate human skill
11.11.2011
– In sports and games, rating systems are a widely accepted method for estimating skill levels of the players. They are based on the outcome of direct competitions only. Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko of the University of Ljubljana propose a different approach: to assess skill level at chess by applying chess engines to analyse positions and moves played.
Interesting academic study.
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ETCC R8: Germany upturns tables with win over Azerbaijan
10.11.2011
– And the leader changes again! Germany scored a surprise 2.5-1.5 victory over Azerbaijan, with Arkadij Naiditsch convincingly defeating Teimour Radjabov on the top board. They (the Germans!) now share the lead with Armenia, who outplayed Netherlands. The Russian women moved closer to the title by beating France. Individual board ranking lists are out.
Round eight report.
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London Chess Classic and the history-making 2800 club
10.11.2011
– The 2011 London Chess Classic is now just a month away – and it just got a little bit stronger. The latest ratings published by FIDE are the ones which will apply to the event. At the top of the list, for the first time in the history of chess competition, there are four players rated 2800 or more. All are playing in London. So that's not a bad place to be,
from December 3-12.
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ETCC R7: Azerbaijan crushes Bulgaria, takes the lead
10.11.2011
– After six rounds Romania, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria were in the lead, with ten match points each. Then came the unexpected drubbing, and could have easily ended with a 4-0 for the Azeris. Bulgaria , who were in the lead after five rounds, are now in place six, while Azerbaijan is first on match and board points. The Russian women continue to lead, with two full match points.
Report after round seven.
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CBM training: Missed turn-around, key diagonal, rampant rook
10.11.2011
– There is a wonderful endgame section in every issue of ChessBase
Magazine, with practical lessons taken from current tournament play. The
trainer is GM Karsten Müller, who also gives us a weekly session of topical
endgames with detailed instructions on how to handle them. You can study Dr
Müller's analysis or download the games for later review.
Look, learn and enjoy.
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