Annual Survey

For a while I wasn’t sure if I wanted to join in the well-known end-of-the-year navel staring: the annual surveys. But simply too many great things were going on in the first year of Chessvibes (formerly Doggers-schaak), so looking back is actually a good idea. full story »

Solutions Christmas puzzles

Here are the solutions to the Christmas puzzles of last week. At the same time it became a nice overview of earlier articles. Some of them only in Dutch, unfortunately. full story »

Marvellous Morozevich

It was Marvellous Morozevich again, this week in Pamplona. He won the not very weak tournament with the splendid score of 6 out of 7 and noted a Rybkayan tpr of 2951. What a shame he won’t be there, in Wijk aan Zee, in two weeks from now. full story »

The blunder of Seville

Good news at the end of the year. Someone posted images on Youtube of the dramatic eleventh match game Karpov-Kasparov, Seville 1987! Kasparov’s faces after Karpov’s blunder 35.Rc6?? have become legendary but were not, as far as I know, available on internet before. full story »

Karsten Müller on the 1st match game Kramnik-Deep Fritz

During the Christmas celebration in our chessclub HSK I asked the well-known endgame expert & grandmaster Karsten Müller whether he would be interested to occasionally & spontaneously contribute to the interesting project Doggers-schaak (about which he had read in one of the German chess magazines!). Müller is the author of Fundamental Chess Endings and Secrets of Pawn Endings (both together with Frank Lamprecht). Below you find his first contribution: how Kramnik could have beaten Deep Fritz in their first match game. full story »

‘FIDE will not consider request for Topalov’s disqualification’

Small newsflash: FIDE’s press office told the Bulgarian information agency FOCUS that FIDE will not consider Carsten Hensel’s request for Topalov’s disqualification. The issue has not been included in FIDE Presidential Council’s agenda in Antalya on January 22nd-29th 2007.

Cheater banned for ten years

In a world where microchips are getting smaller and smaller, and mobile phones are turning into tiny personal computers, for a lot of people the temptation to cheat with chess is also getting bigger and bigger. And indeed, it’s not that difficult anymore to get help from outside the playing hall during a chess game, wearing any kind of modern communication devices. Umakant Sharma from India is the first to get caught and punished severely after using a bluetooth device during a tournament at Delhi earlier this month. He’s been banned from chess for no less than ten years. full story »

Morozevich-Shirov analysed

They know how to fight in Pamplona. The players keep on going for the opponent’s throat and constantly play for a win. In round 3 and 4 only one game ended in a draw! The game Morozevich-Shirov naturally was one of the games the audience was looking forward to, and for a change, I’m offering a lengthy analysis of that game, including the opening theoretical background. full story »

Christmas puzzles

Christmas 2006. ‘The time of reflection’ is what they say. Nopes, not here. Just some nice Christmas puzzles, common in newspaper chess columns and here a good idea as well, so I tought. They’re all positions that were shown before at Doggers-schaak. Have fun and a merry Christmas to everyone. Soon the solutions. full story »

Pamplona started

Two favorites of the public can be found on the participants list of the tournament in Pamplona that started the day before yesterday. Alexei Shirov (2720) and Alexander Morozevich (2747) give acte de presence, and also Voktor Laznicka (2596), Radowslaw Wojtaszek (2630), Christian Bauer (2585), Oleg Korneev (2657), Dmitry Jakovenko and Miguel Illescas Cordoba (2620). Already after two rounds, nobody has a hundred percent anymore. full story »

Ivanchuk wins Torre Memorial

Vassily Ivanchuk regained the title of the Carlos Torre Memorial which was held in the Mexican city of Mérida, in the state of Yucatan, from December 14 through the 22. Ivanchuk had been the champion of the 2004 edition and this time he won the title after defeating Cuba’s Bruzon in rapid games 1.5 to 0.5. The Cuban player had grabbed last year’s cup. full story »

Missed opportunity by Negi

Today Parimarjan Negi missed a big chance for the equaliser in his Amity Grandmaster Challenge versus Kateryna Lahno. In this position he played 28.Rg1? and the game ended in a draw after 28…Bxg1 29.Be6 Ng3+ 30.Kxg1 Ne2+ 31.Kf2 Nf4+ 32. Ke3 Nxe6 33.fxe6 Re8 34.Nf7+ Kg8 Nxh6+ Kh8 and a draw via perpetual. Do you see how White could have won? full story »

Cooperation Kirsan and Bessel confirmed

Hot news: today in a press release the news was brought that Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and Bessel Kok, the two opponents during the FIDE president elections in May, will cooperate. A few months ago Ilyumzhinov had already mentioned that the further development of professional chess could be in the hands of a company outside FIDE, run by Kok, and now these plans are confirmed. full story »

Hensel asks for disqualifying Topalov

Toiletgate is not over yet. Hell no. After some more serious Bulgarian allegations, Vladimir Kramnik and his manager Carsten Hensel had enough of it. Hensel has lodged a claim at FIDE, stating Topalov has been violating FIDE’s Code of Ethics, according to Sofia News Agency Novinite. Topalov’s potential punishment could involve a three year ban from professional chess. full story »

Two replacements at Corus

There have been two mutations in the grandmaster groups of the Corus Chess Tournament. In Grandmaster group B Alexandra Kosteniuk (ill) was replaced by GM Viorel (a.k.a. Viktor) Bologan from Moldavia, and in Grandmaster group C Sipke Ernst (university obligations) was replaced by reigning Dutch Women’s champion Zhaoqin Peng. The categories of the two events remain the same. full story »

Match of the talents

Who’s the biggest chess talent these days? It’s probably a choice between just two players: Parimarjan Negi (2538) from India (playing in Corus group C next month) and Kateryna Lahno (2459) from the Ukraine. Lahno is the world’s youngest female grandmaster and the reigning European Women’s Champion, Negi is the world’s youngest grandmaster. He’s studying at the Amity International School in New Delhi, the organisers of a lengthy match (including regular games, rapid and blitz) between Negi and Lahno this week. So far it’s a close call: three draws and a win for Lahno. Negi could probably have won today. full story »

Another Kasparov commercial

Tonigh I ran into another Kasparov commercial on YouTube. It’s about Kasparov and his fighting against the Machine; the company is Pepsi. The plot (as far as one can speak about a plot in a commercial) isn’t that strong in my opinion, but the styling is nice. Watch the reference to HAL-2000 (the eye of which an image was used in an article by rapanui the other day). full story »

Torre too got his Memorial

One of the more boring opening lines is the Torre Attack: 1.d4, 2.Nf3 and 3.Bg5. If the Mexican chess player Carlos Torre Repetto (23 November 1905 - 19 March 1978) finds out he’s mainly remembered for these opening moves, he’ll turn around in his grave (can you say this in English?). This was probably what the organizers were thinking when setting up the Torre Memorial which is held this week. full story »

Tactics with Bobby

Black to play and win full story »

1st ACP World Rapid Cup announced

This morning GM Mikhail Golubev sent me a joint press release of the Ukrainian Bank Pivdennyi and the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP), in which the First ACP World Rapid Cup is announced. It’s great to see that the ACP managed to get together a bunch of super grandmasters for the rapid tournament that will be held 4-8 January. No wonder the press release starts enthousiastically: “A new move in the history of professional chess!” full story »

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