Chess Trivia of 27 January

On 27 January captain Evans (1790), Lodewijk Prins (1913), Alexander Nikitin (1935), Jeroen Piket (1969) and Sergey Erenburg (1983) were born.

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Press conference Svidler

So now also Peter Svidler. A joy to listen to. He’s an expert in British literature and this you notice just by hearing his nice pronounciation. “Great”, I said, when he entered the press room. “No no, it wasn’t great”, he replied of course, because at some point he had a lost position today. “It’s great that you’re doing the press conference”, I then said, because I was very curious about how he would be doing it. And we weren’t disappointed by him. Have fun! full story »

Press conference Aronian

So two press conferences tonight. First a close look at the way Levon Aronian plays chess. The man who didn’t celebrate his breakthrough that long ago, and led his Armenian team to the gold medal at the Turin Olympiad last year. This man has it’s own style of explaining and playing, or so it seems. For instance, he keeps on saying “I didn’t calculate this” but we’re not sure if we should believe this… full story »

Live reporting: round 11

Last update: 19.06 CET

The oh so o exciting last phase of the Corus Chess Tournament has begun. Three rounds to go, and three great ones, wow. In group A the question is if Radjabov, after his good start, can also do a finishing sprint to make Topalov’s life a bit harder. Today Radja plays Kramnik, so maybe the world champion has to be the one to go for it. However, he needs to make up one and a half point, just like Anand (today with White against Shirov), Svidler (today with White against Topalov!) and Aronian (today with White against Karjakin). full story »

Chess Trivia of 26 January

On 26 January Gideon Stahlberg (1908), Fridrik Olafsson (1935) and Jean-Marc Degraeve (1971) were born. On 26 January 1907 the world championship match between Emanuel Lasker and Frank Marshall started. Lasker won 11,5-3,5.

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Fritz, Rybka, or think for yourself after all?

In the glorious past grandmaster games still had something invincible, something you would look at with respect and would not dare giving your opinion about. Grandmaster games were something very complicated, something you should not show to beginners, since it would only confuse them. Since the rise of the computer, databases and engines, that is all gone. You can check in the database up to which point it was still theory and from that point on you can judge the players’ performance with any engine. The audience at home knows exactly what is happening from move to move and top players are complaining about the decline of respect. full story »

Early upsets in Gibraltar

On this rest day of Corus we have some time and space to pay attention to that other great tournament of January 2007: the Gibraltar Chess Festival. Two of the nine rounds have been played in what’s a huge Swiss group. Michael Adams, who played in Wijk aan Zee many times, naturally is clear favourite, as can also be seen in our poll in the grey column. He’s on 2 out of 2, together with Greenfeld, I. Sokolov, Rogers, Sutovsky, Ramesh, Zhu Chen, Efimenko, Roiz and two players rated under 2300: Salgado Allaria and Fogel. full story »

Chess Trivia of 25 January

On 25 January Matthias Wahls (1968), Rune Djurhuus (1970) and Alexander Goloshchapov (1978) were born. On 25 January 1908 Mikhail Chigorin passed away. He was the strongest Russian chess player before Alekhine. Chigorin won the first three Russian Championships (1899, 1900-1901 and 1903). In 1889 and in 1892 he lost twice against Steinitz in a world championship match.

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Press conference: Topalov again

O well… the same story again, another press conference by Topalov? Go and be silent. A player with a dazzling rating of 2783 behind his name, explaining what he thinks are good moves and which not, what he does think about and what not, which moves he expected, this never starts to bore. He’s now one full point above the rest of the field, but he’s got probably the toughest finishing schedule: Svidler, Kramnik and Radjabov, with two times the black pieces. We’ll see. But first the chess lesson by Veselin! full story »

Live reporting: round 10

Last update: 17.49 CET

Time flies and the Corus Chess Tournament is already in round 10. Again we see the 6.Be3 Najdorf: Karjakin-Anand play their 23 moves of theory very quickly. 23…Qc6 is still known from Morozevich-Volokitin 2006 and Leko-Karjakin 2006 but the played move 23…Nb5 was only played in a game by two unknown players. full story »

A theoretical endgame in group C

At the end of the fourth round of the Corus Chess Tournament, when almost everybody had gone home already, something unsual happened in the C-group: in the game between Stellan Brynell and Mihail Krasenkow, after 66 moves the ending of two knights agains pawn arose. full story »

Grand Slam Chess Association established

Last week in Wijk aan Zee, the Grand Slam Chess Association has been established. In September last year, the organizers of the four top tournaments in Bilbao (human-machine), Sofia (MTel), Linares and Wijk aan Zee already got together to discuss their plans. The main goal of the GSCA was then formulated: “The four top players in the world ranking must play in all four of the events or they won’t be allowed to play in any of them.” full story »

Meanwhile, in B and C…

At this time the ninth round of Corus has been played. In group B the French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has increased his lead and is now a full point ahead. He didn’t even have to win. A draw against Jan Smeets and a defeat of rival Eljanov against Chessvibes-editor Erwin l’Ami helped the Frenchman further ahead. But there are still four rounds to play, so it can still be anyone’s tournament! full story »

Chess Trivia of 24 January

On 24 January Manuel Bosboom (1963), Teodor Ghitescu (1934) and Jerzy Konikowski (1947) were born.

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Press conference Anand

Of the Big Three, we had only Anand left to explain a game before our camera. It was him who used the demo board today, afther his (slightly lucky) win with White against Loek van Wely. At the end of the video Vishy answers some questions as well, like whether his resignation against Topalov was premature, and how he explains his less successful appearance this year. Have fun again with the press conference, and this time also with fragments of the post-mortem!

Jan. 24, 0.50 CET: Problems with the press conference video have been solved. full story »

Live reporting: round 9

Last update: 17.56 CET

After the second rest day, everybody’s back to business. The new leader of the tournament may prove himself immediately, playing the black pieces against Aronian. White’s English Opening doesn’t look scary there. Theoretically speaking, most important is Anand-Van Wely: they follow the ultra-recent developments in the (gladly, topical again) Poisened Pawn Variation of the Najdorf: for twenty moves they repeated Motylev-Anand, Corus (02) 2007! Loek is the first to deviate, with 20…Nc6, which means a positional exchange sac. full story »

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