More videos!

As said before, I could collect a large quantity of good video material last Saturday. Today we experience the tournament online till and including round 9. A loss by Manuel Bosboom or Hans Ree playing: have fun with these rare pieces of material. full story »

(Photo) report

Update: more photos at ChessVista!

The whole Chessvibes team is looking back at a very succesful first tournament. Everything went quite smoothly and there barely occured any incidents. The justified winner was David Smerdon, who is said to be one of the strongest blitz players on ICC. In his speech afterwards, he said he thought the Dutch players were so nice and decent. In Australia many more pieces would have fallen on the ground and more incidents would have occurred! full story »

First videos Chessvibes Blitz Tournament!

There appeared to be more than 70 minutes of footage on tape. Quit some editing has still to be done, but now we’ll present the first few videos of yesterday’s Chessvibes Blitz Tournament. One with fragments from all Saturday, and then a few games from the first five rounds. More videos will follow, as well as a small report with photos. full story »

David Smerdon wins first Chessvibes Blitz Tournament

David Smerdon has won the first Chessvibes Blitz Tournament. Just put my equipment (printer, camera etc.) at home and put the full finals standings online. Now I quickly head back into town; tomorrow more. Much more. Like lots of videos.

Weekly Endgame Study (6)

Every Saturday an endgame study is published at Chessvibes, selected by Yochanan Afek: player, trainer, endgame study composer and writer. A week later the solution is published. full story »

‘Cheating Topalov recorded’

For quite a while now, in the chess world there is a big fuzz about alleged cheating by the world’s highest rated player Veselin Topalov from Bulgaria. Rumours that started after his huge success at the Wch in San Luis (Argentina), at the end of 2005, that were intensified by the article by Martin Breutigam in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Russian newspaper Kommersant now claims to have in their possession a video made by a Dutch chess fan, who claims to have put on tape suspicious gestures of Topalov’s manager, Silvio Danailov. Just for the record: it wasn’t Chessvibes! full story »

Yuri Averbakh 85

Today Yuri Lvovich Averbakh has reached the age of 85. Awerbach has become famous especially for his years of hard work in the field of endgames, which resulted in many high-level endgame manuals. However, especially in the fifties he was also one of the world’s strongest chess players. full story »

A new book by the late Bronstein

Last December the great David Bronstein sadly passed away, just when the English translation of his latest book was almost finished. The book is called Secret Notes and it’s available now. In it, Bronstein joyfully describes his travels to various Western countries after his ban on travelling abroad was lifted in 1989. As you may remember, Bronstein refused to join other Soviet grandmasters in denouncing Viktor Kortchnoi for his defection in 1976, and was barred from travelling for 13 long years.

There’s a chess part as well, with 30 annotated Bronstein games from the nineties, plus, as a remarkable extra, all six games from a previously unpublished training match with Kortchnoi from 1970! Plus lots of memories from the past, plenty of pictures old and new, a foreword by Garry Kasparov. All in all, a worthy tribute to David Ionovich Bronstein.

You can order this very personal travel & chess account of David Bronstein here.

The Navara Fanclub

One of the most remarkable participants in the Corus Chess tournament was the Czech top talent David Navara. Navara (22, rating 2719) is a special boy. Extremely modest, polite, apologizing all the time, he makes an unworldly as well as a heart-warming impression, enhanced by his monotonous manner of speaking and his habit of looking at the floor while he talks. In the pressroom people soon started calling him ‘cutie’ and ‘honey’ - words normally reserved for certain player’s wifes, female journalists and press employees. full story »

Round 5 Dutch league: HSG still leading

After the first, lengthy overview of the Dutch league (called ‘Meesterklasse’) it’s time to pay some more attention to the top of the Dutch team competition. Last weekend the fifth round was played, and now it’s clear that we’re dealing with a race between two teams: HSG from Hilversum and Share Dimension from Groningen. full story »

Ending: Zugzwang

In a game for the Dutch team league, last Saturday, I was rather lucky that my opponent did not notice a nice motive in an endgame position. He could have force me in some sort of zugzwang which is absolutely worth checking out. full story »

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