Endgames are fun!

Chess players who like to improve their game, are always adviced by trainers not to spend too much time on openings. “Study the endgame. Your game will benefit from this for the rest of your life.” But, as I always thought, and many other ambitious players with me: endgames are no fun? I must say that I started to appreciate studying the endgame some more after Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual was published, but now three books have appeared that make it even more fun. full story »

Watch Anand for free day on ICC

On Saturday 21 April you can play on ICC for free (even if you tried a 7-day trial once) and watch Anand raising funds for his favorite charity Vidya Sagar. At 12:00pm Eastern Time (16:00 GMT – 18:00 CET), Anand will be playing a 90-minute simul against opponents who have all bid on eBay for seats to play. Not only can you watch all the action as it happens on the board, you can also watch ICC’s exclusive AnandCam that will show the world #1 playing the simul live from his home in Spain. The event is hosted by Mig and Macauley. More info at ICC.

The fastest way to win more games

The fastest way to win more games of chess is by improving your tactical abilities. This is very good news because virtually all of us love tactics.

A few days ago a new book arrived in our warehouse: My Daily Exercise: 365 Tactical Test to Improve Your Chess. It has some distinctive features:

• the exercises are listed in random order (in most collections you get an unwelcome hint to the solution because there is a listing by theme - here you are on your own!)
• the lay-out of the pages with the solutions is such that when looking one up, you cannot take a peak at the solution of the next one (oh, you never did that?)
• it costs only € 16.95.

Don’t be too sure this book is not for you because it says “From beginner to club player”. A couple of our staff had serious problems (and lots of fun) in mastering this book.

Please have a look at it here.

Sigeman & Gausdal

Two Scandinavian tournaments have started today. First there is the Sigeman & Co Tournament, which has been organised since 1993. Our compatriot Jan Timman has been quite succesful in Malmö (2nd in 2000, shared 1st in 2001 and 2005 and clear 1st last year) and naturally plays again this year, together with Erwin l’Ami, Johnny Hector, Tiger Hillarp-Persson, Emanuel Berg, Pontus Carlsson, Ivan Cheparinov, Parimarjan Negi, Vasilios Kotronias and Emil Hermansson. A field that will surely serve us some great games. And then there’s the Gausdal Classics, also starting today, with Magnus Carlsen, Michael Krasenkov, Alexei Dreev, Eduardas Rozentalis, Kjetil Lie, Kaido Kualots, Gawain Jones, Lajos Portisch (!), Irina Krush en Eric Moskow. full story »

Where did our money go?

The European Championships in Dresden was quite succesful from an organisational point of view. Unfortunately ChessVibes had to report about some negative points as well. And we have to add one more. Today we received an open letter by one of the participants, GM Erik van den Doel. He and other players were very disappointed about the hotel food and after doing some math, they are confused about part of the money they paid for accomodation. full story »

Terrific Tatiana (and Tkachiev)

Vladislav Tkachiev from France became the new European Champion after he beat Cheparinov, Jakovenko and Sutovsky in yesterday’s tiebreak. They had ended shared first with Pavasovic, Cheparinov, Sakaev and (IM!) Iljin with 8 out of 11. It was far less exciting in the women’s section. In what was really Tatiana’s Tournament, the youngest Kosintseva put down a magnificent 10 out of 11 (with a tpr of 2774, better than any of the performers in the open section, as was noted by Dennis Monokroussos). The tiebreaks brought her sister Nadezhda bronze and Antoaneta Stefanova silver. full story »

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Spassky & Portisch level age and match

This weekend the two distinguished gentlemen Lajos Portisch and Boris Spassky played a six games rapid match against each other. Both are seventy years old and both scored three points. The match was held in the spa town of Hévíz (Hungary) which is located in the biggest thermal lake on earth (Hévíz means ‘warm, streaming spring’). The lake of Hévíz is warmed by a geothermical spring and its water is around 28°C all year long. But of course the two chess legends didn’t come there to just bob in the water. full story »

Kasparov arrested

Garry Kasparov was arrested today by the Russian police at a banned anti-Kremlin rally in central Moscow. It seems the police didn’t wait as long as they did last month in St Petersburg and wouldn’t let Kasparov and his Other Russia spread the anti-Putin word. The Russian President didn’t take half measures and threw in more than 9,000 police men to prevent the rally going ahead. Kasparov wanted to join the rally but was arrested together with other activists as well as journalists. full story »

Weekly Endgame Study (15)

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 »

Copyright on chess games?

Every now and then the discussion flares up again. Can copyright be applied to a chess game? Is the game score a specific property of the players, or perhaps of the tournament, and can they prevent others from publishing them? The discussion is topical again because of the little gadget of the company Monroi which is being used more and more at chess tournaments (like Gibraltar, the US Championship and the current European Championships). Players ‘write down’ their moves digitally and the games are broadcast live on the internet automatically. But what is the case? Monroi’s small print says that by registering to their website, you have agreed to recognize Monroi’s copyright on game scores! full story »

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