Navara-Short & Jacková-Timman

Today two rapid chess matches start in Prague, between the two strongest Czech players and two former world championship contenders. Nigel Short plays Ordix Open winner David Navara (hopefully Short recovered from his illness that forced him to withdraw, after round 6, from the Banyoles Chess Festival last week.) WGM Jana Jacková, the best Czech female chess player, will play against Jan Timman.

Update 12.38 CET: it is confirmed that Nigel will play this afternoon, despite the fact that he still suffers from back problems. full story »

Analysis Stellwagen-Khalifman

Playing for a win, yesterday Daniël Stellwagen was surprised by a rare, tactical shot played by Alexander Khalifman in the 6th round of the NH Chess Tournament. This morning I analysed this game, because it’s quite interesting and not all the lines mentioned on the tournament website are correct. After 6 rounds the Rising Stars team has a minimal lead over the Experience team (15,5 to 14,5) and the best players so far are Sergey Karjakin and Artur Jussupow, both on 4 out of 6. full story »

Berelovich wins 3rd BDO

Has the Dutch chess calendar ever been so busy? Besides the première of the Euwe Stimulans and the sequel of the NH Tournament, another Dutch event already saw its third edition this month: the BDO Chess Tournament in Haarlem. Yesterday the tourney finished with a good last round with a lot of fighting games, where GM Aleksandar Berelovich improved his final score in the Premier group some more (he had already secured clear first in the penultimate round) to 7½ out of 9, two points more than IM Daan Brandenburg, GM Karel van der Weide and GM Attila Czebe. full story »

Simutowe scores 3rd GM-norm in Euwe Stimulans

Yesterday Zambia-born IM Amon Simutowe scored his 3rd GM norm by drawing his 8th round game of the Euwe Stimulans Tournament in Arnhem, The Netherlands. If I counted correctly, when he gets his rating over 2500 he will become Africa’s 6th grandmaster, after Hichem Hamdouchi (Morocco), Ahmed Adly, Bassem Amin (both Egypt), Slim Belkhodja and Slim Boaziz (both Tunisia). Simutowe’s success is a nice bonus for an already great tournament; for their first edition the organizers of the Euwe Stimulus had managed to bring together a very special group of participants. full story »

Vachier-Lagrave youngest French champ ever

Today France got a new national champion and he’s only sixteen (and ten months) years old. His name: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. He finished shared first with the current European champion, Vladislav Tkachiev, but in today’s tiebreak final naturally the internet generation representative proved to be the strongest blitz player (after the two rapid games had both ended in a draw). full story »

Weekly Endgame Study (34)

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 »

Henrik Carlsen speaks out

On his increasingly popular blog, Magnus Carlsen’s father Henrik made some interesting statements about the current world championship cycle and the World Cup in December. He analyses the current situation and the privileges that both Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov received. Henrik’s insider’s point of view clarifies the complicated matter a bit more and therefore deserves mentioning. full story »

Smirin wins Acropolis 2007

Ilia Smirin has won the open tournament Acropolis 2007, held 14-22 August in Athens. After his draw against Malakhatko in the last round all the other results turned out positively for the Israeli grandmaster, who finished on 7 out of 9. On a half point ended K. Georiev, Parligras, Mastrovasilis, Malakhatko, Banikas and Svetushkin. full story »

NH Chess Tournament under way

At 13.30 CET this afternoon the first moves were played at the NH Chess Tournament’s second edition. You know, that nice idea to give talented young players a chance to try their luck against experienced world class players. Sponsors are NH Hoteles and the Association Max Euwe from Monaco, just like last year the tournament is played in the Krasnapolsky hotel on Dam square in Amsterdam and again the formula is Scheveningen: a “Rising Stars” team plays against an “Experience” team. full story »

Action movies from Mainz

Everything has been cleaned up already in the Congres Center in Mainz but not yet here at ChessVibes. There are still some videos left from the rapid tournaments. I have shot some timescrambles of well-known grandmasters, and so it looks like you’re standing next to the boards of gentlemen such as Grischuk, Karjakin or Mamedyarov. Similar in all these action movies: endgame technique. The big guys usually seem to beat the slightly smaller guys with accurately played little endgames. Instructive! full story »

The tour is over

Yesterday afternoon I came home, back from Mainz, and this meant the official end of ChessVibes on tour. Four months I’ve been playing tournaments and making on-the-spot reports - time flies when you’re having fun, the cliche says. Hopefully you, as the audience of this site, have enjoyed it too. For myself I had a great time; finally I’ve carried through my old dream of living the life of a professional chess player for a while. I think I’ve improved my chess a little bit and at the same time I’ve become even more ambitious as far as ChessVibes is concerned. So as from today you can expect the daily chess news reporting you’re used to.

Anand rapid world champion for 10th time

Viswanathan Anand’s speech was a very short one, last night: “Just to thank everyone, I hope you enjoyed it.” It had exhausted him, all those rapid games the last four days in Mainz, and therefore the press conference was canceled. He did give a short interview to Vijay Kumar for the Indian television and this we can show you. In the final Anand beat Aronian after drawing three games and then winning the last one with Black. He clinched his tenth title of the GrenkeLeasing Rapid World Chess Championship, the eigth in a row. full story »

David Navara wins Ordix Open

David Navara has won the super strong rapid tournament Ordix Open in Mainz, after dominating the event on the last day. His incredible score of 9,5 out of 10 was already enough to win the tournament because although he lost in the last round, which allowed Mchedlishvili and Sasikiran to join him with 9,5 out of 11, David’s progressive score was by far the best of course. ChessVibes is happy with this Ordix Open winner since we’ve been a fan of this friendly young boy from the Czech Republic for a while. After the prize giving I had an interview with him. full story »

Impressie of the FiNet Chess960 Tournament

So much is happening here in the Congress Center in Mainz that the journalists can barely keep up with the pace of events. In the morning the games of the big open rapid tournaments start and quite quickly, thanks to the Gründlichkeit amongst the arbiters, the rounds are being played after each other. Though yesterday there was a small delay, and therefore just ten minutes after the fifth round the four top GM’s appeared on the stage already to entertain the audience for the rest of the evening. The amount of video material I now have is probably too big to publish all, but I’ll just try to pick the best parts. For now an impression of the open Chess960 tournament which was won by Bologan. full story »

Rapid final on repeat

As expected, the two Mexico participants Aronian and Anand also qualified for the final of classical chess. Just two decisive games yesterday: Bacrot lost to both Aronian and Kasimdzhanov. The latter did what he had promised the day before: he played well and got excellent positions against both Anand and Aronian. In the game with Levon, Rustam had decided “to forget that it was rapid and just go for a well-prepared line”, he told the journalists at the press conference. full story »

Bologan wins FiNet Open Chess960

Although the previous article might have suggested otherwise, you haven’t seen the last Chess960 yet. Yesterday and the day before many more top grandmasters played each other in the FiNex Open Chess960 and the eventual winner was Viktor Bologan, who in the last round beat Vassily Ivanchuk in a very positional game. Ivanchuk had been playing board one almost all day after Mamedyarov, the leader after five rounds, lost three times, one game against Kamsky in just eight moves! Later lots of spectacular videos will follow of this tournament, but first an interview with the winner, taken a couple of minutes after he beat Ivanchuk. full story »

Anand back in comfort zone

Many are slightly relieved now that that funny shuffle chessy thing is finally over and people started playing normal stuff in Mainz. As from today chess players like you and me can try their luck against many grandmasters; the four top players already started last night. The best rapid player in the world, Viswanathan Anand, is clearly back in his comfort zone and scored 2,5 out of 3. Aronian and Bacrot have 1,5 while Kasimdzhanov only 0,5, but nonetheless after the games he was making jokes during the press conference, which we have for you fully on video! full story »

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