Baden-Baden leader again

Before the “winterstop” started, this weekend title holder OSC Baden-Baden and three other clubs catched up with the other teams, and played their third and fourth rounds of the Bundesliga. After this the situation in the German national league is back to normal, because with victories against Turm Trier, SC 1950 Remagen and Godesberger SK the home team, with Peter Svidler on board one, took the lead. full story »

Kamsky wins World Cup 2007 (update)

Article updatet with photos and videos

Today, after 23 days of the World Cup, it’s now all decided: Gata Kamsky has just drawn the last game of the final against Alexei Shirov and thus he won the match 2.5-1.5. The player from Brooklyn, New York, who emigrated to the US a long time ago and who, after a long break in his chess career, fought himself back into the absolute world elite, and has now won the Cup, 120.000 USD and the right to challenge Veselin Topalov. Truly a wonderful result by the man who was in fantastic shape throughout the whole tournament. Shirov, who can also look back at a really great tournament, goes home with 80,000 USD, a bunch of rating points (just like Kamsky) and probably the desire to go on a long vacation now. The fans favoured him, but again, Caïssa didn’t grant him a match. full story »

World Cup (3): another draw, 2-1 Kamsky

In the third game of the World Cup Final, Kamsky again managed to draw against Shirov with Black. Shirov avoided Kamsky’s Breyer with 9.d4 and an old line came onto the board, in which White clearly got an advantage. But right from that moment Kamsky started to show excellent defence, and although White won a pawn, it was never clear if he could win somewhere. full story »

Weekly Endgame Study (49)

Every Saturday an endgame study is published at ChessVibes, selected by IM Yochanan Afek: player, trainer, endgame study composer and writer. A week later the solution is published. Good luck with the instructional occupation of solving a study! full story »

World Cup (2): Kamsky beats Shirov

Kamsky has won his White game against Shirov, the second game of the FIDE Word Cup Final 2007, after he drew the first game with Black yesterday. These guys have two things in common: they’re 1.e4-players and they both won’t participate in Corus this year. In a very interesting game Shirov went down in a difficult ending with mutual timetrouble, where Kamsky played very strongly. The analysis below is the live coverage of today. full story »

George Costanza (Seinfeld) playing chess

Just a short clip in between. The start of the episode The Engagement, the first episode of season no. 7 of Seinfeld, where George Costanza (Jason Alexander) is playing chess. All right, a bit cliché this one, but at least the square down left is dark. full story »

World Cup Final (1): Shirov-Kamsky draw

A very correct draw on a high level, the first of four games Shirov-Kamsky, FIDE World Cup Final 2007. Today we were even more interactice: ChessVibes provided live commentary, but not in one direction – that’s sooo last year. Together with regular updates, we added the Chat Box again, and many visitors joined the commentary. full story »

Chess & communism: the story of the 20th century

“He has the face of a chess player”, said Nazi German foreign minister Ribbentrop about his Soviet counterpart Molotov after they had negotiated their “Non-Aggression Pact” in 1939.

One wonders what made Ribbentrop say that, and what he actually meant by it.

Daniel Johnson, in his book White King and Red Queen, does not refer to this little episode. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t written a splendid book about twentieth-century chess and its connection to the rise and fall of Soviet Communism.

Johnson is the former literary editor of The Times and no mean chess player himself (he once drew Garry K. in a simultaneous). He recounts in fine detail how the Bolsheviks took chess with them when they entered the Kremlin.

From Lenin and Krylenko via Botvinnik to Fischer and Kasparov, Johnson has written (in the words of Simon Sebag-Motefiore) “a fascinating story of Cold War espionage and chess rivalry”.

White King and Red Queen has just come out, is beautifully edited, with 379 pages in hardcover. Robert Conquest was intrigued by “the range of astonishing ego’s”, and calls it “a unique addition to our historical knowledge”.

Please, have a look at this fine book. It might be something for your holidays.

Kasparov throws in the towel

Ex-world chess champion and leader of the Russian opposition Garry Kasparov is dropping his presidential bid. Today Kasparov said in Moscow that he’s being hindered too much by the Russian government: “In all Moscow we have not been able to find a hall where our supporters could meet,” he said. His movement had encountered problems obtaining premises for a meeting officially required for his candidacy to be put forward in time. Because of all the problems Kasparov has encountered to promote The Other Russia, Kasparov finishes his electoral campaign tomorrow. full story »

Catching up

Because of the World Cup, we haven’t had much time and space to cover other chess news and events for a while (except for the Bundesliga of course). At this first (and only) rest day in Khanty-Mansiysk, we take the opportunity to do some catching up with a list of short news items. Something we’re considering to do more often. full story »

World Cup: Shirov qualifies for final

Experience has conquered youth. After Gata Kamsky, Alexei Shirov has also qualified for the World Cup by beating Sergei Karjakin convincingly; the score was 1.5-0.5 in the rapids, while the draw should have been a win as well. The first game was a fantastic fight in a Sveshnikov Sicilian that resulted in the terribly difficult NN vs RB ending, that needs over a 150 moves to win with perfect play. Shirov had to settle for the draw but wasn’t affected at all by this misfortune, and showed fantastic endgame technique in game two, with White in a Marshall Gambit, that also did the trick against Jakovenko. full story »

World Cup: Kamsky eliminates Carlsen

For Magnus Carlsen the World Cup has now come to an end as well. He was defeated by Gata Kamsky today, who placed “a knight on the rim” with decisive effect. A very logical plan had put Magnus’ heavy pieces on very unfortunate squares, as it turned out, when White’s simple Qg4 threatened both Nf6+ and Nf4. The many Carlsen fans need not cry for too long, because one thing we know for sure: Magnus will be a world title candidate very soon again. (If only because the semi-finalists have already qualified for the new Grand Prix 2008-2009 series.) Karjakin-Shirov was another draw and so a tiebreak tomorrow has to decide who will be the other finalist. full story »

Interviews Wojtaszek & Ftacnik

National champion Baden-Baden finished their Bundesliga weekend with another small victory: 4,5-3,5 against Hamburg, who actually won on the first three boards 2-1. Like McShane, Wojtaszek held world champion Anand on a draw (and he told us more about it before the camera), Bacrot couldn’t break “Gusti’s” resistance and Vallejo Pons lost again; this time he was mated by Ftacnik (who also tells us more about the game in a video). full story »

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