HSG wins 1st Dutch Championship

Last Saturday, in the penultimate round of the Dutch club competition, HSG from Hilversum has won the national team championship for the first time since it was founded in 1887. They only needed one match point, but the players from HSG could open the champagne bottles after another big victory: 1½-8½ against Homburg Apeldoorn. full story »

Spring calendar

Now that Corus, Linares, Aeroflot, Amber and other big tournaments in 2008 have finished, it’s time for a new overview of chess events in the coming months. Spring’s chess calendar. full story »

Lots of Australian chess videos

One of the strongest tournaments of Australia, the Doeberl Cup, was won by GM Varuzhan Akobian, before Zhang Zong and Surya Ganguly. These tournament organizers are also into chess 2.0 because they made lots of nice videos as well. full story »

Weekly Endgame Study (64)

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 »

Dos Hermanas (internet) starts today

For the ninth year running the XIX Internet Chess Tournament “Ciudad de Dos Hermanas” (Spain) is being held on the ICC playing zone. Registration for the event is completely free both for ICC members and non-members!

This event is clearly the most important Internet chess tournament in the world, featuring the biggest number of participants. In the 2007 edition, nearly 2000 players from all over the world took part. The winner, former child prodigy and under-10 World Champion IM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun, overcome an impressive field of 300 IM/GM’s, including top players Shahriyar Mamedyarov, Tigran L. Petrosian, Gata Kamsky, Hikaru Nakamura, Kiril Georgiev and Sergey Shipov.

This year the prize fund is $12,000 (equivalent of 7,700 Euro), with $3,400 (equivalent of 2,000 Euro) for the winner. In addition, there are many class prizes and special cash prizes for amateur players. Also, winners can achieve the opportunity to travel to Dos Hermanas for the main Event, with Topalov, Shirov, Polgar and Vallejo, at the end of April.

As in previous editions, the playing system is as follows: twelve 12-round Swiss qualifiers using the playing rate: 3 minutes per game. Qualifiers are held twice a day from March 28th to April 2nd, and the finals are held on April 4th and 5th. The 12 qualifier winners plus the 20 best scores qualify to the 32 KO final.

Full rules, guidelines and registrations can be found at ICC’s special Dos Hermanas website.

John B. Henderson,
ICC

“The best repertoire book ever written”

Jeremy Silman called Beating the Open Games by Mihail Marin “the best repertoire book ever written”.

Now the second edition of this classic has appeared, and it is even better, with 48 extra pages of updates, corrections and expansions.

Marin reveals his own opening repertoire after 1.e4 e5 but does much more than that. So good are his strategic explanations that Marin has in fact written a middlegame book disguised as an opening book.

In his higly critical review column in our own Yearbook Glenn Flear called Marin’s work “sensational”.

If you want to know the essence of the King’s Gambit, Vienna, Centre Game, Four Knights, Evans Gambit, Giuoco Piano, Two Knights, Scotch AND the Ruy Lopez Exchange variation, then here is your book.

R11: 4 share 1st prize blindfold

Aronian has won Amber 2008 but we knew that already. Kramnik ended second on tiebreak and Leko third. Aronian also won the rapid tournament of course (a major part of his combined success) and together with Kramnik, Morozevich and Topalov he also ended shared first in the blindfold section. Lots of draws on the final day of course, but Topalov-Ivanchuk and Gelfand-Mamedyarov were attractive final matches. full story »

R10: Aronian wins indeed, already

Thanks to two quick draws against Kramnik, Aronian today secured clear first place at the Amber Tournament with a round to spare, because main competitors Carlsen and Leko also drew twice. full story »

R9: Aronian is going to win this one

After he beat Morozevich 2-0 today, Aronian is almost sure of winning Amber 2008. Carlsen lost 1½-½ to Kramnik, and Anand also went down, against Ivanchuk. full story »

Almasi leads in Héviz

After six rounds, the Hungarian Zoltan Almasi leads in his own country. In the small town of Héviz, Hungary a strong round roubin is being held. full story »

R8: Aronian & Carlsen score again

Only twice a 2-0 score was seen at this Amber tournament so far, and both times it was Magnus Carlsen who did it. Today Mamedyarov was his victim. Aronian is clear favorite now, after beating Anand 1½-½ today. full story »

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