Interview with Garry Kasparov (Part 2)

As promised, today the second part of Gert Devreese’s interview with Garry Kasparov. This part is about Kasparov’s chess career and especially about the matches against Karpov and Kramnik. It hasn’t been published anywhere before. Enjoy! full story »

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 »

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 »

Interview IM Herman Grooten

Last week, at the Essent Tournament in Hoogeveen, IM Herman Grooten defeated GM Tiger Hillarp Persson with Black, playing a brilliant combination. I asked Herman to show the final part of this game before the camera, and he was happy to do so. Afterwards the chess trainer adds some useful advice. full story »

Three times Anand

After the press conference Anand was happy to answer the many extra requests by journo’s. First he showed the hidden ideas behind his ending with Morozevich to the Russian television, then he answered Vijay Kumar’s questions for millions of fans in India en after that I also had a short interview with Vishy. All three now online. 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 »

Kramnik leading by a point

After a beautiful win today Kramnik is now leading by a point in Dortmund. De deeply calculated temporary piece sacrifice the Russian went for with 29.a4 was just fantastic. Leko won too today, which is not an easy thing to do with Black against Gelfand, and the Hungarian once again confirmed that opposite coloured bishops aren’t that drawish with rooks on the board. Mamedyarov-Carlsen wasn’t very interesting but the other draw, Anand-Alekseev, was. Anand got a strong kingside attack and the way Alekseev defended was impressive. full story »

Winning a won position…

… is known as one of the most difficult things in chess. Which is kind of a paradox, because when a position is already winning, the winning method shouldn’t be the problem anymore? But so often we think that such a position wins by itself, and suddenly we see that the opponent found some nasty counterplay. One thing I learnt is that, in a winning position, you shouldn’t stop calculating! Try to find the quickest way to win by just calculating accurately. All this is very relevant to the fantastic manoeuvre David Eggleston and I found in his fifth round game of the current First Saturday IM tournament in Budapest. full story »

Great little moves from Paderborn

At the end of December 2006, the 16th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championship was held. The tournament was played in the beautiful Heinz Nixdorf Museum in Paderborn and Rybka won with 6,5 out of 7, after she only allowed a draw against the program Spike. Second was Shredder, who who all games except the loss against Rybka. Martin van Essen shows us some nice fragments from the tournament. full story »

Missed opportunity by Negi

Today Parimarjan Negi missed a big chance for the equaliser in his Amity Grandmaster Challenge versus Kateryna Lahno. In this position he played 28.Rg1? and the game ended in a draw after 28…Bxg1 29.Be6 Ng3+ 30.Kxg1 Ne2+ 31.Kf2 Nf4+ 32. Ke3 Nxe6 33.fxe6 Re8 34.Nf7+ Kg8 Nxh6+ Kh8 and a draw via perpetual. Do you see how White could have won? full story »

Torre too got his Memorial

One of the more boring opening lines is the Torre Attack: 1.d4, 2.Nf3 and 3.Bg5. If the Mexican chess player Carlos Torre Repetto (23 November 1905 - 19 March 1978) finds out he’s mainly remembered for these opening moves, he’ll turn around in his grave (can you say this in English?). This was probably what the organizers were thinking when setting up the Torre Memorial which is held this week. full story »

Tactics with Bobby

Black to play and win full story »

Rybka’s immortal game

Kramnik’s 4-2 loss of last week against the computer program Deep Fritz was a big blow. Not as big of course as Kasparov’s defeat in 1997 against Deep Blue, which is universally considered as the end of the human supremacy over chess engines, but the international media did mention it, for example the BBC and CBS. The news even inspired a computer programmer to try and make a program that will be the best in the poker world as well! Especially for the company Chessbase the victory of their darling pet Fritz was nice of course, and they did not dread in calling it the world’s leading chess computer program, already during the match. However, Deep Fritz is not the best. Not at all. full story »

Solutions Cap d’Agde

Today, a bit later than intended, the solutions of the six combinations from the Cap d’Agde rapid tournament of last week. You can replay them here.

Commemorating in style

It’s the time of commemorating and we chess players, certainly in the region of Amsterdam, have our own Theo van Gogh: Micha Leuw. A somewhat outrageous comparison perhaps but I do see some similarities: the omnipresent sigaret and the sharp spirit both were gifted with. In December it’s already two years ago that Micha drowned while snorkeling in Thailand, shortly before the tsunami arrived. (Typically Micha by the way to do it a bit differently than all the other victims over there.) Commemorating in style is done with a tournament so during the Eijgenbrood Tournament, last week in Amsterdam, the second Micha Leuw Memorial was held and it was nice to see that Enrico Vroombout, the underdog of the group because he qualified via the Eijgenbrood Tournament of last year, attracted most attention and finished at an excellent second spot. full story »

Fischer’s Game of the Century

It was one of the first books I really loved: The Games of Robert J. Fischer, edited by Robert G. Wade & Kevin J. O’Connell, Batsford 1972. All of Fischer’s games were in it, including his match against Spassky in ‘72, and also lots of fascinating stories of the rise of the American prodigy, by people such as Arthur Bisguier, Harry Golombek and Paul Keres. I played through the majority of the more than seven hundred games at least once, and I guess I’m one of the few that prefers to take this book to a desert island, instead of My Sixty Memorable Games. A few games in the book come with annotations, and one of them is a game played exactly fifty years ago today. full story »

Stellwagen still plays for gold

Daniël Stellwagen is playing an excellent world championship under 20. After eight rounds of a total of thirteen he shares a fine second spot. Today Daniël had a game that must have been most relaxing to play. full story »

Smerdon wins 10th OGD-tournament

Australian IM David Smerdon has won the tenth OGD rapidtournament convincingly. David, who is following university in the Netherlands for a couple of months and tries to play as much tournaments as possible in the meantime, only had to give away a draw in the last of seven rounds. Top seed GM Friso Nijboer was responsible for that. As always David’s play was attractive. full story »

Healthier than ICC?

Bekend zijn de verhalen van de schaakverslaving die de Internet Chess Club (ICC) teweegbrengt. Spelers die uren en uren achter de pc doorbrengen in een poging hun virtuele rating hoger te krijgen dan die van het moment waarop begonnen werd. Het meest tot de verbeelding spreekt het getal achter het percentage of life online: het systeem van ICC houdt bij hoeveel van het waardevolle leven wordt verspild aan het zielloze geschuif met de muis… Een veel gezondere manier om online te schaken is de website Chess Tactics Server. Hoewel… gezond!?
Well known are the stories about how addictive the Internet Chess Club (ICC) can be. People who spend hours and hours behind their pc in an attempt to bring their virtual rating to a higher point - higher than they started that day! What always struck me the most is the ‘percentage of life online’: ICC’s system keeps track of how much of that valuable life is being squandered by shoving that mouse of yours… A much healthier way to play chess online can be found at the website Chess Tactics Server. More healthy? Well… full story »

Leuke combinatie

Tot gister kon de airco van de speelzaal het warme zomerweer nog net aan. Boven aan de bar en buiten was het al dagen broeiering warm, maar de schakers konden hun verkoeling zoeken door achter hun geliefde schaakbord te kruipen. Gisteren echter moest de airco zich gewonnen geven: hij trok het gewoon niet meer. Zowel rapanui als doggy kampten met concentratieproblemen. full story »

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