Archive for Columns
Tuesday, October 12, 2010 0:01
After Ilyumzhinov's victory in the FIDE Presidential elections in Khanty-Mansiysk twelve days ago, it's become awfully silent on both fronts. Those seeking change in the World Chess Federation have been struck dumb at the prospect of another four years of Kirsan's reign. But they needn't despair. They just shouldn't wait for the big shots to...
Saturday, October 02, 2010 0:16
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has invited Anatoly Karpov to become FIDE Vice President and accepted his opponent's suggestion to increase the number of games in World Championship matches. Silvio Danailov not only got elected ECU President, but FIDE Vice President as well. What exactly this job involves even a newly elected Vice President doesn't know....
Saturday, September 25, 2010 4:18
Exactly a week before the FIDE Presidential elections in Khanty-Mansiysk, the incumbent president was interviewed by leading newspaper The Independent. Ilyumzhinov saw no reason to avoid making chess players look like idiots.
With just five days left to the elections, we must say that the onefide.com website is full of little gems. It now...
Thursday, August 12, 2010 15:35
One of the nice things about chess is that it's a game played between humans. Despite an understandable tendency to approach chess as a rational game, I think there are a lot of irrational - human - things going on behind the scenes.
One of the things that fascinate me most in chess is people's choice of openings. Last year, I compared chess...
Thursday, July 29, 2010 17:42
Being a database programmer, perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when I recently dreamt I had to develop a chess database. But it wasn't an ordinary chess database.
Carceri XIV - Giovanni Battista Piranesi
I was told by a faceless person to make a chess database of all chess games ever played. If that doesn't sound like much, it's because...
Thursday, July 08, 2010 22:32
When I received an email some days ago about the passing away of Danish IM Ole Jacobsen, it didn't ring a bell immediately. But a few days later I realized I had met this tall and friendly Dane at a tournament in Salou in 2007.
On July 2nd I received an email by Peter Dürrfeld, who informed us that Danish IM Ole Jakobsen had passed away. When I...
Sunday, June 20, 2010 23:18
By drawing his last round game in four moves (or rather three and a half) Jan Smeets won the 2010 Dutch Championship. Zhaoqin Peng secured her 12th (!) Dutch title already one round before the end. This year's event will mainly be remembered for its many peculiarities.
The Dutch Championship took place June 11-20 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands....
Wednesday, June 02, 2010 20:00
The Bulgarian organizers of the Anand-Topalov World Championship match take Chessbase to court for "violating copyright rules". Chessbase transmitted the moves of the match live on their Playchess server, against the will of the Bulgarians.
During the Anand-Topalov World Championship match it already became clear that the organizer were planning...
Tuesday, June 01, 2010 19:49
Last week Dmitry Jakovenko defeated Ernesto Inarkiev at the ACP World Rapid Cup, using the devastating 12.Ncb5!! - a theoretical novelty that won on the spot. Inarkiev could have prevented this disaster as the move was mentioned the day before the game in ChessVibes Openings #73!
Last Saturday GM Jan Timman visited my local chess club, Caissa...
Thursday, May 06, 2010 17:32
We received a few complaints at ChessVibes headquarters for reporting in a biased way about the upcoming FIDE presidential elections. We were accused of favouring Anatoly Karpov and ridiculing Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. A news item that appeared yesterday on the BCC website shows we should have taken our current president more seriously indeed.
Okay, we...
