Enjoying a small Christmas holiday on December 24, 25 and 26, these days instead of news, reviews or columns the ChessVibes team offers a quiz: the Big ChessVibes Christmas '09 Quiz! And yes, you can win prizes!

Recently, the editor of the New in Chess Yearbook Series, René Olthof, turned 50. For his birthday he organized a trivia quiz, and came up with 64 questions about chess. Many of them were quite interesting and almost all of them quite difficult! He agreed to share the questions with the ChessVibes audience and so now you also get a chance to answer a selection of them. Leaving out the ones that are going into too much detail about the Dutch chess scene, we've selected 30 questions for you to answer.

Today we present the first set of ten questions. Tomorrow ten more will follow, and the day after the last ten. Send your answers before Sunday, December 27th, 23:59 CET to christmas09@chessvibes.com and who knows, you might end up winning one of the following prizes*:

Prizes

First prize: 1-year subscription New in Chess Yearbook	Second prize: 1-year subscription New in Chess Magazine	Third prize: 1-year subscription Internet Chess Club (ICC)

*Participants of the Olthof 50 Quiz are not eligible for prizes.

Big ChessVibes Christmas Trivia Quiz - Part I

1. In this quiz we call Wilhelm Steinitz the first World Champion, and Viswanathan Anand the sixteenth. We don't count the FIDE World Champions Khalifman, Ponomariov and Kasimdzhanov.
1A Which number has Garry Kasparov?
1B How many World Champions are still alive?
1C True or not true: every deceased World Champion won the last game he played?

2. Of all chess players, Paul Keres beat the most World Champions. How many did he beat?

3. Where were they born?

4. This questions is about five important chess cities: Dortmund, Hastings, Linares, Reggio Emilia and Beverwijk/Wijk aan Zee.
4A The five winners of the first editions of these tournaments are mentioned, but which winner belongs to which tournament? Philip Bakker, Jaan Eslon, Otto Marthaler, Fritz Sämisch, Frederick Yates.
4B Hastings is traditionally held in the winter, but in 1895, 1919, 1922 and 1995 there was a summer edition. Name three of the four winners.

True or not true?
4C Boris Spassky won in Dortmund at least once
4D Boris Spassky won in Hastings at least once
4E Boris Spassky won in Linares at least once
4F Boris Spassky won in Reggio Emilia at least once
4G Boris Spassky won in Beverwijk/Wijk aan Zee at least once

5. Vladimir Kramnik played a total of eight matches in different World Championship cycles.
5A Name his opponents.
5B If we count only the classical games (not rapid or blitz), what would be his score? (How many matches did he win, if only classical games would count, how many did he lose and how many ended in a tie?)

6. Of which Chess Olympiads are the following logos?

6A	6B
6C	6D
6E	6F
6G	6H

7. A question about the FIDE rating list, invented by Hungarian Professor Arpad Elo.
7A Six players have occupied the number one spot. Name them all.
7B Which five players have had, at least once, a published rating of over 2800?
7C Which two Dutch grandmasters were ever in the top 10?

8. What do the following artists have in common?

9A Two of the sixteen World Champions never played at an Olympiad. Name them.
9B Reigning World Champions have lost only 9 games out of a total of 23 appearances ever by a reigning World Champion at an Olympiad. Four World Champions lost two - name all four.

.
10A Openings and variations are often named after countries, cities or other geographical terms. One of the following, however, isn't. Which? Bled, Cheliabinsk, Donau, Kecskemet, Kemeri, Saragossa, Siesta, Steenwijk, Wilkes-Barre.
10B Another favourite source for nomenclature are the names of chess players. Which of the following names is not a chess player? Bogoljubow, Petroff, Kalashnikov, Makogonov, Panov, Smyslov, Sveshnikov, Taimanov, Urusoff, Veresov.
10C Some names are not well known. Which of the following variations or systems is not named after a chess player? Brentano, Canal, Cordel, Cozio, Damiano, Dilworth, Döry, Knorre, Muzio, Pin.

That's it for today. Tomorrow ten more questions! Feel free to discuss the quiz in the comments, but needless to say, no answers please!