exd5!

28.07.2010
– Sir Harry Kroto was there – the emeritus professor who in 1996 received
the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of the C₆₀ (buckminsterfullerene)
molecule. He attended the same school as actor Sir Ian McKellan (Gandalf in
Lord of the Rings) – and a chess grandmaster, who last week was awarded an Honorary
Doctorate from the University. Can you guess who that was?

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Lawrence Trent: The Smith-Morra Gambit
What do you do against the Sicilian Defence? Do you play a mainline, safe in the knowledge that despite being the most reliable way to gain an opening advantage, you could be condemned to spending years studying a huge body of opening theory, or do you choose an Anti-Sicilian, a way to sidestep the mainlines at the risk of allowing Black to have a sneaking chance to achieve equality?
More information...

Honorary Doctorate for GM Nigel Short

Viktor Korchnoi received
one back in 2002, World Champion Anand has picked
up a few. The chess grandmaster, waiting in the picture above to receive
his Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bolton, is Nigel Short. We have
always thought he should receive peerage of some sort. But okay, Doctor Short
will do for the time being. He is currently forcing us to call him that, but
since have known him since infancy (his, not ours) we are going with Dr Nigel.

Nigel went to Bolton School as a child, as did Nobel Laureate Harold Walter
Kroto, who is posing with chess grandmaster in the above picture. In the sixties
and seventies Sir Harry took a keen interest in carbon chains in the interstellar
medium. He and his colleagues discovered ever longer chains and proved that
these could be produced by carbon stars. This led to the discovery of the C₆₀
molecule, which they called the buckminsterfullerene
(as an homage to Richard Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes the molecule
resembles). The new carbon allotrope has important applications in electronics
and nanotechnology.

Sir Harry was raised in the Jewish faith, but he has stated that religion never
made any sense to him. He attended and was a speaker at the Beyond
Belief symposia in 2006 and 2007. You can listen to his edifying lecture
here
(starting from 31 min 30 sec into the video). Anyone interested in physics should
also watch the following:

Horizon documentary on the discovery of carbon-60 (buckminsterfullerene)

Another famous "old boy" of Bolton School is actor Sir
Ian McKellan (Gandalf, Magneto, etc.), whos was a contemporary of Sir Harry,
who at some stage in fact did a performance of Shakespeare's Henry V with him.

You will remember Sir Ian McKellan from Lord of the Rings, the film trilogy
which World
Champion Anand and his team watched on their
harrowing trip to Sofia earlier this year.

Nigel with his proud mother Jean at Bolton University

So what next? Sir Nigel sounds good and fits well with his Bolton School old
boys. And begins to match the titles of his boss on the ECU
Presidential ticket. Nigel Duke of Bolton? But we go too far...

Chessbase.com

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28.07.2010
– At the Super-GM in Dortmund there were seven Catalans, with five draws and
two white wins. And in those draws Black's prospects of winning were almost
zero. "It is really depressing if you are playing with the black pieces
and the summit of your ambitions is just to draw," says our Powerplay trainer.
GM Daniel King will tell us what to do on Playchess.com
on Thursday at 8 p.m. CEST. See you then!

Advertisement

Lawrence Trent: The Smith-Morra Gambit
What do you do against the Sicilian Defence? Do you play a mainline, safe in the knowledge that despite being the most reliable way to gain an opening advantage, you could be condemned to spending years studying a huge body of opening theory, or do you choose an Anti-Sicilian, a way to sidestep the mainlines at the risk of allowing Black to have a sneaking chance to achieve equality?
More information...

GM Daniel King: Powerplay Show

Hello, my name is Daniel King, and the question I'm going to be posing in this
month's Powerplay show is: what can be done about the Catalan? You can see it
– we've just played the pawn ot g3, ready to fianchetto the bishop to
g2. This opening seems to take the joy out of chess, if you are playing with
the black pieces. You only need to look at the statistics from the latest super-tournament
in Dortmund to see that. There were seven games where the Catalan was played
– five draws and two white wins. And I should say in those draws Black's
prospects of winning were almost zero. It is really depressing if you are playing
with the black pieces and the summit of your ambitions is just to draw. So that's
the question: what can be done about the Catalan? Serious questions, serious
answers at the Powerplay show, 7 p.m. Thursday – that is 8 p.m. Central
European Time. See you then!

Click
here to watch the video teaser. You can also see it on
YouTube

PowerPlay DVDs by Daniel King

‘The PowerPlay DVD series by GM Daniel King is one of the most successful
chess instruction tools today.’ – New In Chess

Power Play 1: Mating
Patterns
Power Play 2: Attacking the king
Power Play 3: Pawn
storm
Power Play 4: Start
Right
Power Play 5 - Pawns
Power Play 6 - Pawns,
Pieces & Plans
Power Play 7
- Improve your pieces
Power Play 8 - Knights
and Bishops
Power Play 9 -
major pieces vs. minor pieces
Power Play 10 -
Calculation
Power Play 11 -
Defence
Power Play 12
– The Hedgehog
Daniel
King Power Play 13 - The squeeze

Power Play 11 – Defence

There is a seeming inevitability to many defeats – one side has the
initiative, goes on the attack and from that moment it is very difficult to
turn back the tide. In this 11th Power Play DVD Grandmaster Daniel King will
help you to identify those key moments where there is potential danger. The
secret to good defensive play is to avoid falling into a passive defensive position!
Throughout the DVD, specially selected positions will enable you to test your
understanding of the subject. The Power Play series is suitable for anyone looking
to improve their chess, but also provides ready-made lessons and exercises for
a trainer. Video running time: 5 h 25 min.

Grandmaster Daniel King has been a professional chess player for more than
20 years. During that time he has represented his country on many occasions,
including an historic match victory over the Soviet Union in Reykjavik, 1990.
At the same time he has distinguished himself as a coach, helping many of England‘s
younger generation to achieve their potential. Besides his chess career, he
has built up a reputation as a commentator on television, radio and the internet.
He is also an award-winning author of more than 15 books.

Grandmaster Daniel King has been a professional chess player for more than
twenty years. During that time he has represented his country on many occasions,
including an historic match victory over the Soviet Union in Reykjavik, 1990.
At the same time he has distinguished himself as a coach, helping many of England‘s
younger generation to achieve their potential. Besides his chess career, he
has built up a reputation as a commentator on television, radio and the internet.
He is also an award-winning author of more than 15 books.

Chessbase.com

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27.07.2010
– The tenth edition of the Chess Classic Mainz has become a three-day event – but one at which you can see and play against dozens of world-class stars and strong grandmasters. There is also a 40-board simul with World Champion Viswanathan Anand and a 20-board 960 simul with women's world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk. It's just ten days away, but you can still join the fun.

Advertisement

Lawrence Trent: The Smith-Morra Gambit
What do you do against the Sicilian Defence? Do you play a mainline, safe in the knowledge that despite being the most reliable way to gain an opening advantage, you could be condemned to spending years studying a huge body of opening theory, or do you choose an Anti-Sicilian, a way to sidestep the mainlines at the risk of allowing Black to have a sneaking chance to achieve equality?
More information...

Press release

Counting down the days to the tenth edition The tenth edition of the Chess Classic Mainz is just days away. From 6th - 8th August 2010 Mainz will be the centre of the rapid chess world. As we announced earlier, the organizing Chess Tigers had to cut down the event to three days, but the Chess Classic is still the main rapid chess event in the world, with many top grandmasters in the entry list. The winner of the Open Grenke Rapid World Championship will not only be amply rewarded with € 6000 prize money, but will also receive the prestigious title “Rapid Chess World Champion”.

The main sponsor of the event is Wolfgang Grenke, chairman of the GRENKELEASING
AG. He started sponsoring the Chess Classic in 2005 and has increased his involvement
every year. On 13 June, Grenke was honored with the European Culture Initiative
Award for his abundant merits for cultural projects in Baden-Baden and his dedication
to promote and support chess in Germany. Together with the many paying participants,
he is responsible for the fact that the showpiece of the Chess Classic, the
gigantic Open, will be played again and is upgraded to a world championship.

Wolfgang Grenke and World Champion Viswanathan Anand

However, we should not forget to mention the other sponsors and partners of
the Chess Classic Mainz. Without FiNet AG, Stadtwerke Mainz AG, Livingston,
Hilton Mainz, the Congress Center Mainz and our prime partner ChessBase and
Schach Niggemann, organizing such an event would be impossible. The city of
Mainz and its Lord Mayor Jens Beutel is proud to host the Chess Classic for
the tenth year in a row. Beutel is an excellent chess player and this year he
is not only the patron of the event, he is eager to play the open rapid world
championship as well.

Jens Beutel versus top GM Vugar Gashimov, organiser Hans-Walter Schmitt
watching

The format of the open tournament will not be changed. Eleven hard-fought rounds
will be played and the tempo will be 20 minutes + 5 seconds per move. The tournament
will take place in the fully air-conditioned Rheingoldhalle of the Congress
Center Mainz. During the world championship the very popular “Kids Club”
will be opened again during the tournament. Chess loving parents can fully concentrate
on their games, knowing that their kids are in good hands.

Massive Rapid Chess Open in the Rheingoldhalle

Levon Aronian, who won the title in a match against Anand last year, will try
to defend his title in Mainz. This task will not be easy, since the Armenian
star will face strong opposition this year. Top 2700+ players like Alexei Shirov,
Alexander Grischuk, Sergei Movsesian, Gata Kamsky and Vugar Gashimov have already
confirmed their participation! We are also happy to welcome some of the best
female chess players in the world to Mainz, like Alexandra Kosteniuk, Inna Gaponenko,
Almira Skripchenko and Natalia Zhukova to name just a few.

Rapid World Champion Levon Aronian

The Chess Classic will be opened on Friday 6th August with the traditional
opening press conference with three world champions: Viswanathan Anand, Alexandra
Kosteniuk and Levon Aronian. At 16.00h, Anand will start his simul on 40 boards
and Kosteniuk will play a Chess960 simul on 20 boards. Due to very high demand,
there are no seats available anymore for the simuls, but you are kindly invited
to visit the event on Friday.

World Champion Viswanathan Anand

More information about the Chess Classic Mainz 2010 can be found on our website
(see below). It is still possible to register online for the Open Grenke Rapid
World Championship. You can save € 5, if you register before 31.07.2010!
Note: GM, IM, WGM and WIM are free!

Top participants (GMs and WGMs) so far:

Mike Rosa/Eric van Reem

Event overview

This year the Chess Classic Mainz will be staged from Friday, 6th of August
to Sunday 8th of August, 2010. The Chess Classic features excellent viewer oriented
and media friendly entertainment: huge screens and TV sets transmit the event
into every corner of the Rheingoldhalle, several grandmasters provide live comments
of the games. Everyone can play in the opens and watch the the grandmasters.
All tournaments are broadcast live on the Internet.

Besides traditional chess, there is also a Chess960 simul. All tournaments
are played at rapid chess time controls: 20 minutes for the game plus 5 seconds
increment per move. The Open participants are simultaneously playing in the
world championship!

Chess Classic Mainz 2010 consists of the following events:

• Grenke Rapid World Championship Open
  World's biggest and highest ranked rapid chess Open in traditional chess
  an also world championship in rapid chess. Elo average of top 10: 2737.
  Combined price fonds 30,000 EUR. More
  info...

• Simul on 40 boards
  World Champion Viswanathan Anand plays a simul in traditional chess. Details...

• Chess960 simul at 20 boards
  Chess960 world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk stands a Chess960 simul. Details...

• Children's Club
  Children will be taken care of by competent personnel. They can play, do
  handicrafts, paint, together with other children. Alternatively, they play
  a round of "Fritz und Fertig".

• Course of events
  The tournament plan
  1 (.pdf) shows the main events in a graphical overview.

• Accomodation
  Different accomodations are available from Jugendherberge to player's hotel
  Hilton Mainz, located directly at river Rhine. Accomodation
  offers...

• Contact
  If you have questions, please contact Hans-Walter Schmitt as your personal
  assistant, phone +49 (6196) 22926.

Read Full Post »

27.07.2010
– Just days after a request from the Russian Chess Federation to move the 2011 Candidates matches away from Baku, Azerbaijan, FIDE President Kirsan Illumzhinov has announced that the match will indeed now take place in Kazan. If Topalov refuses to play in Russia, as he has threatened, he will (brace yourself) be replaced by Alexander Grischuk. Sport Express report.

Advertisement

Lawrence Trent: The Smith-Morra Gambit
What do you do against the Sicilian Defence? Do you play a mainline, safe in the knowledge that despite being the most reliable way to gain an opening advantage, you could be condemned to spending years studying a huge body of opening theory, or do you choose an Anti-Sicilian, a way to sidestep the mainlines at the risk of allowing Black to have a sneaking chance to achieve equality?
More information...

FIDE moves Candidates matches to Kazan

Just days after a request from the Russian Chess Federation, FIDE President
Kirsan Illumzhinov has announced that the 2011 Candidates matches, scheduled
to be held in Azerbaijan, will now take place in Kazan, Russia. This is apparently
despite the existence of a signed contract with the Azeri organisers, and the
pre-payment by the latter of some $150,000 to FIDE's bank account.

Speaking whilst on a visit to Tromso, Norway (which has bid for the 2014 Olympiad),
Illumzhinov announced the switch of the matches to the Russian city of Kazan.
As reported on
ChessBase just four days ago, the Russian Chess Federation, in the person
of Vladimir Dvorkovich, wrote to FIDE and requested that the matches be moved
to Kazan. This followed protests from world number five Levon Aronian, that
it would not be safe for him, as an Armenian, to play in Azerbaijan, with whom
his country is in a state of undeclared war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabak.
Veselin Topalov, another of the Candidates qualifiers, then himself issued an
open letter, refusing to play in Russia.

The latest FIDE announcement confirms that the eight players who will take
part in the event remain the same: Carlsen, Kramnik, Aronian, Topalov, Radjabov,
Kamsky, Gelfand and Mamedyarov. The latter only gained his place by virtue of
the host country's right to nominate  a wild card of their choice. With
the matches being switched from Azerbaijan to Russia, one might have thought
that Mamedyarov's place would be withdrawn in favour of a Russian nominee. But
it appears that this has not been done.

As for Topalov, the FIDE President stated that he intends to write to the Bulgarian,
urging him not to make any hasty decisions. However, in the event that he does
refuse to play, his place will be taken by Alexander Grischuk of Russia, who
took third place in the recently-concluded FIDE Grand Prix.

• See article in this Sport
  Express report (in Russian)

Even by FIDE standards this is a remarkable volte-face by the leadership.
Cynics may wonder if the decision has anything to do with the events surrounding
the Russian Chess Federation's recent support for Illumzhinov in the forthcoming
FIDE elections. In The
Week in Chess Mark Crowther writes:

"The full implications of this decision are hard to read. It isn't difficult
to see this as part of a wider pattern which took in the desperation of the
Russian Federation to nominate Ilyumzhinov and the upcoming contract with
'Chess Lane' that seems likely
to pass all FIDE Commercial activities to a Russian Company funded by the
shadowy figures of the brothers Ziyavudine and Mohammed Magomedov from Dagestan
and represented by their frontman David Kaplan. (Background in Russian in
this article
on the APN website: A
Revolution is coming in the Chess World)."

The pairings in the candidates matches are the following:

1	Veselin Topalov	vs.	Gata Kamsky
2	Magnus Carlsen	vs.	Teimour Radjabov
3	Vladimir Kramnik	vs.	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
4	Levon Aronian	vs.	Boris Gelfand

Each match consists of four games plus possible tiebreaks. The second round,
consisting of matches between the winners of the first round, start two days
after the end of the first round. The winner of the first pairing plays against
the winner of the fourth; the winner of the second against the winner of the
third. Once again there are four games plus possible tiebreaks.

The third and final round of the candidates matches, which begins two days
after the second round was completed, will be played over six games. The prize
fund for the rescheduled Candidates matches is €420,000. The winner qualifies
as Challenger for the World Championship match in 2011.

Chessbase.com

Read Full Post »

26.07.2010
– This nine-round Swiss open is dedicated to Mieczyslaw Najdorf, who was born in Warsaw on April, 15, 1910 but later lived in Buenos Aires (and changed his first name to Miguel). He died in Malaga, Spain, in 1997, still avidly interested in chess. The tournament was won by Julian Radulski of Bulgaria. We bring you an illustrated report with pictures you can help us identify.

Advertisement

Lawrence Trent: The Smith-Morra Gambit
What do you do against the Sicilian Defence? Do you play a mainline, safe in the knowledge that despite being the most reliable way to gain an opening advantage, you could be condemned to spending years studying a huge body of opening theory, or do you choose an Anti-Sicilian, a way to sidestep the mainlines at the risk of allowing Black to have a sneaking chance to achieve equality?
More information...

The last two rounds of the nine-round Swiss tournament didn't bring any changes
in the leading group. The tournament was won by a sole leader, grandmaster Julian
Radulski from Bulgaria. His victory was well deserved – he didn't lose
a single game and won against two strong grandmasters – Zhigalko and Erdos.
After defeating the grandmaster from Hungary he made three draws in the final
rounds, but this was enough to ensure first place. Other grandmasters did not
want to burn all their bridges behind them, and in final rounds also didn't
put much effort in winning their games.

Tournament winner Julian Radulski (archive picture)

Except for a few cases all game in the last rounds finished in draws, sometime
straight after the opening, so that the spectators were disappointed by the
lack of fighting spirit. Second place was taken by the most fighting player
– GM Aleksander Mista. Until the last round he had chances to win this
tournament, but he wasn't able to beat GM Svieshnikov in the final game. He
deserved that place, though many times he could have lost his games. He never
gave up and eventually didn't lose a single one. Third place went to grandmaster
Brodsky. He had a very good start won four games in the first five rounds, and
then made draws until the end.

The best woman prize went unexpectedly to WGM Beata Kadziolka (above). She
had a lot of luck though. She won one game after ten moves, when her opponent's
phone rang. In the last round her opponent, GM Jakubowski, overslept and didn't
show up.

Second place went to Monika Socko (above), who was playing a great tournament
(incl. winning against Hammer). But she lost the last two games. Even with this
terrible finish she gained on rating.

Very good results were made by two young players – Pawel Weichhold and
Kacper Drozdowski (both Poland). Altogether seven players made IM norms.

The biggest disappointment were surely Zhigalko and Jon Ludvig Hammer (above).
They both lost two games and suffered terrible rating losses. They were both
playing much weaker than usual.

Polish supporters were counting on better play by Bartlomiej Macieja (above),
but he at least didn't lose any games.

Top results

Pictorial impressions

The official tournament site provides us with some very nice pictures, but
no captions. We invited our readers to help out: and many wrote in, identifying
all but the last two (very youthful) players. The most diligent reader was Piotr
An Nguyen, who is 19 years old, rated 2372 and has been trying to get his IM
title and to cross 2400 barrier for two years.

26th: IM Twan Burg, NED, 2449, 5.0

Sixth place: GM Vadim Malakhatko, BEL 2576, 6.5/9

GM Krzysztof Jakubowski of Poland, rated 2506

30th FM Tomek Rej, AUS, 2344, 5.0/9

WFM Kinga Zakoscielna, Poland, rated 2040

WGM Evgeniya Dolukhanova, rated 2312

Klaudia Wisniowska of Poland, rated 1999

Magdalena Kowara, Poland, rated 1833, playing in the B group

Unidentified young participant

Unidentified young participant

Links Official tournament site All available games in zipped PGN To read, replay and analyse the PGN games we adivse you to download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light. This program also gives you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.

Chessbase.com

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