05.02.2010– Nine players were tied for first after ten rounds, and four went into the tiebreaks. British GM Michael Adams eliminated first Jan Gustafsson of Germany in an Armageddon game, and then Francisco Vallejo (who had knocked out Indian GM Sandipan Chanda) to take overall victory at the Gibtelecom Masters in Gibraltar. There was a prominent visitor during the second half of the event. Final results.
05.02.2010– We gave you the solutions for the first five or our 2009 Christmas
puzzles a few days ago. Here is part two, which contains all the pretty
letter problems submitted by GM Pal Benko, the construction problem provided by
Indian GM Sandipan Chanda, and the solution to a truly unique chess problem composed
back in 1991 by mathematician Noam Elkies. Enjoy.
04.02.2010– Once a month a world-renowned tournament is conducted in Budapest. It provides budding players with an opportunity to test their skills and achieve title norms. Carlsen, Sutovsky, Milov, Radjabov, Sofia Polgar, Nakamura have passed through the grinding mill of the tournament that has been running for 17 years now, organised by a former chemist in the Hungarian army. Big pictorial report.
04.02.2010– ... has become Alexei Shirov's trademark. In the tournament in Wijk aan
Zee, which Shirov started with five wins in a row, the 37-year-old chess
magician from Riga once more justified this reputation.
In many middlegame positions he managed to put his opponents under
pressure with inventive attacking play. And even in the endgame, one
always has to take into account that Shirov might set the board on fire.
This happened in the eleventh round in his game against Vladimir Kramnik, where he played 35.c5! in the diagram position. GM Karsten Müller has analysed the endgame for ChessBase Magazine Online.
03.02.2010– The leaders, with 7.0/9 points, are Sergei Movsesian, Francisco Vallejo Pons, Michael Adams and Jan Gustafsson. The Gibtelecom Chess Festival is being held in Gibraltar, which is basically a giant rock on the Spanish Mediterranean coast (but a British overseas territory). In winter it is populated by chess players, who on a free day's outing got to know some of the native residents.