06.01.2010– The 2009-10 Hastings Masters ended in a fourway tie for first place, between Mark Hebden of England, British Champion David Howell, Andrei Istratescu of Roumania, and Romain Edouard of France. In the final round Hebden and Istratescu halved out in 11 moves, but Howell had to fight for a black victory. Our report on the last two rounds includes a big pictorial of lesser-known players.
06.01.2010– With one round to go the seven-time Hungarian champion Zoltan Almasi has scored 6.5/8, a full point ahead of his nearest rival, Gata Kamsky. Almasi has won five of his last six games, including a key game against Viktor Bologan in round six. His performance: 2859. Kamsky and Almasi face each other tomorrow in the final round. Pictorial report.
05.01.2010– An active king often plays a decisive part in rook endings. If
it can support a passed pawn in its advance, then the king and pawn form
an extremely deadly duo. So the ability of the rook to cut off the king
horizontally or vertically from one of the theatres of war and thus to
restrict its activity is an important weapon in the arsenal of endgame technique.
Karsten Müller has selected a recent endgame in which the theme of the
barrier and the struggle against it are in the foreground.
05.01.2010– According to the current FIDE rankings Magnus Carlsen is the strongest player in the world. But his rating of 2810 is not the highest ever. That was achieved by Garry Kasparov, who in the July 1999 FIDE list reached 2851 points. Two other players have at some stage had higher ratings than Magnus. Here's a list of all Super-GMs (over 2700) and their top ratings.
05.01.2010– Just a week ago the 19-year-old world chess ranking leader was featured in
an interview
in TIME Magazine. Seldom enough that chess makes it to the pages of this
kind of news publication. Unprecedented that it happens a second time, in this
week's issue, with a report entitled "A Bold Opening for Chess Player Magnus
Carlsen" by Eben Harrell. Funny, perceptive must
read.