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.Andrew Martin:
The Trompowsky - The easy way - 2nd Edition Thirty years ago the Trompowsky opening was almost totally unknown. It took a few spectacular games by Rafael Vaganian to bring 2.Bg5 into the limelight, and after that, the die was cast. Today 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 is used by many of the best players in the world and a whole body of complicated theory has built up.
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04.01.2010– A Ukrainian, Czech, Romanian, and thank heavens three Brits lead at the traditional Hastings International Chess Congress. David Howell lost a winning position after a blunder in round five, but picked up two points in the next two rounds to join the leaders. Our correspondent in situ, Steve Giddins, continues to taunt us with Latin phrases, but has at least the kindness to provide translations. Of sorts.
03.01.2010– The 52nd Reggio Emilia tournament 2009-10 is taking place from December 28th 2009 to January 6th 2010. After five rounds Zoltan Almasi and Gata Kamsky are in the lead, with 3.5/5 points each. But the hero is Viktor Bologan, who lost his first two games and won the next three. That is fighting spirit and contributes to the low drawing average of 44%. Pictorial report.
02.01.2010– After missing a number of Championships Alexander Grischuk returned to the Superfinal in style, winning the event with a 2851 performance. GM Alisa Galliamova won the women's section with a TPR of 2715. At the closing ceremony the organiser Alexander Bakh was awarded the Order of Friendship for his work by the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Final photo report.
02.01.2010– Lucidity is the hallmark of good chess instruction, but what happens if the
teacher has no conception of intelligibility? The Editor of Chess
Notes dips into the wordy world of the grand left oblique aligned en appui
with major crochet, where designations for posting disparity are
u lead and (u) lag. Recommended for code-breaking practice...