The Panama Chess Federation organized the 2nd Panama Chess Open from 27th November to 2nd December at the Hotel Central Park El Dorado in Ciudad de Panamá. GM-elect Eric Hansen from Canada convincingly won the event with 8,5 points from nine games, leaving the nearest followers point and a half behind. In the course of [...]

Nothing is official until the tournament is over, but the unofficial news after round 2 of the 4th London Chess Classic deserves notice. With his win over Levon Aronian, Magnus Carlsen has (unofficially) pushed his rating to 2855.7, breaking Garry Kasparov's all-time rating record of 2851 and equalling (when rounded up) Kasparov's retroactively calculated unofficial peak of 2856. In the process...

As in the previous day's round at the FIDE Grand Prix event in Tashkent, five of the six games were drawn, but today's lone decisive game was of direct importance to the race for first. Coming into the round Fabiano Caruana and Sergey Karjakin were tied for first, but now Karjakin leads by himself with just two rounds to go with 5.5 points out of 9. It's not exactly a comfortable lead, however...

The 39th Annual Eastern Open is set to take place on 27-30th December at the Westin Washington DC City Center Hotel, 1400 M St. NW, Washington DC. The event will have five sections: Open, U2200, U1900, U1600 and U1300. Top three sections will be played over 8 rounds of Swiss system, while the lower two [...]

Tim Hanke’s post last Tuesday inspired me to give my own take on developing one’s pursuits. I do see it in a different way, for me it’s not so much a matter of organizing time as being compelled to work on them in every spare moment. As a youngster I have one particular recollection of [...]

Την ήττα με σκορ 4-2 γνώρισε η ομάδα μας απο τον ΣΟ Αιγάλεω για το Ομαδικό πρωτάθλημα Παίδων Οι παίκτες μας ξεκίνησαν με καλές θέσεις σε όλες σχεδόν τις σκακιέρες , τελικά όμως επικράτησαν στη 2η (Γεράσιμος Χατζούδης) και...

The 26th Belgrade International Open Championship (Belgrade Trophy) was held from 24th November to 2nd December in Obrenovac, near Belgrade. 178 players competed in the nine round Swiss event. Grandmasters Tamir Nabaty (Israel) and Dalibor Stojanovic (BIH) emerged victorious in their last round matches against GM Miodrag Savic and GM Branko Damljanovic respectively to share [...]

At one point Hanon Russell ran the Chess Cafe website; now he doesn't. It seems, however, that on his Russell Enterprises site he has resurrected a couple of the old Chess Cafe traditions: Hans Ree's monthly column and the annual Holiday Quiz. About Ree's columns: I can't find an archive location for them on the Chess Cafe site, but they can be accessed a la carte by typing in...

Τελική βαθμολογία στο 62ο Πανελλήνιο Ατομικό Πρωτάθλημα: 1. Παυλίδης Αντ. 7 β. 2. Νικολαϊδης 6,5 3. Μαστροβασίλης Θ. 5,5 4. Σκέμπρης 5 5-6. Καπνίσης, Μουτούσης 4,5 7. Μαλικέντζος 4 8. Φίλιππας 3,5 9. Γαλόπουλος 2,5 10. Νικολάου 2. Τελική...

The 33rd Memorial Edoardo Crespi is taking place from 1st to 8th December in the large tournament hall of Chess Club in Milan, via Sant’Uguzzone 8. The Master Group boasts 60 participants from 11 countries: Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Bulgaria, FYR Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Philippines and Italy. This event will be played over nine [...]

For the opening ceremony, we had two musicians,Jason Kouchak on piano and Alf Wilheim Lundberg who played an eight string guitar, played some lovely tunes for us. I figured out that Alf’s interpretation of a Christmas song was “Silent Night” where as Gawain thought it was “Away in the Manger”. The ceremony was broadcast live this year [...]

Grandmasters M R Lalith Babu and Sergei Tiviakov scored final round victories reaching top of the table with 9.5 points after the eleventh and final round of the Apollo Engineering College Commonwealth Chess Championships 2012 at Multipurpose Indoor Stadium, Chennai here today. Tiviakov was awarded a cash purse of Rupees 150,000 (approx USD 2764) along [...]

When I complain about the high dropout rate from primary school chess clubs, the defenders of the system tell me it doesn’t matter: they can always return to the game later. I have two problems with this. Firstly, the dropout rate is much higher than it should be. Of course there will always be a [...]

Μετά την κατάκτηση του Ομαδικού Πρωταθλήματος Blitz Αττικής 2012 το προηγούμενο Σάββατο, η Σκακιστική Άνοιξη κατέκτησε το Σάββατο 1/12/2012 και το αντίστοιχο Πρωτάθλημα Rapid! Αγωνίστηκαν οι Χρήστος Γκορίτσας, Φραγκίσκος...

Four games, four winners - that's what chess fans like to see, and the 4th London Chess Classic delivered. Two of the games were grind 'em outs: Magnus Carlsen won the kind of game everyone now expects of him, and Michael Adams likewise kept putting pressure on his opponent until he finally collapsed. In both cases the winners had Black: Carlsen against Luke McShane, Adams against Gawain Jones...