Turkish Chess Federation (TCF) President (and FIDE VP) Ali Nihat Yazaci has been involved in various controversies having to do with various federations filing lawsuits against FIDE; those have been mentioned and discussed on this blog already. There's also some dubious politicking internal to the TCF affecting its strongest native-born son, Suat Atalik. In brief, the TCF "requested" (read...

The Chinese number one Wang Hao edged Magnus Carlsen out of first place at Biel despite losing both their individual games. Under the three points for a win system, Wang's six wins, one draw and three defeats outweighed Carlsen's unbeaten four wins and six draws. Wang's rating shot up 16.4 points and he reached 15th on the live rating list, but is still some way from becoming the first...

The Chinese number one Wang Hao edged Magnus Carlsen out of first place at Biel despite losing both their individual games. Under the three points for a win system, Wang's six wins, one draw and three defeats outweighed Carlsen's unbeaten four wins and six draws. Wang's rating shot up 16.4 points and he reached 15th on the live rating list, but is still some way from becoming the first...

Two of the four events have finished since our last update. Anton Korobov achieved a tremendous success, winning the very strong Ukranian Championship with the fine score of 8/11. Alexander Areshchenko and Andrei Volokitin were a point back, and top seed Ruslan Ponomariov took clear fourth another full point back. This was Korobov's second Ukranian championship title; the first was back in 2002...

The 1st ITT Torunament “OAV Libertador Simón Bolívar” will take place from September 25-30 in the Hall of Conventions of Sambil in Ciudad de San Cristóbal, Venezuela. It will be organized by the Organización Ajedrez Vinotinto and will give chances to get GM and IM norms, both for male and female participants. A total of [...]

Με τη συμμετοχή 25 σκακιστών και σκακιστριών από 10 πόλεις (Καστοριά, Φλώρινα, Ποντοκώμη, Γιαννιτσά, Βέροια, Κατερίνη, Θεσσαλονίκη, Αθήνα, Λευκάδα και Βόλο) ξεκίνησε το Σάββατο 4 Αυγούστου 2012 το 2ο Ανοιχτό Καλοκαιρινό...

Σκάκι στην αμμουδιά, όπως περνάει στην ταινία 500 Days of Summer του 2009 και σαφής αναφορά στην κλασική σκηνή κινηματογραφικής ανθολογίας της Έβδομης Σφραγίδας του Μπέργκμαν. Καλή ανεξάρτητη ταινία, συναισθηματική με λίγο...

Paul Keres is one of my all time favourite players. Part of the reason may be that I was given the second of his autobiographical games collections (The Middle Years Of Paul Keres) when I was a teenager. And I loved the fluency and clarity of his style. Here’s a documentary about him which will [...]

GM Alexander Ipatov stunned with black GM Nils Grandelius in a key encounter of round 6 to take sole lead in the World Junior Chess Championship in Athens, Greece. A member of the Turkish Olympic Team, Ipatov is now with 5,5/6, half a point ahead of the chasing pack, as the other top board match [...]

Gawain Jones captured the 99th British Chess Championship at North Shields in a play off that was almost too painful to watch as Stephen Gordon lost the first game, despite winning queen for bishop. Jones somehow managed to keep the game going and Gordon could not find the killer blow, or a path to simplification before he blundered material back when still in sight of victory.

Gawain Jones captured the 99th British Chess Championship at North Shields in a play off that was almost too painful to watch as Stephen Gordon lost the first game, despite winning queen for bishop. Jones somehow managed to keep the game going and Gordon could not find the killer blow, or a path to simplification before he blundered material back when still in sight of victory.

Last Saturday, Gawain Jones was celebrating the win of his first British Chess Championship title in North Shields – but the popular young English grandmaster turned it into a double celebration with the confirmation of his invitation to play at the London Chess Classic, at Kensington Olympia, 1-10 December, 2012. This is the biggest event [...]

The 81st Ukrainian Chess Championship took place from 26th July to 7th August in the President Hotel in Kiev. Twelve players competed in the round robin tournament. Practically all the top national players, with exception of Vassily Ivanchuk, participated. Top seeded was the defending champion Ruslan Ponomariov. However, GM Anton Korobov, seeded in the lower [...]

The 5th Annual Cleveland Open was held from August 3-5, 2012, in Cleveland, Ohio at the Sheraton Cleveland Airport Hotel, 5300 Riverside Drive, Cleveland, Ohio. The Open Section finished in a 3-way tie with GM Sergey Kudrin, IM Bryan Smith and John Miller all scoring 4/5. Each player took home $1400 for their efforts while [...]