The 4th Rethymno International Chess Tournament 2012 was organized by the Municipality of Rethymno and Rethymno Chess Club on 7-14th July. 153 players competed in the 9-round Swiss event. Armenian Grandmaster and top seed in the tournament Gabriel Sargissian emerged winner after collecting 7.5 points and leaving the group of players half a point behind. [...]

Remember the second match between Deep(er) Blue and Garry Kasparov? This is the one where computers supposedly proved their superiority to human beings in chess. Kasparov had defeated its predecessor the year before by a relatively comfortable 4-2 score, but the rematch in 1997 went differently. Kasparov opened with a comfortable win, but then lost game 2 in what turned out to be controversial...

Jaideep Unudurti is a regular reader of this blog, and more importantly he is a journalist who occasionally obtains interviews with world champion Viswanathan Anand. His latest one - or at least part one of three of the interview, can be read here.

Alexander Grischuk took the title of World Blitz champion for a second time as Magnus Carlsen had to be content with another second place finish at Astana. Carlsen was second to Sergey Karjakin in the World Rapid earlier and Karjakin looked impressive again as he took third place in the Blitz. Grischuk is a renowned Blitz specialist and is frequently in desperate time trouble when he...

Alexander Grischuk took the title of World Blitz champion for a second time as Magnus Carlsen had to be content with another second place finish at Astana. Carlsen was second to Sergey Karjakin in the World Rapid earlier and Karjakin looked impressive again as he took third place in the Blitz. Grischuk is a renowned Blitz specialist and is frequently in desperate time trouble when he...

The 32nd Benasque International Open was played over 10 rounds of swiss system from 5th to 14th July at the Benasque Sport Pavilion. 394 players from 27 countries participated in the event. Among them were 35 Grandmasters, 32 International Masters and 25 FIDE Masters. Israeli GM Dan Zoler defeated GM Gawain Jones in the final [...]

The Norwegian National Tournament 2012 was organized by the Sjakklubben Caissa on 7-14th July in Sandefjord. 437 players competed in one of the 7 Rating or 8 Age Classes. Elite Class final standings: 1-2. IM Frode Olav Olsen Urkedal 2412 and IM Espen Lie 2422 – 7,0 3. GM Jon Ludvig Hammer 2643 – 6,5 [...]

Round 1 of the Dortmund Sparkassen may have been dull, but today's round was a lot of fun, with both fire and blood on board. When it was over, four players shared the lead: Vladimir Kramnik, Sergey Karjakin, Ruslan Ponomariov and round 1 winner Georg Meier. The first game to finish was a beautiful massacre by Vladimir Kramnik, essaying the King's Indian(!!) against Jan Gustafsson. It was one...

An interesting event is taking place in Amsterdam, the ACP Golden Classic. What's so "classic" about it? Two things: the time control, and the use of adjournments. It's 1990 all over again! Just like the good old days - or the bad old days, depending on your view - the players have two and half luxurious hours to make their first 40 moves, and at the end of five hours play the game is adjourned...

World Champion Viswanathan Anand supports the event The 14th IBCA Chess Olympiad for the Blind 2012 will be organized by All India Chess Federation for the Blind (AICFB), under the aegis of International Braille Chess Association (affiliated to FIDE) & All India Chess Federation (recognized by Government of India) from 9-19 August, 2012 at Hotel [...]

Article courtesy of Scacchierando The beautiful days of Forni di Sopra also allow us to underline an important success of our chess movement: Accademia Internazionale di Scacchi has in fact recently received the title of FIDE Chess Academy! Only four schools in the world can boast of this recognition, very attentive to all aspects of [...]

The 2012 National Open Chess Championships for men and women, dubbed as the “Battle of Grandmasters”, to select the members of the Philippine Chess Team who will participate in the forthcoming World Chess Olympiad to be held in Istanbul, Turkey on August 27 to September 10, 2012. This prestigious tournament will be held at two [...]

The top of the ranking table of Ikaros 2012 appears to be crowded since 5 players – Peter Prohaszaka, Ihor Nester, Giorgos Goumas, Anna-Maria Botsari and Panagiotis Christodoulou – are all leading with 6.5 points after 8 rounds. With half a point less (6/8) there is a group of seven players following – Sotiris Malikentzos, [...]

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