Δυο Παλαιστίνιοι παίζουν σκάκι στο στρατόπεδο προσφύγων της Έιν Ελ Χιλβέχ, κοντά στο λιμάνι της Σιδώνας, στο νότιο Λίβανο. Φωτογραφία της 19ης Ιουνίου 2012.  Ο Λίβανος έχει μεγάλη εισροή από Παλαιστίνιους πρόσφυγες, οι...

Πραγματοποιήθηκε χθες στην πλατεία Υψηλών Αλωνίων στην Πάτρα η πρώτη από τις προγραμματισμένες εκδηλώσεις της ΕΣΣΠ στο πλαίσιο της καλύτερης προβολής των διοργανώσεων των Πανελληνίων Νεανικών και της Α Εθνικής. Ο FM...

The association between Hip Hop and chess is an amazing and unexpected development that has breathed new life into our ancient game. And I especially like the fact that the Hop Hop Chess Federation seem to have a martial arts aspect too. The expression ‘chess not checkers’ appears to have emerged from this culture, its [...]

The 2nd International Chess Tournament of Forni di Sopra took place from June 16th to 23rd, 2012, in Forni di Sopra, part of the Friulian Dolomites Natural Park and one of the jewels of the Italian Alps. The organizers of the event are Accademia Internazionale di Scacchi, Circolo Scacchistico Udinese, ScacchiRandagi, FSI and Comune Forni [...]

There has been near universal scorn for the recent statement issued by FIDE Vice President Ali Nihat of Turkey who is organising the next Chess Olympiad in Istanbul. Mr Nihat declared that he was going to ban the recruitment of arbiters from seven countries who have been involved in legal action against FIDE. This petty, futile and self-serving attack on an under-appreciated group for...

There has been near universal scorn for the recent statement issued by FIDE Vice President Ali Nihat of Turkey who is organising the next Chess Olympiad in Istanbul. Mr Nihat declared that he was going to ban the recruitment of arbiters from seven countries who have been involved in legal action against FIDE. This petty, futile and self-serving attack on an under-appreciated group for...

The 1st International Open Chess Tournament “Paleros 2012″ took place on 16-23rd June in the picturesque village of Paleros, Greece on the Ionian Sea. 61 players from Greece, Estonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland participated in the 9-round swiss tournament. IM Vladimir Zavoronkov won the tournament with 7.5 points and collected the first prize [...]

I assume they'll play the fourth game in any case, but in the Cez Trophy match in Prague between Peter Svidler and David Navara victory has already gone to the former. He drew the first game and won both games two and three to clinch the match ahead of schedule.

Magnus Carlsen only won two games in the just-completed 2012 Tal Memorial, but both, especially his early-round win over Teimour Radjabov, were of instructive value. About the win over Radjabov, I had a feeling of deja vu when I replayed it that the fundamental outline of his winning plan was very similar to an old victory of Jose Capablanca's. When I read Carlsen's comments in the post-game...

Final standings classical chess

Chess Olympiad participants women

Riga Technical University and Latvian Chess Federation have an honour to announce the second “Riga Technical University Open”, which will take place on August 6-12 at the main building of Riga Technical University located in the heart of Riga – the old town. The program of the festival will feature two ELO tournaments and a [...]

Yesterday I was interested to read that Boris Gelfand moved his training camp to the Austrian Alps in order to ‘improve his concentration and stamina’. I’ve never heard of this before in relation to chess training, but the idea seems interesting. Being at altitude training is known to improve your red blood cell count, thus [...]

The 4th tournament of the FIDE Women Grand Prix 2011-2012 took place from 9th to 23rd June in Kazan, Russia. 12 top female players competed in the round robin event. The World Championship challenger Humpy Koneru of India and Anna Muzychuk of Slovenia shared the first place with a score of 7.5 points each. They [...]

Luke McShane gained seven rating points and climbed six places to an unnoficial world ranking of 33 despite his defeat at hands of Magnus Carlsen in the last round of the Tal Memorial. The tie breaks were number of games with black and then number of wins. McShane won three games, a feat matched only by Alexander Morozevich, he also played five our of nine games with black.