GM Grzegorz Gajewski comments live the game from R2 of Tal Memorial Morozevich – Carlsen. Follow also Caruana – Nakamura with GM Csaba Balogh here Live chess broadcast powered by ChessBomb and Chessdom

GM Csaba Balogh comments live the game from R2 of Tal Memorial Caruana – Nakamura. Follow also Morozevich – Carlsen with GM Grzegorz Gajewski here. Live chess broadcast powered by ChessBomb and Chessdom

For your calendar and weekend chess fun

Με τέσσερις νίκες εξελίχθηκε ο πρώτος μαχητικότατος γύρος στο Tal memorial. Ο μοναδικός που την γλίτωσε ήταν ο Κάρλσεν. Ο νεαρός Νορβιγός δεν ακολούθησε το γνωστό ρητό «όποιος το ροκέ του κάνει την παρτίδα δεν τη χάνει»...

There’s a known link between chess and music, probably because these two arts require similar parts of the brain. There have been several people who have excelled in both spheres, for example François-André Danican Philidor was both a composer and the best chess player of his day. Others include Lajos Portisch, Vassily Smyslov and Mark [...]

A tweet from 2700chess: Four decisive games today! During WCC match Anand - Gelfand we saw only 3 decisive games including tie-breaks. Ouch.

The 3rd Danzhou GM tournament took place 29th May - 7th June 2012. Bu Xiangzhi took the trophy on tie-break from Ni Hua after both scored 6/9 a point clear of the field. Women's World Champion Hou Yifan finished dead last on 3/9 and now travels to Kazan for the Women's Grand Prix on with an opening ceremony on Saturday 9th June.

The 3rd Danzhou GM tournament took place 29th May - 7th June 2012. Bu Xiangzhi took the trophy on tie-break from Ni Hua after both scored 6/9 a point clear of the field. Women's World Champion Hou Yifan finished dead last on 3/9 and now travels to Kazan for the Women's Grand Prix on with an opening ceremony on Saturday 9th June.

For all his achievements in classical chess, which in the middle of the last decade were staggering, Veselin Topalov has never been known as a great rapid player. His form hasn't been very good in general the past several years, but one would still expect him to be able to handle Francisco Vallejo Pons in their 6-game rapid match. He may yet manage, but not so far: after a draw in game 1 Vallejo...

The first round of the 7th Tal Memorial saw four wins for white and a draw in a position that had probably been winning. Morozevich 1-0 Caruana (was unclear for a long time but Caruana's 47...Bf7 stopping his own threatened Qxe3 from working in key lines was the decisive error), Carlsen 1/2 Kramnik (Carlsen missed something trivial with white in the opening, played a sharp but probably losing...

IM Malcolm Pein looks at a win from former Candidate's finalist Andrei Sokolov from the French League and a win for Martin Brown in the e2e4 event at Gatwick.

Mitropa Cup 2012 for men and women was held at Solaris Hotels Resort Šibenik, Croatia, from 30th May to 8th June, 2012. Mitropa Cup 2012 was played according to FIDE Laws of Chess and the Team Round Robin system of play, with 9 rounds for men’s and 7 rounds for women’s selections. Each federation is [...]

The 3rd Hainan Danzhou Grandmaster Chess Tournament was organized by the Chinese Chess Association from 29th May to 7th June in Danzhou, China. Traditionally, ten top Chinese Grandmasters competed in the round robin event. The average elo of the players was 2631. Bu Xiangzhi and former Asian champion Ni Hua shared the first place with [...]

The 7th Tal Memorial Round 1 has started. TWIC live page along has moves along with my tweets. Official site has Russian video commentary and games Round 1 Friday 3pm Moscow time: Morozevich-Caruana, Carlsen-Kramnik, Grischuk-McShane, Radjabov-Tomashevsky, Aronian-Nakamura. Detail report will appear here after the round finishes. Updates of the games and results below.

As mentioned in the last post, the players with White this round were those who finished in the top half of the table. It's only one round in, obviously, but so far yesterday's results correlate with today's. Vladimir Kramnik drew easily with Black against Magnus Carlsen and was close to a win, but in the other four games Weaver Adams was right: White to play and win. Levon Aronian benefited more...