Round 4 of the 4th Final Masters saw Vassily Ivanchuk win his 3rd game in a row, this time as black, against Levon Aronian in a fiendishly complicated game. Ivanchuk obtained a decisive advantage which he lost in terrible time trouble but Aronian who had more time blitzed him and blundered his position away. Viswanathan Anand ground down Vallejo Pons who admitted afterwards he is in awful form...

Round 4 of the 4th Final Masters saw Vassily Ivanchuk win his 3rd game in a row, this time as black, against Levon Aronian in a fiendishly complicated game. Ivanchuk obtained a decisive advantage which he lost in terrible time trouble but Aronian who had more time blitzed him and blundered his position away. Viswanathan Anand ground down Vallejo Pons who admitted afterwards he is in awful form...

That's three wins in a row for Vassily Ivanchuk, on the strength of a win with Black against Levon Aronian. A Ragozin System turned into a funny Exchange Variation of the Queen's Gambit. That often leads to quiet play, but Aronian went all out on the kingside. Ivanchuk was forced to counterattack in the center, and he outplayed Aronian in the complications. Terribly short of time, however...

WHO: Kamsky, Gata (2756) Vs. Svidler, Peter (2740) This knockout tournament was played in Khanty-Mansiysk in Siberia. Gata Kamsky is currently the highest rated player in the USA but originally came from Novokuznetsk in the USSR and so arguably had some home advantage. He was a very strong chess prodigy with an overbearing and irascible [...]

Το 4ο Ανοιχτό Πρωτάθλημα και Πρωτάθλημα Αργολίδας 2011 διοργανώνει ο Σ.Σ. Ναυπλίου «Ο Άγιος Νεκτάριος».Το τουρνουά θα διοργανωθεί στα Ιδιωτικά Εκπαιδευτήρια Μαλτέζου με ελβετικό σύστημα 5 γύρων με διεθνή και εθνική...

Το Σάββατο 8 Οκτωβρίου 2011 αρχίζει το 118ο Όπεν Αμπελοκήπων με διεθνή αξιολόγηση έλο. Το τουρνουά είναι ελβετικό 7 γύρων, με χρόνο σκέψης 2 ώρες + 30’’ και θα διεξάγεται κάθε Σάββατο και Τετάρτη, από 8 - 29/10/2011, στις 5.30 μ.μ., στο...

IM Malcolm Pein looks at day two of the 4th Final Masters in Sao Paulo and Bilbao. He annotates Vassly Ivanchuk's win against Francisco Vallejo Pons and Hikaru Nakamura's draw against Viswanathan Anand.

ΑΝΑΚΟΙΝΩΣΗ Ο Σκακιστικός Σύλλογος Ελασσόνας και η Ένωση Σκακιστικών Σωματείων Κεντρικής Ελλάδος διοργανώνουν σχολικό τουρνουά σκάκι στις αίθουσες του 3ου δημοτικού σχολείου Ελασσόνας. Καλούνται όλοι οι μαθητές...

IM Malcolm Pein looks at day two of the 4th Final Masters in Sao Paulo and Bilbao. He annotates Vassly Ivanchuk's win against Francisco Vallejo Pons and Hikaru Nakamura's draw against Viswanathan Anand.

Here’s another Paul Morphy gem against another great American player, Louis Paulsen. Paulsen was actually a subtle and original chess thinker but so far ahead of his time that his play wasn’t fully understood. And Morphy meanwhile was the better tactician.

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the game that impressed me in round 4 of the ongoing 2011 European Club Cup was Dmitrij Jakovenko's victory over Boris Gelfand. Jakovenko came up with a novelty on move 37(!) that quickly resulted in a complicated rook ending. Objectively, Black should have held it, but theory is one thing and practice another. One highly unobvious mistake was enough to lose the...

Again, I'm only browsing a few games from this event, so those who are following it more closely ought to comment on what I've missed. Anyway, from today's action Naiditsch's quick crush of Giri was impressive, as was Mamedyarov's quick win over Grandelius. (The big difference is that Giri's about 200 points stronger than Grandelius, and thus less likely to get massacred.) Endgame fans might...

Have a look here, and scroll down to the section on Dortmund, paragraph two, which reads For this ChessBase Magazine the serial victor of Dortmund has chosen to annotate his win against Hikaru Nakamura. The American went into a theoretical duel in the Nimzo-Indian and chose an unfashionable variation with 8.Qb3. However, Kramnik points out in his analysis that in his...

The World Cup runner-up speaks about his tournament, here. (HT: Brian Karen)

Malcolm Pein reports on the start of the 4th Final Masters which takes place in Sao Paulo and Bilbao. He takes a look at Levon Aronian's win against Francisco Vallejo Pons.