Clear trends have already formed in this year's Reggio Emilia tournament, and they continued today. A majority of games were drawn once again, and Vassily Ivanchuk and Alexander Morozevich remain winless. Michele Godena is having a tough go of things so far, and as in round 1 a blunder in time pressure immediately ended the game. The last trends coincided: Nigel Short's propensity for playing the...

Starting in about two hours (i.e. at 2 p.m. ET), the Notre Dame Fighting Irish will take on, and then take apart, the Miami Hurricanes in the Sun Bowl in El (intercepted) Paso, Texas. More info here.

In this interview, Vladimir Kramnik discusses not the number 2010 but his form this past year (especially in London) and his plans and ambitions for the first part of 2011. Yet another good read from the Chess in Translation site! HT: Brian Karen

Να κλείσουμε τις αναρτήσεις για αυτή τη χρονιά με μουσική. Ίσως όχι πολύ χαρούμενη, όμως είναι η μουσική που έτυχε να παίζει από το cd player σήμερα το μεσημέρι. Να μου συγχωρεθεί ο προσωπικός τόνος των τελευταίων...

London Chess Classic 2010 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Score* 1 Magnus Carlsen 2802 * L L W W D W W 13/21 2 Viswanathan Anand 2804 D * W D D D D W 11/21 3 Luke McShane 2645 W D * D D D D W 11/21 4 Hikaru Nakamura [...]

Στην Ασία, με τη διαφορά ώρας που έχουμε, το 2011 βρίσκεται πιο κοντά από ό,τι στην Ευρώπη. Εδώ ένας πιστός Ινδός Σιχ προσεύχεται, ενώ στο βάθος διακρίνεται ο παραμυθένιος Χρυσός Ναός του Αμριτσάρ. Ένα γνωστό ευφυολόγημα...

Francisco “Paco” Vallejo Pons is in sole lead at the 53rd Torneo di Capodanno in Reggio Emilia. The Spanish GM scored 2.5/3. The tournament also sees big names like Vassily Ivanchuk, Vugar Gashimov, Nigel Short, Fabiano Caruana and… Alexander Morozevich. General info The 53rd Torneo di Capodanno takes place December 28 – January 6 in [...]

Τα τελευταία εικοσιτετράωρα του 2010 οι εφημερίδες μιλούν για επιδημία κατάθλιψης, στις λαϊκές αγορές καλοντυμένοι κύριοι περιμένουν να απογευματιάσει για να προμηθευτούν ζαρζαβατικά από το σωρό, το χαμόγελο σπάνια το...

In this week's show I have a look at a couple of recent blitz games. The first was a GM vs. IM battle, with both sides making lots of errors in an ending. Nevertheless, several of the mistakes are instructive, and thus not only of schadenfreude value. The second goes in a different direction: it's a nice but short attacking effort by yours truly, complete with a winning combination. Consider it...

And from both earlier and later, too: here. HT: Mark Crowther (TWIC)

The highlight of round 2 was Nigel Short's second consecutive wins, managed to double his total score (in normal scoring) from London in 2/7 the time. This win was an odd echo of the first: again he had White (this time vs. Alexander Morozevich), again his king had to go scurrying hither and yon to avoid his opponent's attack, and again, ultimately, success. That left him in clear first, as the...

As the ‘Euwe year’ comes to an end, we pay tribute once more to the 5th World Champion. Because Euwe won the world title exactly 75 years ago, Dutch broadcast corporation VPRO made available a big number of videos in which you can see Euwe together with players like Alekhine, Botvinnik, Capablanca and others. Historical [...]

Get it before the new year starts! It’s still there, until tomorrow: our Holiday Special. As a subscriber to ChessVibes Openings you can now get your hands on all back issues 0-100 in a nice package with a complete PGN database file, worth 47 Euros, for only 30 Euros. Offer valid until December 31st. If [...]

Earlier this year a special, big ‘Rotterdam Chess Set’ was presented during the Rotterdam Museum Night, and this month the tabletop version came on the market. You can now win such a chess set! Schaaksite, a Dutch site for chess fans, announces a competition connected with the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in January 2011 and [...]

Με τις καλύτερες ευχές μου για προσωπική ευτυχία, οικογενειακή ευημερία και σκακιστικές επιτυχίες σε όλους τους σκακιστές, τους φίλους του σκακιού, και τους περαστικούς αναγνώστες. (Η εικόνα είναι η λεξική αποτύπωση...