The 40th Peoples Tournament is set to take place from 14-16th February, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Pkwy, Santa Clara, California, USA. The event consists of five elo sections. The tournament format is 6-round Swiss with the time control 40/120, sd30, d5. The total prize fund is $20,000 based on [...]

The Southwest Class Championships will be held from February 13-16, 2015, at the DFW Airport Marriott South, 4151 Centreport Blvd., Fort Worth, Texas. The event has 7 sections: Master (FIDE rated), Expert, Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D and Class E. The Master Section has either 4-day (February 13-16) or 3-day (February 14-16) [...]

FIDE Events Commission (EVE) conducted a preparation meeting for the coming 86th FIDE Congress in Moscow, Russia from 6-8th February 2015. The meeting started with a very interesting presentation from the Commission member Adam Dzwonkowski (POL) about chess branding and chess events marketing. The Commission evaluated the preparations for the World Chess Championships 2015 and [...]

Στην 4η αγωνιστική στο πλαίσιο των αγώνων της Β΄Εθνικής, η ομάδα μας ηττήθηκε με 4,5 – 5,5 στον εντός έδρας αγώνα από την ομάδα ΑΟ Κηφισιάς. Αναλυτικά τα αποτελέσματα είναι τα εξής: Κούρκουλος-Αρδίτης Σταμάτης – Σουλτάτης...

In these days of computer databases and ever stronger engines, preparation is becoming an increasingly important factor. And it can be a particular problem if your games are on a database, for example at 365 Chess or Chess-db. Some players might even pull your games from internet servers if they know your handle there. So […]

The Aarhus Chess House GM Tournament 2015 is taking place from 7th to 14th February, 2015, in Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark. The event is a 10-player round-robin tournament with tempo of play 90′/ 40 + 30′ + 30″. The participants are: IM Alexander Donchenko GER 2552, IM Rasmus Svane GER 2512, GM [...]

The Bunratty Chess Festival 2015 is scheduled to take place from 18th to 22nd February, 2015, at the luxurious Bunratty Castle Hotel & Spa, Ireland. The highlight of the event, Bunratty Weekender 2015, includes the following players with more to follow: GM Wesley So USA (2788), GM Gawain Jones ENG (2670), GM Nigel Short ENG (2664), GM Nicholas Pert [...]

The 29th Cannes Winter Open – Festival des Jeux 2015 is scheduled to take place from 22nd February to 1st March at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France. The chess festival consists of three sections: - Tournament A for players with a 2200+ Elo rating - Tournament B for players with a rating lower [...]

USSR Honored Trainer IM Aleksander Nikitin donated two large boxes of “debut kartoteka” – openings card index to the Chess Museum in Moscow. In the pre-computer era masters and grandmasters carried huge cases of books and magazines to the chess tournaments. As trainer of the Soviet national teams in the 70s, Nikitin was in charge [...]

The reigning World champion Magnus Carlsen is the 2015 winner of Grenke Chess Classic! However, the trophy didn’t come easily. Carlsen tied for the first place with the top German player Arkadij Naiditsch, although the latter defeated him in the third round of the event. According to the tournament regulations, the winner should have been decided after an additional [...]

The Zurich Chess Challenge 2015 is taking place from 13th to 19th February, 2015, at the Hotel Savoy Baur en Ville, in Zurich, Switzerland. The super-tournament is a 5-round event with the classic tempo of play 120′/ 40 + 60′/ 20 + 15′ + 30″. The games will be daily live on Chessdom.com with TCEC engines analysis Participants: [...]

GM Danielsen shows one of the main weapons of Kramnik

The 53rd Annual Baltimore Open was held from 6-8th February at the Sheraton BWI, 1110 Old Elkridge Landing Road in Linthicum, Maryland, USA. The tournament consisted of seven sections: Championship (FIDE rated), U2100, U1900, U1700, U1500, U1250 and U1000. A total of 180 players participated in the event. All sections were completed over 5 rounds [...]

A new specialized chess school run by GM Boris Savchenko and director FM Salim Fazulyanov is opening on 14th February in the center of Moscow, at Petrovsky Boulevard 17/1. The school starts on February 14: the first group from 11.00 to 13.00, the second group with 13.10 to 15.10. In the starting period there will [...]

Here’s another interesting Youtube video about one of my favourite players. I really miss Kasparov’s vibrant attacking style: Nigel Davies