The 15th European Individual Women’s Chess Championship was held from 5th to 18th July 2014, in Plovdiv, the second-largest city in Bulgaria and one of the oldest in the world. The format of the tournament was an 11-round Swiss with a time control 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of [...]

Anatoly Karpov also reacted to the case

FIDE with firm position on the case

With just half a dozen games to finish in the 2nd British Webserver Team Tournament, the race is on between last year’s Champions, the “Pawn Stars” Team with 15/22, the “ICCF Warriors” Team with 14/21 and the “Scheming Mind A” Team with 13/22. The “Pawn Stars” Team consists of SIM Gino Figlio (PER); SIM Dr […]

"Chess Olympiad is for all chess players from all national federations. This is not only a competition, this is a big celebration of chess."

The TCEC Grand champion Stockfish, modification 260614, maintains the lead in TCEC Season 6 – FRC after 26 rounds. The strongest engine has 23.5 points, full three points ahead of the main competitor Houdini 4, who collected 20,5. Critter 1.6a is on third position with 17/26, while Fire 3.1 has 14 points Follow Round 27th LIVE to see the direct encounter between the [...]

Indestructible chess wings for Hungarian GM Prohazska The 22-year-old GM Prohaszka (Hungary, 2585) maintains his perfect score and leads after the 6th round of the International Open Aegean Championship “Ikaros 2014”. He’s been followed by Khairallah (Lebanon, 2296), Hookham (Scotland, 2104), Nikolaidis (Greece, 2093) all with 5/6 and Gazis (Greece, 2214), Sienczewski (Poland, 2060)...

The 23rd Macedonian Team Chess Championship 2014 is taking place on 14-20th July 2014 at the Hotel Drim in Struga, a popular touristic town in the Republic of Macedonia, lying on the shore of Lake Ohrid. The highest rated players are GM Yuriy Kryvoruchko (Ukraine), GM Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukraine), GM Alexander Delchev (Bulgaria). Official website

Biel: Anish Giri won his second straight game (the only decisive game of the round), this time over Alexander Motylev, and thereby managed to get back to 50%, where his 2-2 score puts him in a four-way tie for second. Motylev dropped to solo last place with 1.5 points, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave remained in clear first with 2.5 points. Bergamo: It's doubly hard to assess the tournament situation...

I noted yesterday that a major controversy is afoot with the Olympiad. The base problem was the failure of the Russian chess federation to register their women's team - the defending Olympic champions! - by the deadline. From that starting point further controversy is roiling, including an accusation by FIDE VP Israel Gelfer that the Olympiad organizers in Tromso, Norway failed to show lenience...

Jon Edwards, Mastering Mates Book 2: 1,111 Two-Move, Three-Move & Four-Move Mates. (Russell Enterprises, 2014.) 224 pp. $19.95. This is the second of two volumes in Jon Edwards' "Mastering Mates" series, and my review of the first volume expresses the gist of what I would want to say about this one. Here too there are 1111 puzzles from actual games, and as in volume one the player with...

The decision causes a heated discussion

Οι γκραν μαιτρ Βέλιτσκα (αριστερά) και Προχάσκα στην 1η σκακιέρα του 5ου γύρου των αγώνων “Ίκαρος 2014”. – GMsVelicka (left) and Prohaszka (right) face each other on the 5th round of “Ikaros 2014”(* Non-greek speaking visitors, please scroll below)Ο 22χρονος Προχάσκα (Ουγγαρία, 2585)...

The Russian news agency Itar-Tass revealed the list of teams excluded from the 2014 Tromso Chess Olympiad. Men: Cambodia, Central African Republic, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, Oman, Pakistan, Senegal Women: Russia, Afganistan This makes a total of nine teams, all supporting FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in the coming elections according to the agency. Follow the developing [...]

Jon Edwards, Mastering Mates: 1,111 One-Move Mates. (Russell Enterprises, 2014.) 224 pp. $19.95. Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos. About a month ago I mentioned Alex Baburin's quip about Jon Edwards' earlier book Sacking the Citadel to the effect that Edwards was engaging in a bit of overkill: Recently I received an interesting book called "Sacking the Citadel" (Russell Enterprises, 2011...