After a recent burst of tournament activity it looks like I’m going to be back on the bench again, at least until my son gets used to long play tournaments and will be OK waiting around should he finish well before me. I haven’t retired and have no plans to ever do so, it’s just […]

The 8th Annual Philadelphia Open was held over the Easter week from April 16-20, 2014, at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, 1201 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The event had 7 sections: Open, Under 2200, Under 2000, Under 1800, Under 1600, Under 1300 and Under 1000/Unrated. GM Gata Kamsky won the Open Section, finishing with 7.5 points, [...]

GM David Larino Nieto Larino (Spain) tops the 7th edition of the Pedro Lezcano Montalvo Memorial with 8/9 points. GM Karen Movsziszian (Armenia) and IM Sabrina Vega Gutierrez (Spain) share second place with 7,5/9 each. The event was organized by the Chess Federation of Gran Canaria on 14th-20th April, 2014 at the Avenida de Canarias [...]

Thoresen Chess Engines Competition (TCEC) Season 6 – Stage 3 is in progress. Eight engines are competing in a quad round robin format and only the top 4 will move on to Stage 4, while the rest are out of TCEC for the current season. Stockfish 4 (3135), modification 080414 leads the third Stage of [...]

GM Evgeny Postny (Israel) claims the Fagernes Chess International 2014 with 7,5/9 points, leaving the runner-up a half point behind. Second place is for GM Samuel Shankland (the USA) with 7/9, a full point ahead of the closest contenders. GM Evgeny Romanov (Russia) shares third place in a 4-way tie with GM Maxim Turov (Russia), [...]

GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Germany) and GM Levente Vajda (Romania) share first place in Doeberl Cup 2014 with 7.5/9 points, leaving the nearest contenders half a point behind. GM Hrant Melkumyan (Armenia) and Ke Mu (China) share the third place with 7/9 each. The latter achieved an IM norm, as well. The 52nd edition of Doeberl [...]

Evgeni Vasiukov (the victim of the famous "hippopotamus in the marsh" game) may not be the player he once was, but he's still pretty darned good. Although he is 81 years old, he still has a 2451 FIDE rating, and as such isn't a guy to be taken lightly. Of course, he can have his bad days - can't we all? - and when one's opponent plays as incisively as Miso Cebalo did in this game, disaster can...

And again, he is the only winner. His victim in round 2 of the Vugar Gashimov Memorial was Hikaru Nakamura, who has tried in various ways over the past year or two to psych himself into a full-fledged rivalry with the world champion. So far it hasn't worked, and Carlsen won something like his ninth classical game against Nakamura without a single loss. Carlsen enjoyed nagging pressure on the...

The 13th Asian Continental Individual Open and Women’s Chess Championships are taking place 16th to 26th April 2014 in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The top five from the 2014 Asian Open Championship qualify for the 2015 World Cup. The 2014 Asian Women’s champion qualifies for the 2015 Women’s World Championship. After five rounds of play [...]

Ο Rivers Cuomo (γεν. 1970) είναι  αμερικανός μουσικός, τραγουδιστής και συνθέτης. Γνωστός, λέει η wikipedia,και ως leader του συγκροτήματος της εναλλακτικής ροκ Weezer. Εδώ ένα τραγούδι του με τον τίτλο Chess, το οποίο ανακάλυψε και μου...

Φωτογραφία με το  γερμανό συγγραφέα Χανς Φάλαντα μπροστά από μια σκακιέρα. Μάλλον τραβήχτηκε πριν τον πόλεμο. Αυτός που βλέπετε εδώ μπροστά σας είναι ο γνωστός συγγραφέας Χανς Φάλαντα, ή μάλλον ό,τι απέμεινε απ’ αυτόν...

The seventh edition of Prinsenstad Weekendtoernooi Chess Tournament was organized by OGD and DSC from 18th to 20th April, 2014 at the Grotius College in Delft, in the Netherlands. More information here In the main Group A the local GM Eric Van den Doel and GM Igor Khenkin from Germany shared the first place with [...]

WIM Marija Rakic from Serbia convincingly won Chess Ladies Vienna round-robin tournament with 7.5/9 points, leaving the nearest follower a full point behind. The event took part from 12th to 20th April, 2014, in Vienna, the capital and the largest city of Austria. More information here. WIM Klara Varga from Hungary took silver medal with [...]

The FIDE Women World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2014 will be held from 21st April (arrival) to 29th April (departure) at the beautiful Ugra Chess Academy in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. The events will be both Swiss pairings tournaments and will be held over three days for Rapid (23-25th April) and three days for Blitz (26-28th April). [...]

The last Bundesliga weekend saw Mickey Adams win a superb bishop ending against Rainer Buhmann (below). To the inexpert eye, the bishop ending reached after 36 moves may look drawn, but the threat of a white king penetration via h4 in fact leaves Black in serious trouble, if not actually lost. I was struck by […]