Viktor Moskalenko, The Diamond Dutch: Strategic Ideas & Powerful Weapons (New in Chess, 2014). 271 pp., $29.95/ €26.95. Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos. [N.B. This review will soon be published in Chess Today as well, but as both Chess Today and the publishers independently sent me copies of the book (and I don't even play the Dutch!) it seemed appropriate to post it here as...

I mentioned the tournament a couple of times while it was still ongoing, but lost in busyness I didn't mention the final standings. Alexander Motylev won the European Individual Championship with a record-setting score of 9/11 and a 2872 TPR. The further importance of the tournament is that the top 23 automatically qualify for the next World Cup. You can find the final standings (and thus the...

It looks like Magnus Carlsen decided to have some fun in what I'm guessing was a one-off game. He played for Stavanger, aiming to help them achieve promotion to the country's top league next season. More about it here, including the world champion's victory over Vladimir Georgiev. (Replayable here, for your convenience.)  

Before ChessVibes was purchased by the Borg Chess.com, they published a pair of weekly newsletters: ChessVibes Openings (CVO) and ChessVibes Training (CVT). The former offered surveys of varying depths on various openings, and the latter was a hodgepodge of strategic themes, tactical puzzles, endgames and a game of the week annotated by Anish Giri (or later, some other slightly less strong but...

The co-leaders Levon Aronian and Viswanathan Anand shared the point in their round 8 match in the FIDE World Candidates Tournament. The duo remained in joint lead, but now the possible tie-break at the end of the event would favor Anand (mutual score 1,5-0,5). Vladimir Kramnik missed a chance to catch the leaders as his [...]

Three games were drawn today in round 8 of the Candidates' tournament, and drawn quickly. The game between the leaders was interesting early on, as Levon Aronian uncorked 1.c4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.Qb3!? against Viswanathan Anand, who replied with an interesting pawn sac: 3...d4 4.e3 c5 5.Qb5+ Nc6. White surrendered a lot of space and time for the material, and Anand drew by repetition after only 19...

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The first Ljubljana Chess Festival 2014 took place in Ljubljana, 15th of March 2014. It was a thematic tournament with Santa Claus visiting in March (aka “Шахматный Фестивал на приз деда Мороза” ) making both children and chess fans happy. The event was a 9 rounds blitz tournament with time control 10 mins + 5 [...]

In round 8 of the FIDE Candidates Tournament Levon Aronian stunned the co-leader Viswanathan Anand with an enterprising novelty as early as move 3. Anand appreciated the strength of Qb3 in various transpositions as it was not easy for him to reach a convenient Catalan or Gruenfeld structure. He finally went for the reversed Benoni [...]

Stockfish (3133 ELO) and Fire (2984 ELO) lead the second stage of the world’s strongest computer chess championship TCEC. The two engines have 2,5/3, half a point more than Komodo, Hannibal, and Rybka. Houdini 4 had a rough start after three consecutive draws – against Junior, Fire, and Gull. It shares 6th-11th position. One of [...]

I noticed a great deal of commentary at various chess sites lately regarding the fact that younger players know little about chess in a historical context. I’m not talking about the game’s origins but about the many fantastic players that elevated the game to its current status. I decided to see just how little many […]

Bryan Paulsen, Chess Developments: Semi-Slav 5.Bg5 (Everyman, 2013). 192 pp., $19.95. Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos. Why should grandmasters have all the fun? Lots of amateurs stay away from theoretical lines for several reasons, including these: it’s too much work, too much memorization, and there’s no creativity. But is it really true? Learning a robust opening like the Ruy...

The first cycle of the 2014 Candidates' tournament finished with a crazy and chaotic round that saw three decisive games, and it could easily have been four. In the end Viswanathan Anand and Levon Aronian were tied for first at +2*, half a point ahead of Vladimir Kramnik. Anand has led the entire tournament, by himself for most of it, and he probably would have kept that lead if he had played...

That there are quite a few digs by the world champion at Vladimir Kramnik's expense is pretty obvious, even with the shaky Google translation. (Norwegian readers are welcome to offer better translations!) This should sweeten the pot in case they end up playing in November. (HT: Ross Hytnen)

An interesting interview with World Champion Magnus Carlsen was posted today on NRK website. The interview was performed at the launch of the Play Carlsen app in Oslo a couple of weeks ago. Author Mads Nyborg Støstad kindly translated the quotes to English for Chessdom. - Kramnik tror at han vet alt, sier Magnus Carlsen. [...]