The English Chess Federation Chief Executive Phil Ehr called an urgent, additional Board meeting on Saturday 8th February 2014 with the following agenda: 1. A discussion about the issues raised in the recent print and web articles, various claims involving the recent activities of Andrew Paulson and Nigel Short concerning the imminent ECU and FIDE [...]

GM Petar Drenchev leads the Bulgarian National Championship Semifinal. After four rounds GM Drenchev is with 3,5/4, after defeating IM Pavel Dimitrov, Daniil Danov, and Kiril Terzijski, and drawing with IM Marholev. GM Drenchev is closely followed by a group of players with 3,0/4, including IM Kozhuharov, GM Arnaudov, IM Radoslav Dimitrov, IM Dimitar Marholev, [...]

Botswana is located in Southern Africa and if one can imagine a map of African Continent like chess board it’s easy to find Botswana on the second rank near to South Africa. The population of the country is about 2 millions but the territory is so huge that the density is 3.4 people/km2 (in comparison [...]

The 1st International Chess Open Casino Graz 2014 is set to take place from 14th to 21st February at the Casino Graz and Joanneum Quarter in Graz, Austria. The tournament will be held in two groups: Open A for all players and Open B for players rated under 2000. Both groups will be played over [...]

February 13-16, with triple engine analysis

Houdini second, big fight for the qualification positions

The flight back from Nelson to Auckland was uneventful. I remember Air NZ having touch screen entertainment screens on their bigger planes but Nelson is a tiny airport and we travelled back on a tiny propeller plane so there was no luxury! We arrived back into Auckland in the late evening and had just two […]

This is a tale of three discovered attacks in a short game of mine: two that might have happened but didn’t, and one that did. The two that did not occur are most interesting; the one that did was trivial. Often, the most interesting and critical moments of the game are when an idea is […]

Oh well. Is there a third option? [HT: Marc Beishon]

Andrey Filatov, recently elected President of Russian Chess Federation, gave a long interview for the popular newspaper “Sport-Express”. The President of the RCF shared with journalist Evgeniy Atarov his plans for promotion of chess, preparation of Russian national teams, the project “Chess in the Museums”, the possibility of organizing a new super-tournament in Russia and...

FIDE has announced round by round pairings for the Candidates Chess Tournament 2014 which is starting on 13th March in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia. Round 1: GM Andreikin Dmitry RUS – GM Kramnik Vladimir RUS GM Karjakin Sergey RUS – GM Svidler Peter RUS GM Mamedyarov Shakhriyar AZE – GM Topalov Veselin BUL GM Anand Viswanathan [...]

For now it consists of a single greeting video by him, but it will hopefully grow more interesting over time. [HT: "monster"]

The European Chess Union (E.C.U), the International School Chess Union (I.S.C.U.) and the Olympic Sports Academy of Thessaloniki have the honour of inviting all National Chess Federations of the European Chess Union and eligible players to the European School Chess Championships 2014 organised in Kavala, Greece from 16 June (arrivals) to 27 June (departures). Each [...]

European Team Champions in 2011 and European Team Vice-Champions in 2013, Germany and France, will play a friendly match some time during 2014 to mark the 51st anniversary of the Élysée Treaty. Diego Salazar, President of the French Chess Federation, and Horst Metzing, CEO of the German Chess Federation (in office since 1976), recently met [...]

Live games with analysis by Komodo, Stockfish, and Houdini