Chess Olympiad Dresden 2008
The 38th Chess Olympiad will take place in Dresden (Germany) from 12 till 25 November. This year each team consists of 4 regular and 1 reserve players and form of the tournament is now an 11 rounds swiss. 156 teams are announced in the men tournament, and 119 in the women one. ChessOK would commentate each round using Rybka 3 Aquarium. Round 1 with Rybka 3 Aquarium live comments Below you would find a quick review of the event and our forecast. Read the rest of this entry »

Creating Tree Configurations

Last month’s column was an introduction to tree configurations in Rybka Aquarium. This month we’ll have a closer look at how tree configurations are created.

Read the rest of this entry »

World Chess Championship: Anand – Kramnik
The World Championship match where Viswanathan Anand (India) will defends his World title against Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) will now take place in Bonn, Germany. The match will consist of twelve games, played under classical time controls, in the period from October 14 to October 30, 2008. If there is a tie at the end of these games a tiebreak will be played on November 02, 2008. The prize fund, which will be split equally between the players, is 1,5 million Euro including taxes and FIDE licensee fees. The reigning and undisputed World Champion Anand won his title in September 2007 at the World Championship tournament in Mexico City . Kramnik, who was undefeated in his three world championship matches, became second in this double round robin event. The organizer of the World Championship 2008 is Universal Event Promotion (UEP), which is located in Dortmund (Germany) and has received all rights for the event from FIDE. The main sponsors of the World Championship are Evonik Industries and Gazprom.The match consists of twelve games, played under classical time controls: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61.

Anand retains World Title!

Anand [6,5:4,5] Kramnik

1. Kramnik – Anand 1/2-1/2 2. Anand – Kramnik 1/2-1/2 3.Kramnik – Anand 0-1 4. Anand – Kramnik 1/2-1/2 5. Kramnik – Anand 0-1 6. Anand – Kramnik 1-0 7. Anand – Kramnik 1/2-1/2 8. Kramnik – Anand 1/2-1/2 9. Anand – Kramnik 1/2-1/2 10. Kramnik – Anand 1-0 11. Anand – Kramnik 1/2-1/2

Read the rest of this entry »

Russian Championship Super Final
The Russian Championship SuperFinal includes Morozovich, Grischuk, Tomashevsky (top 3 in ’07), and Svidler along with Jakovenko and Alekseev as top 3 by rating who did not qualify otherwise along with Maslak, Lastin, and Riazantsev who qualified from the higher league competition. Opening ceremony 2nd October, 1st round on the 3rd. Double-round robin tournament in quick chess took place on October 28 and determined the champion of Russia. In final round Petr Svidler beat Dmitriy Yakovenko with score 3 out of 4. Yakovenko ended up with 2.5 points, Evgeniy Alekseev – with 0.5. Once again, Svidler is the champion of Russia, now for the fifth time! Read the rest of this entry »

Russian “Chess Queen” grabs 1st gold at World Mind Games

BEIJING. Russia’s ace chess player Alexandra Kosteniuk clinched the first gold medal of the World Mind Games here on Sunday as the newly crowned queen came from behind to beat former world champion Stefanova Antoaneta of Bulgaria 2-1 in the women’s blitz chess. “Winning the first gold is a huge success for me. Because it was the first Mind Games and it was a good move today as we always tried to join the Olympic family,” said Alexandra. In the third-place playoff, China’s 14-year-old Hou Yifan beat her compatriot Zhao Xue to gift the host a bronze. The 1st World Mind Games, which opened officially on Firday night, attracted more than 3,000 players from 143 countries and regions. Bridge, Chess, Go, Draughts and Xiangqi were on the program.

Rybka wins the 16th World Computer Chess Championship
The 16th ICGA World Computer Chess Championship has finished and Rybka has won with 8/9, ahead of Hiarcs and Junior.

Short reports by Vasik Rajlich and Jeroen Noomen GAMES

Annotating Games with Chess Assistant 10

Previous columns have dealt with using the chess engine to annotate games in Chess Assistant 10, but this month we’ll be focusing on the do-it-yourself variety. When it comes to learning from your games, your own personal annotations are more important than an engines analysis. It forces you to think for yourself, instead of just accepting whatever the program suggests. Once your analysis is complete, then you can compare it with the engines results to either verify your ideas or find those that you missed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tactics Training with Convekta software

By Georgi Castaneda The idea of the article is as follows: it is very important to study tactics and it is better to do so with the software of our company. Why shall we study tactics? One of the most important components in chess player’s skills is tactical vision. It’s impossible to achieve high results without mastering this art.

Read the rest of this entry »