Play chess Online.

Let’s come back to the past for a moment, when there were no Internet, no post services, no telephones and no other ways of long distance communication. That was a really hard time for the chess players who wanted to find good opponents. People had to play with the same players all the time and that was boring and even annoying. The appearance of the modern post service exerted a great influence upon the chess players. It created an opportunity to play against the opponents who were hundred and thousand miles away! But this was an absolutely different type of playing chess, when a player had a day, a week or even a month to think over the next move, so that one game could last for many years.

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Introduction to Tree Configurations

Many chess software users are familiar with electronic opening books. Chess players use them to study openings and build their repertoire, freestyle players use them for a similar purpose, and engine testers use them to ensure balanced positions out of the opening, etc. Opening books are one application of chess trees, but Aquarium uses trees for many other purposes and takes this concept to a new level with its tree configurations.

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Match GM Vadim Milov – Rybka 3

We have a schedule for the World #28 GM Vadim Milov (ELO 2705) vs. Rybka-3 match. The plan is to play the first two games on Sunday, Sept. 14, the next two on Sept. 15, one game on Sept 16, two games on Sept. 17, and the final game on Sept. 18. As for the order of the games, it’s not set in stone, but probably we’ll try to make it so that no two consecutive games will be played with the same initial conditions. As previously announced, two games are normal chess with just White advantage for Milov, two are pawn and move (f7), and four are rook for knight (a1 and b8 removed). Here are the details: Sunday and Monday, games at 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Eastern daylight time (4 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. CET); Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday games at 10:30 a.m. (4:30 p.m. CET), with an evening game Wednesday only at 5 p.m. (11 p.m. CET). The order of the games will be: standard game, Exchange odds, standard game, Exchange odds, pawn and move, Exchange odds, pawn and move, Exchange odds. The match will be broadcasted by one of the Rybka’s co-authors Larry Kaufman on both ChessOK Playing Zone and this website.

[–match–]

GAMES

World Women`s Chess Championship 2008
The World Women’s Championship 2008 takes place in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria (Russian Federation), 28th August – 18th September 2008 with a prize fund of 450,000 USD. In tournament shall be 5 rounds of matches, comprising two games per round, with the winners progressing to the next round. The 6th round (final round) shall be played over four games and the winner will be declared Women’s World Champion. Alexandra Kosteniuk (Russia) became Women’s World Champion after winning 2.5-1.5 in the final match Hou Yifan (China). Our congratulations to her!

RESULTS 1 round; 2 round; 3 round; 4 round; 5 round; final Hou Yifan – Kosteniuk – comment by ICCF IM M. Emelyanov Kosteniuk – Hou Yifan – comment by ICCF IM M. Emelyanov

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Grand Slam Final Bilbao
The Chess Grand Slam Final takes place in Bilbao 2st-13th September 2008 with a prize fund of 400,000 €. There are 6 players. The first qualifiers were the winners of Corus 2008, Morelia – Linares 2008, and Mtel Masters 2008 – GM Levon Aronian, GM Viswanathan Anand, and GM Vassily Ivanchuk. Then the 2nd place players also qualified GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Veselin Topalov and finally the best all-round player left Teimour Radjabov. Playing time: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and another 60 minutes to finish the game. Players will get 3 points for winning a match, 1 point for drawing and 0 points for losing.

1 round; 2 round; 3 round; 4 round; 5 round; 6 round; 7 round; 8 round; 9 round; 10 round; Live comments by ICCF IM Mikhail Emelyanov: V. Anand – V.Ivanchuk V.Ivanchuk – M.Carlsen V. Topalov – M.Carlsen

Game analysis with Chess Assistant 10

In the two previous columns we examined infinite analysis with Chess Assistant 10. Infinite analysis is a very useful tool, but it is best suited for analysis of a limited number of positions. One of the drawbacks of infinite analysis is that as soon as you want to examine more than one position it turns into a manual process where you have to make the decision when a position has been analyzed deeply enough and then manually move on to the next position and so on. For the improving player it is more efficient and useful to have all phases and every move of the game analyzed automatically. Each tournament game you play should be subjected to such analysis and stored for future reference after trying to learn as much as possible from the game and its analysis. Just remember that engine analysis is not a replacement for your own analysis. Always start by entering your own thoughts about the game and only then analyze it with Chess Assistant.

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Tal Memorial
The Tal Memorial in Moscow takes place in 18th-31st August 2008. Playing days 18th-22nd and 24th-27th August 2008. Then there will be a blitz tournament with qualfiers on the 27th and 28th and then the main event on 29th-30th. The mean rating of participants equals to 2745. Play starts at 12pm UK time. Vassily Ivanchuk took clear first place in the main category XX event a point clear of the field and then repeated the trick in the blitz tournament. 1 round; 2 round; 3 round; 4 round; 5 round; 6 round;
7 round; 8 round; 9 round Live comments by ICCF IM M. Emelyanov: V. Kramnik – A. ShirovS. Mamedyarov – A. MorozevichA. Morozevich – V. KramnikP. Leko – A. MorozevichV. Ivanchuk – V. KramnikA. Morozevich – R. PonomariovV. Ivanchuk – A. MorozevichR. Ponomariov – V. Ivanchuk

Rybka Aquarium FAQ

Rybka 3 Aquarium is now available. The June and July columns give a glimpse into some of the capabilities of this new software, and in April and May I interviewed the developers of both Rybka 3 and Rybka Aquarium. It’s still early in its release, but it’s already clear that Rybka 3 is a huge step forward from the previous version, both in playing strength and functionality.

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