Match Kramnik – Navara (rapid), Praha (May, 14-18)

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	points
V.Kramnik (2788)	1	1	1	1/2	1/2	1	1/2	0	5,5
D.Navara (2672)	0	0	0	1/2	1/2	0	1/2	1	2,5

Grandmaster David Navara cheered up after two final games of the match against Vladimir Kramnik. One and half points which he gained on Sunday did not revert overall loss in 2,5:5,5 match, but winning a game against one of two best current players is definitely success. Vladimir Kramniks leaves Prague with a trophy as well as, according to him, with pleasant memories. Round 1: Kramnik – Navara, 1:0 Round 2: Navara – Kramnik, 0:1 Round 3: Kramnik – Navara, 1:0 Round 4: Navara – Kramnik, 1/2 Round 5: Kramnik – Navara, 1/2 Round 6: Navara – Kramnik, 0:1 Round 7: Kramnik – Navara, 1/2 Round 8: Navara – Kramnik, 1:0

Interview with the Developers of Rybka 3

In last month’s ChessOK Cafe I interviewed the developers of Rybka Aquarium, a new graphical user interface (GUI) for Rybka that is expected to be released soon. This month we’ll be talking to Vasik Rajlich and Larry Kaufman – the brains behind Rybka itself. They are currently working on a completely new version, Rybka 3, which has been in development for almost a year. Rybka has been by far the strongest chess playing engine ever since Vasik released the first beta version and distributed it for free in December 2005. Rybka 3 will not only offer increased playing strength greater chess knowledge compared to Rybka 2.3.2a, but also new features such as FischerRandom chess (Chess960) and “persistent hash”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mtel-MASTERS, May 8th – May 18th 2008, Sofia, Bulgaria
PLACE – Sofia, Bulgaria, Central Military Club. RATE OF PLAY Sistem – round – robin in two rounds ( all play all with White and Black alternatively) TIME CONTROL – 90 min for 40 moves + 1 hour to the end of the game. Participants: Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria, 2767); Levon Aronian (Armenia 2763); Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijdan 2751); Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraina 2740); Bu Xiangzhi (China 2708); Ivan Cheparinov (Bulgaria 2695). 10 ROUND (15.00 EEST, 18.05.2008) Cheparinov – Ivanchuk 0-1 Topalov – Radjabov 1/2 Aronian – Xiangzhi 1/2 Commented games: 1 round 2 round 3 round 4 round 5 round 6 round 7 round 8 round 9 round 10 round Read the rest of this entry »

PLOVDIV 2008
The IX European Individual Chess Championship took place in Plovdiv, Bulgaria 20th April – 4th May 2008. Sergei Tiviakov took the men’s title with 8.5/11 half a point clear of the field, Sergei Movsessian took the silver after beating Sergey Volkov in the playoffs. Commented games by Tiviakov: 4 round Kozul Zdenko – Tiviakov Sergei 0 – 1 11 round Tiviakov Sergei – Sutovsky Emil 1 – 0

FIDE GRAND PRIX SERIES
Chess Grand Prix series under the aegis of FIDE will be held from April 20th 2008 till December 23th 2009. Event 1 April 20th – May 6th 2008, Baku, Azerbaijan Event 2 July 30th – August 15th 2008, Sochi, Russia Event 3 December 13th – 29th, 2008, Doha, Qatar Event 4 April 14th – 28th, 2009, Montreux, Switzerland Event 5 August 8th – 24th, 2009, Elista, Russia Event 6 December 7th – 23rd, 2009, Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic Twenty one grand masters, among whom nineteen are in the Top 50 April 2008 FIDE ratings, will participate in these tournaments. The rating favorite is Magnus Carlsen from Norway with current 2765 points. Each tournament will be a 14 player round robin. Each player will play four FIDE tournaments. Each player will win a money prize (even the participant, who takes the last place gets 4000 Euro!) and get ranking points for the taken place. After the tournament series is over, additional prizes are provided (the prize for the first place is 75000 Euro! There are ten prizes provided). The prize depends on the number of cumulative points scored in the FIDE Grand Prix Series.

Dinosaur Chess. Mac version
Dinosaur Chess (Mac version) is an entertaining chess program that will keep the attention of children while teaching them the basics of chess. The program contains four modes: LEARN, PLAY, PROGRESS and DINO FIGHT. Read the rest of this entry »

FIDE GRAND PRIX, EVENT 1 April 20th – May 6th 2008, Baku, Azerbaijan

Round 13 (10-00 GST, 05.05.2008)	GM_Adams – GM_Gashimov 1/2
GM_Karjakin – GM_Kamsky 1/2	GM_Bacrot – GM_Carlsen 0-1
GM_Navara – GM_Cheparinov 1-0	GM_Wang_Yue – GM_Mamedyarov 1/2
GM_Grischuk – GM_Radjabov 1/2	GM_Svidler – GM_Inarkiev 1-0

Commented games: 1 round 2 round 3 round 4 round 5 round 6 round 7 round 8 round 9 round 10 round 11 round 12 round 13 round Read the rest of this entry »

Rybka Aquarium: Interview with the Developers

Besides the constant flow of improved chess playing engines, there hasn’t been any really big news on the chess software front in recent years – but that is about to change.

The last major news was when Rybka burst onto the scene in December 2005 and since then she has outclassed all other chess engines. Nevertheless, there has been one piece missing from her otherwise perfect world – she hasn’t had her own place to live, so to speak. But now ChessOK (formerly known as Convekta) is preparing to release a new and modern chess GUI that is fit for a champion and will finally make Rybka feel at home, as we learn from an interview with two of the developers, Victor Zakharov and Pete Lupherenko.

Read the rest of this entry »