World Chess Olympiad 2010
World Chess Olympiad is going to take place in Khanty-Mansiysk from September, 20th to October, 4th. There are 160 male and 120 female teams participating. Tournament format: 11 rounds of swiss with 4 games in every round. Play days: 21-25, 27-30 Sept, 1 & 3 Oct. All rounds start at 10:00 UTC. ChessOK is going to broadcast all games of the tournament with Rybka 4 Aquarium commentary. The commentaries can be displayed in the six languages – Russian, English, German, Spanish, Italian or French. In each round 16 selected games are to be commented online, and another 100 games will be commented and posted on this site within 20 hours after the end of a round. World Chess Olympiad Broadcast

Getting More Out of IDeA in Aquarium 2010
In this column, I take a deeper look at some features that were discussed in earlier columns, and I reveal a couple of interesting ideas that will help you get a better understanding of IDeA in Aquarium 2010. As before, I emphasize the importance of its interactive features and start out with the many different says of selecting and sending positions for analysis in IDeA. Read the rest of this entry »

New Rybka Aquarium Opening Book
The title of this column implies three novelties:

• Rybka 4 is now releaes, stronger than ever.
• Aquarium 4, a new version matching Rybka 4, is also introduced, with loads of improvements, some of which have been described in my recent columns. Additionally an update to Aquarium 2010 (4.0.3) will also be released as a free update for current customers.
• Last, but not least, a new Rybka 4 Aquarium opening book is now released with thoroughly researched and up to date collection of modern opening lines.

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Champions match: Kasparov – Karpov
12th and 13th World Champions Anatoly Karpov (2619) and Garry Kasparov (2812) will play match in Valencia, Spain from 21st to 24th September. Match format: 12 (4 Rapid and 8 blitz) games. Time control: rapid: 25 min + 5 sec/move, blitz 5 min+2 sec/move. Games start at 18.00 GMT. ChessOK is going to broadcast all games of this tournament with Rybka 3 Aquarium commentary. Games: Game 1 [ PGN], Game 2 [ PGN], Game 3 [ PGN], Game 4 [ PGN], Blitz [ PGN] [–match–]

Back with a Vengeance

Starting in India and Persia and evolving in the 15^th century into the game we know today, chess is, without a doubt, one of the most mind-bending, all-consuming, one-on-one games of pure will and determination known to man. The strategic and tactical nature of the game makes its required skill level rise above and beyond any of the trite findings of your everyday online casinos. But with an easy-to-learn format, many of today’s online gamers are logging onto chess-specific sites to match their grit and will to win against a plethora of opponents.

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Analysis Presets in Rybka Aquarium

This month we’ll examine infinite analysis presets in Rybka Aquarium. Presets allow you to store and quickly access your favorite analysis settings so you don’t have to configure them manually every time you want to use them. A single preset can hold advanced analysis configurations consisting of multiple engines and analysis panels. I assume that the reader is familiar with the basics of infinite analysis in Rybka Aquarium, which was discussed in my July 2008 column.

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Opening Studies with Rybka & Chess Openings 2009

The clearest indication that Rybka 3 UCI & Chess Openings 2009 is much more than a regular onevolume reference work on the chess openings is in the title itself. For this program includes Rybka 3, by far the strongest chess engine available. This month I will discuss the different tools that the program offers for viewing and studying the theoretical material, and next month I will take a look at some additional features, including using Rybka for analysis.

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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”.

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