On the free day at the Jermuk Women's Grand Prix tournament way back in 2010, I had a pleasant opportunity to chat with the hosts. My conversation with the chief organizer and famous GM Smbat Lputian inevitably touched on the r...
In the second part of this article we continue the presentation of the new champions: Without a clear rating favorite of the group (about whom you will read below), the girls under 14 championship was won by M. Mahalakshmi from In...
Maribor, the second largest city in Slovenia was the proud owner of this name during 2012. Many interesting activities took, and continue to take place in this beautiful town where the Drava river flows, and which is also famous for its ski resort...
I bet that you are no longer surprised to learn that the Bulgarian team championship took place on the Black sea again. The differences are the names of the resorts that hosted the event and the dates. After two years in the north part (Albena) th...
I have a student with whom I work mainly on openings. He is a decent player, has all the IM norms, and understands the game well from a positional and tactical point of view. He knows a lot, and has read a lot of books. And still, while analyzing,...
Mikhail Tal once described a typical case in his book. In 1959, at the Candidates Tournament (which was won by him, and which gave him the right to challenge the world champion at the time Mikhail Botvinnik) Tal was leading by 2.5 points ahead of ...
This is a follow-up to my previous article on defending 4 v 3. The rook endgame three versus two on the same flank is the little brother of the one which we have already studied. The difference favours the defender as there is one pawn less that i...
(Four versus Three on the Same Flank: Part 2-Defense) In the previous article we saw the dangers that the defender faces in these seemingly easy endgames. If you remember, the main one was that the strong side might create a passed pawn ...
(Four versus Three on the Same Flank: Part 1-Attack) As the rooks are the most clumsy chess pieces and as they tend to get in the game very late, one of the most common endgames that arises on the board is the rook endgame. Therefore, st...
Aotearoa, or "the land of the long white cloud", or simple New Zealand as most of you know it hosted an exceptional event- the Queenstown Classic Chess Tournament. It is exceptional first of all for its occurrence-- only once every three years-- a...
During my studies in the National Sports Academy we had many other subjects besides chess. Anatomy, psychology, biochemistry, sports medicine, etc. Some of them were not really related to chess, some very close to the aspect of our game. We also h...
This is how the German team must have felt after winning the prestigious European Team Competition. I am a kind of breaking the chronological turn of events, but so be it! What these players did was surprising, exceptional and thrilling. After all...
After the Canadian Open Championship, there was a week pause, and then the Canadian chess circuit continued with the Quebec Open from July 23-30. In 1967, the Quebec chess federation was created in reason of the conflict between chess players fr...
The Canadian Open Championship took place in Toronto in the middle of July (9-17). After reading briefly the history of the event, and discovering that my personal hero Bent Larsen won the event twice I started dreaming of adding my name to winner...
What can possibly be better than a chess tournament in a nice place with excellent beaches and beautiful sun? With easy access, excellent prize fund, and cheap accommodation? This is precisely what the Black-sea resort Albena offered to the 274 p...
Sydney, the Capital city of New South Wales, was again hosting its 5th International Open from April 27th to May 1st. This year was quite risky for the event. The previous organizer FM Brian Jones announced at the closing ceremony in 2010 that h...
The Doeberl Cup took place between April 21 and 25 in Australia’s capital. It was the 49-th edition of the event, which features the who's who of Australian chess. The tournament is named after the architect Erich Doeberl who strongly...
He started playing chess at age 10, became a Candidate Master at 18, a Master at 24… At that point, it seemed as if this player would never emerge as a truly exceptional chess talent. He had the habit of playing fast, 15-20 minutes per game was ty...
When asked which book had a profound influence on their development as players, most strong players would name manuals like Nimzowitsch’s My System or books with selections of games like Fischer’s or Kasparov’s best games. Modern players will name...
Ratmir Kholmov was born in the small town of Shenkursk on the 13th of May, 1925. Due to his father’s work he travelled a lot from a young age. At the age of 12 he was left alone with his mother, and this was the time when he started playing chess....
Aivars Gipslis is not a well known name among chess fans around the world, but was a remarkable person dedicated to our beautiful game. Born on February 8, 1937 in Latvia, he started playing chess at the age of twelve, which was normal by that tim...
Three years after the majestic tournament of 1924, New York hosted another great event. This time only six players competed in a quadruple round robin tournament from February to March. Naturally, the favourite was the reigning champion Capablanca...
Nowadays chess sponsorship seems to be in crisis and many strong tournaments are being cancelled. However, some of those glorious events that put our sport in the spotlight will live forever. There are various reasons for this phenomenon: one of t...
The WWCC started at the beginning of December in Antakya, Turkey. The sacred chess number of players-- 64-- were to take part in the event, but two of them did not appear, and lost by forfeit. The first round saw the first surprises. Some of th...
[Ed note: this is the last of GM Bojkov's excellent three articles about the Grand Prix tournament in Jermuk. I apologize for publishing it so late, but we had a surfeit of articles to publish. It still remains an excellent, educational and enter...