Here's a second selection of photos taken by professional photographer Fred Lucas. The Dutchman, quite famous in the chess world for e.g. his work in Wijk aan Zee every year, posts a number of photos every day on the website of the Amber Blindfold...
The 12th European Individual Chess Championships run from 21 March - 3 April in Aix-les-Bains, France. The competition format is an 11-round Swiss event, with over 400 players taking part including top seed Peter Svidler, reigning champion Ian Ne...
Just arrived: YEARBOOK 98. In this issue of The Chess Player's Guide to Opening News you will find answers to urgent questions like: Why did Anish Giri play the Grünfeld Indian against Magnus Carlsen? Just how risky is Vladimir Kramnik’s 4...a6 i...
Just like round 6, the 8th round of the 2011 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament in Monaco saw six draws in the blindfold section and six wins in the rapid. Going into the second rest day, Levon Aronian remains half a point ahead of Magnus Carlse...
On Saturday the Disciplinary Committee of the French Chess Federation suspended GMs Sebastien Feller and Arnaud Hauchard and IM Cyril Marzolo, saying they are "guilty of a violation of sporting ethics". The Committee concluded that there...
As always, there was some lively and interesting play in the blindfold games at Amber, but all six of the decisive results in round eight came from the rapid games, and all from the white pieces. After a quick draw in their blindfold game, Lev Ar...
In the 7th round of the 2011 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Magnus Carlsen narrowed the gap with Levon Aronian in the overall standings to half a point. While the tournament leader beat Boris Gelfand 1.5-0.5, Carlsen himself managed to win ...
Contrary to what's been said over the years, the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament is a place where lots of opening novelties occur. In the first week of the last edition, the strongest players in the world have been playing the most critical l...
Magnus Carlsen struck twice against Vladimir Kramnik in round seven at Amber to heap further misery on the Russian, and to close within half a point of the leader Lev Aronian. Aronian had an easy win against Boris Gelfand when the latter lost tra...
Despite a 0.5-1.5 loss to Alexander Grischuk, Levon Aronian maintained his lead in the general standings of the 2011 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament. Magnus Carlsen is now one point behind the Armenian thanks to a 1.5-0.5 win against Sergey K...
Vassily Ivanchuk has had a rough time so far at the 2011 Amber tournament, but on day six he celebrated his 42nd birthday by beating world champion Vishy Anand in their rapid game. It was a strangely lop-sided round with all the blindfold games e...
On March 19th and 20th the 12th and 13th round of the Schachbundesliga will take place. We present the pairings at the venues Muelheim, Delmenhorst, Munich and Emsdetten - it's already known that Baden-Baden will show up with Alexei Shirov and Pet...
After the first rest day, on Thursday the 2011 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament resumed in Monaco. It was a very good day for Levon Aronian, who won his mini-match against Vugar Gashimov 2-0. Like last year, Magnus Carlsen went down 0-2 agains...
All scoring 7/9, GMs Yuriy Kuzubov, Ivan Sokolov, Vladimir Baklan, Kamil Miton, Jon Ludvig Hammer and Ilya Nyzhnyk tied for first place at the MP Reykjavik Open in Iceland. Top seeded GM Luke McShane finished half a point behind them.The 26th MP R...
Lev Aronian claimed the outright lead after day 5 at Amber by beating Vugar Gashimov in their blindfold and rapid games. In contrast, Magnus Carlsen came massively unstuck against Vassily Ivanchuk. Ivanchuk repeated his result against the Norweg...
For the final edition of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, the organizers also invited professional photographer Fred Lucas. The Dutchman, quite famous in the chess world for e.g. his work in Wijk aan Zee every year, will create an Amber p...
Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen continue to share the lead at the 2011 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, after four rounds. Both won their matches 1.5-0.5 today. Wednesday is the first rest day in Monaco. Erwin l'Ami, Jan Smeets and Loek van ...
In the fourth round at Amber most of the blood-letting came in the rapid games, where all but one game proved decisive. In fact, the only rapid pairing that ended as a draw had already had the only decisive result in the blindfold games, when Kar...
We have just received from our printers: Grandmaster Chess Strategy. One of the most effective ways to improve your chess is to take a world class-player as your example and to analyse in depth his games to understand his choices.This is what G...
Women and chess - don't you ever get bored of the subject? I certainly do. However, I was delighted to open Jennifer Shahade's new tactics puzzle book Play Like A Girl! as it deals with this tricky combination in a delightful and mature manner.The...
Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen are sharing the lead at the 2011 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, after three rounds. The world's number 2 and 3, who drew twice with each other today, scored 4.5 points out of 6 games in total.General info Th...
And then there were two! There were four leaders after the first day at Amber, three after the second, and now we have co-leaders Carlsen and Aronian after the dust settled in round three. The third round clash between Carlsen and Aronian ended a...
The Cotroceni Women’s International chess tournament, held March 1-11 in Bucharest, Romania, had an unusual finish. The ten female participants went on strike before the final round was played, protesting against the tournament organizer. Among th...
After two rounds Levon Aronian, Magnus Carlsen and Alexander Grischuk are in shared first place at the 2011 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament. Carlsen beat Gashimov 2-0 today to get to the top in the rapid section while Aronian and Grischuk hav...
