In six days, the 71st Corus Chess Tournament takes off with the first round of the Grandmaster Groups, A, B and C. Naturally, ChessVibes will be present, during the whole tournament, to provide as much (video) coverage as possible. (And yes, that ...
As far as can be judged from the comments, most of our readers agreed with my critical "review" of Chessbase's interview with Vladimir Kramnik. However, as Alexei Shirov yesterday pointed out in a comment, we've been missing a few details, which h...
News of the recent publication of the 1 January 2009 FIDE rating list prompted some discussion in the comments about the numbers of GMs from particular countries. Well, for those who like to analyse these things statistically, the official FIDE w...
Don't worry. FIDE hasn't finally gone completely crazy and turned the royal game into a crazy chess variant. Maybe next year... For now, most of the proposed changes, due to take affect from 1 July 2009, simply clear up any ambiguity in the rul...
The American Grandmaster Walter Browne is 60 years old today. Browne was born in Sydney to his Australian mother, but his father was American and the family settled in New York when Walter was just 3 years old. Browne represented both Australia ...
Contrary to what many people will tell you, the "chess match of the 20th century" was not Fischer-Spassky, Reykjavik 1972. It was Karpov-Kasparov, Moscow 1984. No wait, make that Karpov-Kasparov, Moscow 1984 and 1985. Of course, Fischer's brillian...
As various blogs have already reported, a 14-year-old chess player from Australia has been caught cheating while playing a game of chess. It immediately led to a debate among the ChessVibes editors: is it newsworthy?At the current The Norths Chess...
In the first week of 2009, both Henrik Carlsen (representing his son Magnus) and Vladimir Kramnik (since December 28 the proud father of a baby girl) have expressed their thoughts on the current world championship cycle as well as their ideas for ...
Between the 4th and 6th of January, Vassily Ivanchuk and Peter Leko played a rapid match of 6 games in Mukachevo, Ukraine. The time control was 25 minutes plus a 5 second increment per move. Ivanchuk played the more dynamic chess throughout, but...
Showing amazing persistance, Ivanchuk managed to win an almost dead drawn ending in game 5, and then drew the 6th and last game of the match using the Scandinavian Defence. The Ukrainian won the Revanche Match against Leko deservedly, after showin...
Peter Svidler won the Aker Chess Challenge yesterday by beating Magnus Carlsen 1.5-0.5 in the final. He won the second game with the Black pieces. Nakamura came 3rd; he beat Lie, also with 1.5-0.5.The Aker Chess Challenge took place 2nd-5th Januar...
Almasi started with 4/4, but a round before the end first seed Ni Hua aready secured first place at this year's Torneo di Capodanno in Reggio Emilia. The Chinese GM scored 7.5/9 and a performance rating of 2834.The 51st Torneo di Capodanno took pl...
In a thrilling final showdown, Peter Svidler (pictured) edged out Magnus Carlsen to win the final of the Aker Chess Challenge. Hikaru Nakamura beat Kjetil Lie to claim the third place spot. The penultimate qualifying round saw Carlsen beat Svidl...
After two more fighting draws the score is still level in the 6-game rapid match between Ivanchuk and Leko in Mukachevo, Ukraine. Again, in one of the games Ivanchuk probably missed a win.4th-6th January Ivanchuk and Leko play two games a day with...
After six rounds Carlsen, Nakamura and Svidler had all collected four points (Lie lost all six games) and so a playoff was needed to determine the finalists of the Aker Chess Challenge. Not in top form in the blitz session, Nakamura lost both to C...
From 3rd to 5th January, Vassily Ivanchuk and Peter Leko are playing a 6-game rapid match in Mukachevo, Ukraine. It's a return match of a previous encounter between the two, in October 2007, that ended in 6-6 after which Ivanchuk won the blitz tie...
Hikaru Nakamura (pictured) boosted his chances of reaching the final match of the Aker Chess Challenge by beating Magnus Carlsen in their game with the black pieces. He also drew with Peter Svidler to leave him tied with Carlsen in the table, beh...
Russian GM Peter Svidler started the Aker Chess Challenge, a rapid event that's part of the International Chess Festival in Gjovik (Norway), with two wins and two draws. Carlsen and Nakamura follow on 2.5/4 while Lie lost his first four games.The ...
The Aker Chess Challenge between Magnus Carlsen, Peter Svidler, Hikaru Nakamura (pictured) and Kjetil Lie has started in Norway. This speed chess tournament is part of the Norwegian Chess Festival, as reported recently here. Here are the games f...
This year's Chess Festival in Groningen was won by GMs Merab Gagunashvili and Arkadij Rotstein, and Dutch IM Robin Swinkels. The latter scored a GM norm and so did 14-year-old (FM!) Anish Giri - it was his second already. Jan Smeets won a minimatc...
2008 was not just another year. It was the year in which Bobby Fischer passed away, it was the end of the Kramnik era, and we saw the birth of both the Grand Prix and the Grand Slam. Like we did on December 31 last year and the year before, here's...
He won 5 points in Dresden and although he's still waiting for his 13 points gained at the Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing, Veselin Topalov tops the January 2009 FIDE rating list at 2796. In October in Bonn, World Champion Anand won 8 rating po...
In a tournament chuck full of great chess games, Indian grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran won the 8th Ciudad de Pamplona with 5/7 ahead of Malakhov and Vallejo. The Indian's expected rating change is +17 which will make him a 2711 player in a few day...
FIDE have published their latest official quarterly rating list for January 2009. The list includes all tournaments up to 15 December, but also includes FIDE organised events that finished later i.e. the Elista Grand Prix which concluded just 2 d...
