The Greater Toronto Chess League

We have been reporting quite extensively on the European Individual Championships, but contrary to urban legend we have been neglecting the female players. After the first seven rounds it is time to make amends. We do so with a look at a number of games, we offer you some tactical puzzles, and bring you a large number of uncaptioned pictures – and ask you to identify the players.

So far two candidates have declared their intention to run for President of the European Chess Union: the President of the Turkish Chess Federation Ali Nihat Yazici, and the Bulgarian IM and manager Silvio Danailov. GM Robert Fontaine from Europe Echecs spoke to both candidates. Danailov also revealed that at the World Championship match against Anand Topalov will not accept or offer draws.

The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament began with a shock: top seed Magnus Carlsen played 1.a3 in his blindfold game against "Mr Amber" Vassily Ivanchuk and lost. Carlsen went on to lose the rapid game as well. Former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov, playing for the first time, also won 2-0 against Boris Gelfand. Big report with pictures from the opening ceremony.

Yesterday the twelfth World Champion Anatoly Karpov announced that he was running for FIDE President. Today he addressed the extraordinary meeting of the European Chess Union (ECU), which was meeting during the European Individual Championship in Rijeka. Karpov had hash words for the current FIDE leadership and outlined his own program for change in FIDE. Video interview by Europe Echecs.

The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament begins today, with the first games at 2:30 p.m. EST (4:40 Moscow, 1:30 London, 8:30 a.m. New York) The participants include Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk (who jumped in for Alexander Morozevich), Peter Svidler, Boris Gelfand, and others. Watch the live action on the official site and on Playchess.

... with an amazing final was played between Michal Krasenkow und Baadur Jobava in the 4th round of the European Individual Championship in the Croatian town of Rijeka. Here White had just attacked the black Nd5 for the third time with 33.Qg2. How would you assess the situation now?
A) the battery in the d-file decides for White; B) a clever unpinning trick leads to an endgame with a minus exchange for Black, but a likely draw. C) the second player wins.
The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram.

Fifteen years ago Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov was elected President of the World Chess Organisation. At the next election during the General Assembly of the FIDE Congress, which will be held during the 39th Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk in September this year, he faces a challenge by former World Champion Anatoly Karpov. Press release.

Round seven saw no changes in the rankings prior to the rest day on Saturday, with draws on no fewer than the eight top boards. Though the tendency would be to write they “ended with a peaceful result”, that would be a very inadequate description for all the games except for Almasi-Nepomniachtchi, which did indeed end shortly after it started. Report with pictures of the Zemat Sport Center.

A week ago we published a picture of a very young chess player who was destined to become a world class grandmaster. Most of our readers guessed instantly who it was – especially the lips gave him away. But going through the clues we unhelpfully provided, readers had many a doubt created in their minds. Read about it in our feedback and find out what Nigel Short was doing in Hamburg.

No one was spared on the top boards in the European Championship, and exciting, uncompromising games were the result, to the delight of chess fans. Both top boards featuring Efimenko and Jobava against Nisipeanu and Timofeev leave two ahead and two playing catch-up. Also find out about the untitled Belarussian who is +1 against 2600+ competition. Round six report.

It is frequently anything but easy to make the material superiority of a rook over a bishop tell when all the pawns are on one side of the board. Last month we showed you a game with reduced material in which zugzwang brought about the decision. Today we follow that with an example with more pawns, in which White has to find access to a black fortress that is hard one to storm. The siege had already lasted for over twenty moves before White turned to radical measures with 55.f5!? GM Karsten Müller demonstrates how the game was decided and what additional defensive resources Black had. ChessBase Magazine Online.

ChessBase Light is a program you can download on the right of this newspage. It is completely free and you have most of the functions of a full database program. In the latest ChessBase Workshop installment Steve Lopez shows you how you can analyse games with the standard unregistered version of CB Light, which comes with an older but very efficient chess engine. Streaming video.

168 players took part in the biggest chess festival of closed tournaments in France, with seventeen groups, from the A Group (ten players, average 2526 Elo) all the way to the last group with an average Elo of about 1300. Israeli GM Evgeny Postny won first place with 6.0/9. The venue, the “Conseil General”, is normally reserved for local government meetings. IM Christophe Philippe reports.

Britain's first ever grandmaster, the late Anthony John Miles, was not just strong but also extremely creative. When this fiery player clashed with Anatoly Karpov, it was pure provocation facing ice-cold strategy. In his Playchess presentation Dennis Monokroussos shows us Karpov succeeding – next week it will be Miles taking down his illustrious opponent. Be there at 9 p.m. ET.

Currently the FIDE rules require that players must be seated at the board no later than zero seconds past the scheduled start of a game. This has led to some unpleasant situations in the past. At the 11th European Individual Championships 110 participants signed a petition to change the grace period to 30 minutes. In the tournament Baadur Jobava and Zaher Efimenko lead. Round four report.

After three rounds in the European Championship Dieter-Liviu Nisipeanu was in the lead. The Romanian GM scored three consecutive wins, including one against Dimitri Reindermann. Perhaps he was helped in his efforts by an article in ChessBase Magazine, because in CBM 132 his compatriot Mihail Marin examined in detail a variation of the Alekhine Defence, which then was up for discussion in the game. The Dutch player chose a line which our author had rejected and received the ultimate punishment for doing so. Marin has provided a few notes on the game, and a thorough analysis will follow in CBM 136. Here is Nisipeanu - Reindermann

We long ago abandoned the practice of sending our readers to every article or international news report that contains the word "chess". But when a Euronews story contains video footage of a world class grandmaster (Boris Gelfand) playing the Deputy Prime Minister of his country (Natan Sharansky), who is assisted by the current PM (Benjamin Netanyahu), we make an exception.

At the New York, 1889 tournament a master lost a game by forfeit after only eight moves because he was, in the words of a newspaper report, ‘laboring under excitement’. The Editor of Chess Notes looks at three great players with reputations for heavy dependency on alcohol, examining how they have been treated by contemporaries and subsequent writers.

This event is taking place from March 6th to 18th 2010 in Rijeka, Croatia. Top players include Almasi, Bacrot, Movsesian, Navara, Vallejo, Motylev, Adams, Tomashevsky, Alekseev, Baadur, Naiditsch, Akopian, Volokitin, Bologan and Caruana. After two rounds 34 players have perfect scores, in the women's section it is 17. The venue is spectacular: see if you can read its name from space.

Here's another puzzle from our early-pictures scrapbook: who is the child in this photo? He was a boy prodigy, who at the sensational age of nineteen became the youngest grandmaster in the world. He has beaten twelve world champions. He lives in Europe and unlike his compatriots speaks flawless English. In our report we provide you with a few more or less helpful clues.