The Chess Players Society of Nigeria

It was pretty much a rout. The lowest scorer in the Rising Stars team ended up a full point ahead of highest scorers of the Experienced Grandmasters. One must remember that the oldest player in the tournament had completed his third world championship final match eleven years before the youngest player was born. We bring you a big pictorial report with stunning photos by Fred Lucas.

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Over the years a number of correspondents have submitted to the Editor of Chess
Notes their photographs of the final resting-places of various chess masters,
including Anderssen, Capablanca, Grünfeld, Morphy and Nimzowitsch. There is even the remarkable case of the two masters who share the same grave. A pictorial record
is presented here.

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The Presidents of the World and Russian Chess Federations were there, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and the Kabardino-Balkaria President. But not the Georgian players, and some international participants, who did not attend due to the Russian-Georgian conflict. They lost their games by default. Otherwise most of the top seeds won their first games comfortably. Big pictorial report with video.

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How’s this for an unusual chess match: US astronaut Greg Chamitoff, who is currently aboard the International Space Station, is playing against the Ground Stations. The first game was won convincingly by Chamitoff, who is a decent amateur player. Now he is playing six simultaneous games against different Ground Stations. We have pictures and an indepth interview with the astronaut.

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Just 46 days to go before the start of the World Chess Championship in Bonn, Germany. The match between Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik will be covered by a battery of online commentators, including GM Yasser Seirawan in English, GMs Artur Yussupov, Dr Helmut Pfleger, Klaus Bischoff in German, GM Miguel Illescas in Spanish. Here are pre-match interviews with the experts.

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How do you get Fritz11 to play a game against itself? If you don’t know, it’s easy – and, best of all, you can start the game from a chess position of your choosing. Learn how in the latest ChessBase Workshop.

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How does he do it? Chinese GM Wang Yue won all of his first six games, and drew in round seven to take a one-point overall lead with 6.5/7 and a 3034 performance. Second in line is Ivan Cheparinov with 5.5/7 and a 2818 performance. 77-year-old Viktor Korchnoi won a second game for Experienced, and almost won a third which he tragically lost on time.

Report after round seven.

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Ivanchuk-Shirov: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 c5 5.Bxc4 e6 6.0-0 a6 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Ne5 Ke7 10.Be2 Bd7 11.Bf3 Nc6 12.Nxc6+ draw. That was it, Vassily Ivanchuk won the 2008 Tal Memorial a full point ahead of his nearest rivals. His performance of 2861 took him to number two in the live world rankings. Final report.

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The ongoing Tal Memorial is a very fine tournament, but there’s very little
about the play that would remind us of the man being honored. In his
Wednesday night Playchess lecture Dennis
Monokroussos provides us with a special treat: a vintage Tal game which starts
positionally but in which Tal suddenly switches modes and overwhelms his opponent
with wave after wave of attacks. Enjoy.

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The obital flight that took him to number one in the world is over, Alexander Morozevich came crashing down to earth with a second loss, this time with the white pieces against Gata Kamsky. Vladimir Kramnik chalked up a second win, this time against Evgeny Aleckseev, while Alexei Shirov imporve his dismal last-place score with a win against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Express report.

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