European Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships 2010
Monday, 25 October 2010 06:36

European Blitz and Rapid Chess Championships will be held 17-19 December in Warsaw, Poland. Please visit the official website to find the general information and the regulations of the event.

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

Round 4 pairings:

Group B

Smith – Antal
Bykhovsky – Ippolito
Finegold – Rensch
Krush – Yang
Diamant – Kuljasevic

Group A

So – Meier
Onischuk – Almasi
Perelshteyn – Robson

Standings after 3 rounda:

Group A (W = 3 points, D = 1 point, L = 0 point)

1. So 7.0
2-3. Almasi, Meier 5.0
4. Onischuk 4.0
5-6. Robson, Perelshteyn 1.0

Group B

1-2. Antal, Bykhovsky 2.5
3-4. Diamant, Ippolito 2.0
5-6. Kuljasevic, Smith 1.5
7-9. Finegold, Krush, Yang 1.0
10. Rensch 0.0

Here is the link to over 200 pictures from the SPICE Cup 2010.

Round by round pairings: http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2010/10/spice-cup-pairings.html

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

Good news for viewers in the Western hemisphere. The previous Nanjing rounds started at 2:30 a.m. ET (8:30 a.m. CET), but it seems that the last round starts tonight (ET) at 10 p.m. (30 minutes from now, as of this writing.) Such a big change is probably unpleasant for the players, but at least it means lots of us in the Americas can watch the games without doing insane things with our sleeping schedule. (Too bad there’s no drama in the race for first, but even so it’ll be nice to watch the games live for a change.)

SPICE Cup Pairings

B Group

Thursday, October 28 2pm Round 1
Krush – Smith
Diamant – Finegold
Kuljasevic – Bykhovsky
Yang – Antal
Rensch – Ippolito

A Group

Thursday, October 28 2pm- Round 1
Robson – Meier
Almasi – Perelshteyn
So – Onischuk

Most of the players are already in Lubbock or will be shortly. Finegold will arrive before the Opening Ceremony since he has an event in St. Louis today.

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar

October 27, 2010Top Chess Players Travel to Lubbock for SPICE Cup 2010Players include youngest American ever to earn Grandmaster title, at age 14.Written by Karin SlykerRay Robson, who celebrated his 16th birthday this week, is among the top Chess competitors scheduled to compete in the SPICE Cup International Invitational Tournament. The event, now in its fourth year, will be held at Texas

SPICE Cup PairingsB GroupThursday, October 28 2pm Round 1Krush (US women’s champion) – SmithDiamant – FinegoldKuljasevic – BykhovskyYang – AntalRensch – IppolitoA GroupThursday, October 28 2pm- Round 1Robson – MeierAlmasi – PerelshteynSo

Near the end of my review of the 4th edition of Harold van der Heijden’s Study Database (quick summary: it’s excellent, buy it), I offered three classic endgame studies for your solving pleasure. All three have beautiful solutions and help illustrate why this genre deserves attention not only from specialists but “regular” tournament players as well.

Here they are again:

Korolkov 1951: White to move and win.

Mitrofanov 1967: White to move and win.

Timman 1994: White to move and win.

The solutions are here. I present the solutions twice: the first time with my talking through the solutions, the second time with the solutions as you’ll see them in the van der Heijden database. (Speaking of which, for more information, testimonials, etc., have a look here.)

There seems very little room to create new opening ideas in 2010 and the creative competitor must work hard to find new approaches which help to win games. Enter 1.f4, Bird’s Opening! 1.f4 has hardly been given comprehensive coverage in the textbooks and on this new ChessBase DVD, International Master and Senior FIDE Trainer Andrew Martin examines this ‘last frontier’ of sound and original opening play. Erhältlich ab 29.10.2010 More information…

Chess champ spreads her passion for the game
Published On Sun Oct 24 2010
Dan Robson
Staff Reporter

Yuanling Yuan is a relentless chess champion.

The precocious 16-year-old from Victoria Park Collegiate Institute recently spent a couple weeks in Russia as a member of Canada’s team at the World Chess Olympiad.

She ranked 27th out of 564 female players — the highest a Canadian has ever finished. And when she’s not busy being a remarkable chess whiz on the board, she’s busy championing the game off of it.

In today’s digital world, chess may as well be lawn-bowling to many young people. At least that’s what some people think.
Yuan, however, is set on proving those people wrong.

Two years ago she founded Chess in the Library — a smart-sounding club for smart-sounding people. The kind of people who travel to the library (that ancient bastion of knowledge) to play chess (that game that old, wise people play).

“I just wanted to do something to promote chess in Canada,” she said of the day in spring 2009 when she walked into Brookbank Library and told head librarian Denise Drabkin that she wanted to start a chess club.

“She came in here and she said, ‘Hi! I’m really, really keen on starting a chess in the library program’ and I said ‘Wow, lets talk,’ ” recalls Drabkin, who admits she was skeptical at first. “The rest is history.”

Less than two years in, Yuan’s idea has turned into a weekly ritual for people young and old across Toronto. Chess in the Library now operates in 12 Toronto libraries, and has more than 40 volunteers.

The program also operates in a library in Ottawa, and recently expanded to a library in Victoria B.C.

Each library has between 20 to 30 participants coming to learn and play chess every week — that’s more than 250 people.

Here is the full article.

Chess daily news from Susan Polgar