THE WEEK IN CHESS 830 4th October 2010 by Mark Crowther

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1) Introduction

My thanks to Luiz Roberto Da Costa Jr, Luis Blasco de la Cruz, Adolivio Capece, Bill Townsend, Laszlo Nagy, Sergey Sudakov, Dave Clayton, Mihajlo Savic, Ake Bendz and everyone else who helped with the issue.

The Ukraine were the deserving winners of the 2010 Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk. They just edged out Russia who were held in the final round. I'm unclear as to whether they might have won if they'd won that match because the 2nd tie-break was the simple board points most people assumed it to be. The Olympiad seems to have been both enjoyable and well organised, the charter flights to the venue aside. My wrap-up is below.

The other big winner was Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who comfortably won the FIDE Elections for President. All a bit dispiriting for those of use who thought a change was essential. The 95 to 55 win Kirsan is in my view a pretty damning indictment of the quality of delegates there and some of them clearly didn't understand just how many rules were being broken in front of their eyes when Kasparov started complaining. Although by that stage (another thing they probably didn't know) the vote had already been as good as settled with a block vote of nations finally coming to agreement with Kirsan in the previous day or so. I think it is clear that you can only win the presidency from within the organisation, I wonder if Silvio Danailov's election both as the head of the European Chess Federation and to the FIDE Board isn't setting up a run sometime in the future, he certainly looks like one of the front-runners to me. The message both about the character and competence of Ilyumzhinov completely escaped most of the delegates as they got what they could from him. So even though I'd find the idea of even to be in the same room as the man fairly intolerable I think it probably is time for competent opponents to return and work within FIDE. I don't believe opposing Federations leaving FIDE in despair as an option, but wouldn't blame those who did. There needs to be some high quality opposition and oversight within FIDE. Not least of his campaign promises. So for instance lets make sure the promised support and aid to the smaller Federations for the improvement of their chess players actually happens.

Karpov himself was extremely reluctanct to take up a post within FIDE but decided that he needed to be in a position to protect his supporters from threats of legal action. He also doesn't back down at all and Strongly Defends the legal action which sought to have the Ilyumzhinov Candidacy ruled out as exposing very bad practice within FIDE. Having researched Ilyumzhinov's career in detail for a recent article in Chess Magazine and seen his style and practice, I am confident in saying that at some point things will go badly wrong, Kirsan just can't help it, and his opponents need to be ready for that.

I found this Russian Lenta.ru review of Kiran Ilyumzhinov's career which is a remarkably mild summation of his career but which should be the very minimum people read, google translate is fine to understand most of the points. It is one of the major news sources in Russia. It does rely in part on what Ilyumzhinov has said in interviews, I don't find him all that reliable. Searching the name Kirsan in Russian can lead to some fairly startling information which you have to weigh up yourself.

The Olympiad was an opportunity for me to try some new ideas about processing games. I continued these experiments with the Dutch Team Championships, I will try and catch up with some of the events below I didn't have chance to process next week. The idea is increased speed and accuracy, at the moment development is a bit slow. I also reworked the TWIC829 games section with some small corrections I found to the Olympiad games.

Hope you enjoy this issue.

Mark

2) 39th Chess Olympiad

The 39th Chess Olympiad took place in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia 21st September (Round 1) - 3rd October (11th Round) 2010.

Official site: http://www.ugra-chess.com/

2nd seeds Ukraine won the 39th Chess Olympiad by drawing with 3rd place Israel. Hosts and top seeds the Russia I team finished in second place. The event was a personal triumph for Vassily Ivanchuk completing the prestigious double of team gold and individual board 1 gold.

The Ukraine regained the Olympiad title for the second time (their first title was in Calvia 2004) and on top board Vassily Ivanchuk won the gold medal for best performance with 8/10 to obtain a very desirable double. After the first four rounds where they played their 5th Board Alexander Moiseenko they didn't rest anybody and played the team of Ivanchuk (8/10), Ponomariov (5/9), Eljanov (7/10) and Efimenko (8.5/11).

The key moments for the side were their 2-2 draw with Croatia in Round 3, Round 6 where they beat Hungary 3-1 to head the standings again a position they didn't relinquish, and their Round 8 2-2 draw with Russia after which they became strong favourites. They could afford the 2-2 draw in the final round with Israel although because of the complexity of the second tie-break I don't know if a draw for Svidler might have made a difference. This victory is especially impressive as it is against the background of financial problems surrounding the team which led to the loss of Sergey Karjakin to the Russian Team. It will be interesting to see how their finances are in the aftermath of their victory, as their team deserves proper reward.

Before the event the Russia I team were very much talking about regaining the title that used to be the Soviet Union's and then Russia's almost every time. There was a big bonus available if they did. Russia I took a little while to get going and their Round 5 loss to Hungary (Leko beat Grischuk on Board 1, rest drawn) proved decisive in retrospect, although a win against the Ukraine in Round 8 could have rescued things. But going into the figures they only had one outstanding point scorer in new recruit Sergey Karjakin with 8/10. They may well regret not choosing Ian Nepomniachtchi as their reserve someone capable of high scoring.

Israel's draw against Ukraine guaranteed the Bronze Medals. A 50% score by Boris Gelfand on top board was compensated for by a stellar 6.5/8 from Emil Sutovsky to take gold on board 2. Israel were 11th seeds so this was a tremendous result.

Hungary were edged out for Bronze on tie-break. On top board, possibly for the last time, Peter Leko scored 4.5/10 with only his win against Grischuk being cause for celebration, in the last year it is utterly clear he has lost his way and has some major thinking to do. Zoltan Almasi was their star with 7/10. In the last year Judit Polgar has played more than she has in some time after a break due to her new family. She is still feeling her way back and still has a long way to go if she wants to reclaim her top 10 spot. It is probably beyond her, but I think she will recover some places in the world rankings eventually and she scored 6/10.

16th seeds Spain were the only other team apart from Israel to over-perform in the top 10 finishing 8th.

Defending Champions Armenia finished 7th, they were 6th seeds to they finished about where they might be expected. Their wins in the last two Olympiads were over-performances with a good team performance. Levon Aronian scored 7.5/10 and Arman Pashikian scored 7/11. Their loss to bitter rivals Azerbaijan cost them their medal chances.

This was a very strong Olympiad with many teams fielding their best sides. The absence of World Champion Viswanathan Anand was disappointing. My feeling is that the problem is that he has practically no relationship with the Indian Chess Federation. India finished 18th and really need Anand to improve on that. Anand was the beneficiary in the FIDE Ratings as World Number One Magnus Carlsen lost three games (4.5/8) including the amazingly horrible game against Sanan Sjugirov. It looked like his mind was elsewhere. Perhaps it is his new fashion career that took his mind off the game. This performance reminded me of Bobby Fischer's terrible Buenos Aires 1960 tournament. Carlsen will remain World Number One albeit by only 10 points from Anand. The same is not true of World Number 2 Veselin Topalov who was also curiously out of form, he scored 5/9 with two losses and will drop to 4th in the World. Perhaps it will take a little time to recover from his loss to Anand. Bulgaria as a team also underperformed greatly, the 8th seeds finished 31st.

England were 12th Seeds and finished 24th with Adams scoring 6.5/11, Short 4/8, McShane 5/9, Howell 4,5/8 and Gawain Jones the big success with 6/8. It would be nice if David Howell could be given some help as he is very talented but also frustratingly inconsistent. Losses to Bosnia & Herzegovina and Belarus really damaged their chances of a top 10 finish when they outrated their opponents. Draws against France, The Netherlands and the Czech Republic and a win against Norway were more impressive.

Russia I won the Women's Olympiad with 11 wins from 11, the always strong Chinese were 2nd and the historically strong Georgian's were 3rd.

Of course these Olympiads were described as the best ever. I can't really comment from this distance but they do seem to have been pretty well organised and enjoyable. It seems to me that even though they cut it fine both the Russian Government and new local Governor, who seems to have inherited the problems decided they couldn't fail. The opening and closing ceremonies certainly looked impressive although the "Eurovision" style music could have done with some improvement. The only problems were over the connecting flights to and from Khanty-Mansiysk. As part of his election campaign Ilyumzhinov promised to re-emburse the extra costs.

Ilyumzhinov seems to have been the big winner here, I'm certainly thinking one has to procede under the assumption that another 8 years minimum of power for him, there just seems no appetite amongst the delegates to listen to why so many outside the organisation find him so unacceptable. On this assumption I'm not sure that Karpov's acceptance of a post within FIDE is such a terrible thing which I might have a few days ago. It might be time for those who have been waiting for the FIDE leadership to change before contributing to it to review that position because it is clear things aren't going to change on their own. In particular the World Championship cycle still needs regularising and someone needs to make sure that promises made in this campaign are kept. I presume the Chess Lane deal was ratified, we'll see how that changes the landscape of chess, it is to be hoped that that complete nonsense talked by David Kaplan will be replaced by some sort of realistic strategy.

3) US Chess League

The US Chess League takes place August 23rd - 20th November 2010.

Time Controls range from 60+30 to 90+30 depending on the start time and time zone. Games take place on ICC.

Official site: http://www.uschessleague.com/

4) Dutch League

The Dutch League officially started on the 25th September 2010 (one match took place a week earlier). Round 2 is on October 9th 2010.

Official site: http://www.schaakbond.nl/wedstrijdschaak/knsb-competitie

5) Schachbundesliga 2010-11

The Schachbundesliga takes place 9th October 2010 - 10th April 2011.

Official site: http://www.schachbundesliga.de/

Results: http://chess-results.com/tnr38597.aspx

6) 4ncl Team and Individual Rapidplay Championship

The 4ncl Team and Individual Rapidplay Championship on takes place 9th-10th October 2010 at Harben House, Milton Keynes. Saturday - team championship Saturday - individual championship

Official site: http://www.4ncl.co.uk/2010_rapidplay.htm

Live games http://www.bcfservices.org.uk/livechess/4ncl/1011/rapid/index.htm

7) European Youth Championships

The European Youth Championships took place in Batumi, Georgia 20th-28th September 2010. Vasif Durarbeyli took clear first place with 8/9 in the Boys Under-18 event. I will see how many of the events games I can process in the next week.

Official site: http://www.euro2010.ge

Results: http://www.chess-results.com/tnr38342.aspx

8) First Saturday October

First Saturday October tournaments take place 2nd-13th October 2010, GM, IM and FM events.

Official site: http://www.firstsaturday.hu/1009/index.htm

Results: http://chess-results.com/tnr38734.aspx

9) World Computer Chess Championships

The World Computer Chess Championships took place 25th September - 1st October 2010. Rybka maintained its reputation at the top. Games to follow.

News: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Turksatranc/message/7622

10) Munich Open

The Munich tournament took place 25th September - 3rd October 2010. Alex Wohl took clear first place with 7.5/9. Games will follow next week.

Official site: http://schachbezirk-muenchen.de/ois10/ois.shtml

11) 7th Highlands Open

The 7th HIGHLANDS OPEN FIDE open, active chess, blitz tournament took place 25th September - 2nd October 2010. Mikhail M Ivanov won with 7/9. The games will appear next week,

Official site: http://www.czechtour.net/highlands-open/

12) Bilbao Masters Final 2010

The Bilbao Masters Final takes place October 9th-15th 2010. Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen plus two players from the Shanghai Masters compete in the four player double round robin.

Official site: http://www.bilbaofinalmasters.com/

13) Forthcoming Events and Links

Chigorin Memorial

The Chigorin Memorial takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia, October 26th to November 5th 2010 and will consist of a rapid and a classic tournament. Details and regulations at: http://www.totalchess.spb.ru/

73rd Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2011

The 73rd Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2011 takes place Friday 14th to Sunday, January 30th, 2011, in the traditional "De Moriaan" venue in Wijk aan Zee. The event which has taken place since 1938 will carry a new name, that of Tata Steel, they bought Corus a number of years ago.

Confirmed players are: World Number One Magnus Carlsen (last year's winner), reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand and his predecessor Vladimir Kramnik. The composition of the A-Group is expected to be finalised shortly after the conclusion of the Olympiad in early October with the remaining groups to follow after that. The start for the registration for the amateur groups is on November 1, 2010. The official website will change to http://www.tatasteelchess.com/ (not yet active probably from October the old Official Site is currently the one to look at)

London Chess Classic 2010

Viswanathan Anand will become the first reigning world chess champion to play in a major tournament in London since Anatoly Karpov in 1984 when he joins the eight-player field for the second London Chess Classic, which runs from 8-15 December 2010 at the Olympia Conference Centre.

Alongside him will be World Number one Magnus Carlsen, former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, US number one Hikaru Nakamura and the top four English players Michael Adams, Nigel Short, Luke McShane and David Howell.

For more information and to buy tickets to The London Chess Classic, please go to www.londonchessclassic.com Tickets will go on sale in July.

The London Chess Classic doesn't just feature the World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand and the World Number one Magnus Carlsen and a strong field of English and foreign stars. There are a large number of side events for amateur and professional alike. There are two simuls with chess legend Viktor Korchnoi, the very popular daily blitz tournaments, weekend and rapidplays. Finally, and definitely not least, there is the FIDE rated open which last year was won by Jon Ludvig Hammer with a first prize of £2500. This year you can play the full schedule 8th-15th December or the busy person's 11th-15th December.

The Entry form is now available.

DOWNLOAD PDF Entry form

See body of this article for links to tickets and downloads and a grid of the schedule of the events.

53rd Reggio Emilia 2010

The 53rd "Torneo di Capodanno", takes place December 28th 2010 - January 6th 2011. Venue hotel Astoria Mercure in Reggio Emilia. Games start at 2.30 pm. Free day: Jan 01, 2011 - Press conference December 28th, morning.

Chinese Chess League Division A

The Youngor Chinese Chess League Division A takes place April 16th - December 30th 2010 in China. 10 teams compete in the Double Round-Robin event. I've rounded up the games so far from their archive and will give them again as there are more than I've given so far.

Time control: 1 hour 30 minutes for the whole game with an incremental time of 30 seconds per move.

Prize: 500,000 yuan or Euro 50,000.

The first 3 rounds took place in Ningbo city.

Official website : http://ccl.sports.cn/ - http://games.sports.cn/chessorg.ccl2010/index.html

The live games broadcast : http://live.chinaqiyuan.com/chess.html

Archive of games should be here eventually: http://ccl.sports.cn/2010/news/2010-04-01/1995059.html

Results: http://chess-results.com/tnr32818.aspx

Rounds 4-6 take place June 6th - June 9th 2010 in Shenzhen

Rounds 7-9 July 23rd - July 26th 2010 in Shanghai

Rounds 10-12 9th-11th Sept 2010 in Guangzhou

Rounds 13-15 in Oct. 10th-13th 2010

Round 16-18 in Dec. 28th-30th 2010 in Beijing.

Leading players: Wang Yue g CHN 2749; Wang Hao g CHN 2713; Alexander Motylev g RUS 2705; Bu Xiangzhi g CHN 2682; Zhou Jianchao g CHN 2650; Li Chao b g CHN 2613; Zhang Pengxiang g CHN 2605; Zhou Weiqi g CHN 2585; Peng Xiaominn g CHN 2581; Zhao Jun g CHN 2575; Yu Yangyi g CHN 2574; Hou Yifan g CHN 2570; Ding Liren g CHN 2564; Wen Yang g CHN 2520; Li Shilong g CHN 2514; Xu Jun g CHN 2513; Liang Chong g CHN 2502; Ju Wenjun wg CHN 2500; Xiu Deshun CHN 2493; Zhao Xue g CHN 2490; Ruan Lufei wg CHN 2479; Xu Yuhua g CHN 2478; Zhu Chen g QAT 2476; Tan Zhongyi wg CHN 2464; Wu Shaobin g SIN 2453; Lin Chen CHN 2448; Liu Qingnan m CHN 2445; Shen Yang wg CHN 2444; Huang Qian wg CHN 2439; Zhang Xiaowen wg CHN 2437; Le Thanh Tu wg VIE 2318

Gujuan Tzu Blog is http://blog.sina.com.cn/chessnews

Bansko Grand Chess Open

The Bansko Grand Chess Open 12th-19th December 2010, Bansko - Bulgaria.

Details: http://www.bansko.chessdom.com

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2011

The 2011 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival takes place at the Caleta Hotel, Gibraltar, from Monday 24 January to Thursday 3 February 2011. The new primary sponsors, Tradewise Insurance Company Ltd, have enabled the prize fund to be increased to £126,000, with £17,500 going to the winner of the Gibraltar Masters, £10,000 to the top woman scorer and two extra rating prizes (of £2,000 and £1,000) being awarded to each of two further rating bands (2000-2099 and under 2000) in the Masters. The tournament will be powered by previous primary sponsors Gibtelecom.

Official site: http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com

Pearl Spring Masters Nanjing 2010

The Pearl Spring Masters (I'm assuming the sponsor remains the same) takes place in Nanjing 18th-30th October 2010. ChessDom reports that the field has been finalised and that it should be just about the strongest of the year with Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, Vugar Gashimov, Wang Yue and Etienne Bacrot. 6 players 10 Round Double Round Robin.

Official site: http://www.chess-pearlspring.com/

Gibraltar Masters

Official site: http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/

Tal Memorial 2010

The likely dates for the Tal Memorial are 4th-13th November 2010. As yet there seem to be no details at all as to the composition of the field. I would welcome any news as to any early indications of the players and confirmation of the dates.

X Benidorm Chess Festival 2010

The X Benidorm Chess Festival takes place 3rd-12th December 2010.

Official site: http://www.ajedrezenelbali.com

Vasylyshyn Memorial

The Vasylyshyn Memorial Chess Festival takes place in Lviv, Ukraine November 23rd - December 1st 2010. Men's and women's events.

For more details: http://www.grandcoach.com/en/students/11/blog/31/

Men's event tournament director GM Yuri Vovk (English, Ukrainian, Russian languages ) via: e-mail:wolfisthegreatestpredator@gmail.com mobile phone:+380 673912027 skype:Imperator15chess ICC: Imperator15 Playchess: JohnConnor

Women's tournament director IM Vladimir Grabinsky (English, Ukrainian, Russian languages) via: e-mail:perfectchess@ukr.net mobile phone:+380 977471673 skype: perfectchess ICC: grandcoach

Players in the GM event so far: GM round robin : Oleksienko, Mikhailo g UKR 2548 Vovk, Andrey g UKR 2522 Petr, Martin m CZE 2511 Semcesen, Daniel m SWE 2420 Smith, Axel m SWE 2416 Bernadskiy, Vitaliy m UKR 2414 Grabliauskas, Virginijus m LTU 2404

XL Rilton Cup 2010-11

The XL Rilton Cup takes place in Stockholm, Sweden 27th December 2010 - 5th January 2211.

Details: http://www.rilton.se

PDF Invitation: http://www.rilton.se/1011/inbjudan_eng/XL_RILTON_CUP_eng.pdf

4th Rijeka open chess tournament "Mediterranean 2017"

The 4th Rijeka open chess tournament "Mediterranean 2017" takes place 13th-20th November 2010 in the city of Rijeka, located at the North-west part of the Croatian coast of the Adriatic sea.

The president of the Republic of Croatia, Ivo Josipovic, has accepted to be a sponsor of this chess event while the County primorsko-goranska and the City of Rijeka are the co-sponsors.

Details: http://www.mediteran2017.com/en/home/About_the_tournament/Application

IX Festival Internacional de Ajedrez Benidorm 2010

The IX Festival Internacional de Ajedrez Benidorm 2010 takes place 3rd-12th December 2010.

Further details: http://www.ajedrezenelbali.com

Entries: info@ajedrezenelbali.com

Information: festivaldebenidorm@gmail.com

Mobile: 0034-615547567

14th Unive Tournament

The 14th Unive Tournament takes place in Hoogeveen, Netherlands Fri 22nd - Sat 30th Oct 2010.

The 4 player double round robin sees Alexei Shirov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri and Sergei Tiviakov compete.

There is an open alongside for which entry is invited on the official site. Both events don't have a rest day in order to accommodate travel to Bulgaria for the European Club Cup.

(4 players 6 Rds DRR Indiv TC: 90m:30m+30spm(1))

Official Site

European Individual Senior Championship 2011

The European Individual Senior Championship 2011 has been awarded by the ECU to Courmayeur, Aosta Valley, Italy 10th-20th April 2010.

Official site: http://www.scacchivda.com

Chinese Events 2010

Gujuan Tzu sends new of events in China in 2010. At the moment if you don't grab the games live they have a tendency to disappear (although http://ccl.sports.cn/2010/news/2010-04-01/1995059.html does now seem to have the early rounds of the Chinese League). It would be nice to find one spot where the Chinese Federation archives all their games.

1. The 2nd Chess King and Queen Matches in 29 August-3 Sept. 2010 in Jiangzhou, China. Live games: http://live.chinaqiyuan.com/chess.html

2. Chinese League A Round 10-12 in 9-12 Sept. 2010 in Guangzhou, China. Live Games: http://live.chinaqiyuan.com/chess.html

3. Chinese League A Round 13-15 in 10-13 October 2010 in Hangzhou, China. Live Games: http://live.chinaqiyuan.com/chess.html

4. The 3rd Nanjing Super Chess Tournament in 18-28 October 2010 in Nanjing, China. 6 players, Official site: http://www.chess-pearlspring.com/www/chess_pk/2009/cn/index.htm

5. The second half of Bilbao Final Masters in 10-16 October 2010 in Shanghai, China. Official site: http://www.bilbaofinalmasters.com/

6. Chinese League A Round 16-18 in 28-30 December 2010 in Beijing, China. Live Games: http://live.chinaqiyuan.com/chess.html

Gujuan Tzu Website: http://blog.sina.com.cn/chessnews

World Chess Tour Events

Tournaments, simuls and classes in Moscow.

Contact: Contact: Igor Glek, International Grandmaster, FIDE Trainer, Deputy Chairman of the RSUPES&T Chess Chair E-mail: worldchesstour@gmail.com Russia: (7)903-5593052, (Germany/World): (49)152-04014194

Web-site: http://www.chess-events.org

Swiss Team Championships 2010

The Nationalliga A of Switzerland takes place 14th February - 7th November 2010. Round 2 games not yet available.

Dates: Round 1 (2010.02.14), Round 2 (2010.03.21), Round 3 (2010.04.25), Round 4 (2010.06.13), Round 5 (2010.06.27), Round 6 (2010.08.28), Round 7 (2010.08.29), Round 8 (2010.11.06) and Round 9 (2010.11.07).

Details

Czech Tour 2010-11

The 10th International Chess Festivals Series Czech Tour 2010-11 has the following preliminary list. (Subject to small changes.)

7th HIGHLANDS OPEN - Zdar nad Sazavou (FIDE open, active chess, blitz tournament). 25th September - 2nd October 2010.

11th LIBEREC OPEN (FIDE open, active chess, blitz tournament). 23rd-30th October 2010.

1st BRNO OPEN (FIDE open, active chess, blitz tournament). 14th-20th November 2010

4th SOUTH BOHEMIA OPEN - Cesky Krumlov (FIDE open, active chess, blitz tournament). 21st-27th November 2010.

2nd PILSNER OPEN (FIDE open, active chess, blitz tournament).4th-11th December 2010.

10th PRAGUE OPEN (2 FIDE opens, one of them with IM norm, active chess, blitz tournament). 7th-14th January 2011.

10th MARIENBAD OPEN (FIDE open, closed GM and IM tournaments, active chess, blitz tournament). 15th-22nd January 2011.

2nd NOVY BOR OPEN (FIDE open, active chess, blitz tournament). 12th-19th February 2011.

More detailed information: AVE-KONTAKT s.r.o., Sukova 1556, 530 02 Pardubice, Czech Republic tel./fax + 420 466 535 200, mobile phone + 420 608 203 007 e-mail: j.mazuch@avekont.cz

http://www.czechtour.net

Historical Elo Ratings

http://www.shakki.net/history/elotop.htm has a list of historical top ten FIDE lists. The text is in Finnish but is understandable anyhow.