Chess For You

Four Games of Salahuddin With My Analysis

2011-11-19T19:22:00.001-08:00

I got introduced to Salahuddin recently through him email as he found my details from this blog. He is working in Austrlia as a .NET developer and wants his son to learn chess. He sent me 4 of his games for my comments and here I am taking the chance to look into his games.

Game 1: Please check my comments in move 17 where I think White has a better chance.

Game 2: There is nothing much to say about this game because as soon as Black made the mistake of 18..Nb5?, the rest of it is to keep the head cool for White to win with a piece up.

Game 3: Because White made the final blunder and he was short of time, he lost.

Game 4:

These games show me that he plays quite well.

Chess And Wine

2011-10-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

Abhinav Chadda, my colleague in Salesforce has forwarded it to me today. Isn't it funny!

Casual Game between Ashik and Wali

2011-10-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

Wali Bhai all on a sudden sat down for a casual game of chess with me. So we played the following game in 2 days adjourning in the middle due to late night.

White: Waliul Islam (Unrated)
Black: Ashik Uzzaman (1834)
Game: CasualDate: 10/23/2011 - 10/24/2011
Result: 0 - 1
Opening: Sicillain Closed

Chess Openings for Black, Explained: A Complete Repertoire By Lev Alburt

2011-10-20T05:11:00.001-07:00


	Ashik writes: I started reading this book and found it very resourceful for tournament players like me. I got it in half price books and as I finish this book, I will buy the white companion book of it as well - Chess Openings for White, Explained: Winning with 1.e4

Chess Openings for Black, Explained: A Complete Repertoire (Revised and Updated)
by Lev Alburt

(31 customer reviews)

List Price:		$29.95
Price:		$19.77
You Save:		$10.18 (34%)

44 used & new from $13.28

In Stock

Played US National G60 and G/30 Tournaments in Santa Clara Hyatt

2011-10-06T03:11:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I played US National G/60 and G/30 championship at October 1st and 2nd respectively at Santa Clara Hyatt hotel. Bay Area Chess arranged these as usual in different sections. I made 50% scores in both of those at 1800+ (Open) section to my relief. My last month's tournament performance was disappointing (1 win and 3 loss) while this time in G/60 it was 2 loss, 2 win and in G/30 it was 2 loss, 1 draw and 2 win. With this performance now I am a bit relaxed and I think I can still carry on playing competitive tournaments for a few more years even if I don't hit the prize lists.

Here is my G/60 result - https://bayareachess.com/events/11/usg60.php

And here is my G/30 result -https://bayareachess.com/events/11/usg30.php

With this, now I am inspired enough to teach chess to my son and other children from next week.

Nelson vs Ashik, Game 5, US National G/30

2011-10-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

White: Terry Nelson (2007)
Black: Ashik Uzzaman (1821)
Tournament: US National G/30 at Santa Clara Hyatt
Date: 10/02/2011
Result: 0 - 1
Opening: Queen Pawn

Ashik vs Kevin L G, Game 4, US National G/30

2011-10-06T02:45:00.000-07:00

White: Ashik Uzzaman (1821)
Black: Kevin L Gong (1844)
Tournament: US National G/30 at Santa Clara Hyatt
Date: 10/02/2011
Result: 1 - 0
Opening: Sicillian Early E5
Update: Kevin actually saw this blog post after a couple of weeks and emailed me his blog post where he posted this game as well. I was so happy to get in touch with an on-the-board opponent on-the-web! Here is his post - http://blog.chess.com/kevingong/losing-sucks-my-games-of-the-us-national-g30-championship . You will find this game if you scroll down to the fourth game!

Klotz vs Ashik, Game 3, US National G/30

2011-10-06T02:31:00.000-07:00

White: Hun Klotz-Burwell (1858)
Black: Ashik Uzzaman (1821)
Tournament: US National G/30 at Santa Clara Hyatt
Date: 10/02/2011
Result: 1/2 - 1/2
Opening: Sicillian Defence

Ashik vs Felix, Game 2, US National G/30

2011-10-06T02:12:00.000-07:00

White: Ashik Uzzaman (1821)
Black: Felix Rudayak (1939)
Tournament: US National G/30 at Santa Clara Hyatt
Date: 10/02/2011
Result: 0 - 1
Opening: Center Counter Game

Olavic vs Ashik, Game 1, US National G/30

2011-10-06T01:49:00.000-07:00

White: Svetjovic Olavic (2017)
Black: Ashik Uzzaman (1821)
Tournament: US National G/30 at Santa Clara Hyatt
Date: 10/02/2011
Result: 1 - 0
Opening: Slav Defence

Ashik vs Delacruz, Game 4, US National G/60

2011-10-06T01:27:00.000-07:00

White: Ashik Uzzaman (1821)
Black: G Avdencio Delacruz (2000)
Tournament: US National G/60 at Santa Clara Hyatt
Date: 10/01/2011
Result: 1 - 0
Opening: Sicillian Defence

Mihir vs Ashik, Game 3, US National G/60

2011-10-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

White: Mihir Kumar (1939)
Black: Ashik Uzzaman (1821)
Tournament: US National G/60 at Santa Clara Hyatt
Date: 10/01/2011
Result: 0 - 1
Opening: Slav Defence

Colin vs Ashik, Game 2, US National G/60 2011

2011-10-05T00:18:00.000-07:00

White: Colin Chow (1930)
Black: Ashik Uzzaman (1821)
Tournament: US National G/60 at Santa Clara Hyatt
Date: 10/01/2011
Result: 1 - 0
Opening: Sicillian Defence

Ashik vs Siddharth, Game 1, US National G/60 2011

2011-10-04T23:58:00.000-07:00

White: Ashik Uzzaman (1821)
Black: Siddharth G Banik (1901)
Tournament: US National G/60 at Santa Clara Hyatt
Date: 10/01/2011
Result: 0 - 1
Opening: French Defence

Francisco Anchondo's Game During US National G/30 at Hyatt, Santa Clara

2011-10-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

This is one game that I watched while the players were analyzing during my recent US National G/30 tournament over the weekend. It's a very attacking game!

Source: Chess Musings Blog

Teching Chess To Kids!

2011-10-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

It took me some time but finally I have made up my mind over the weekend while attending US National G/60 and G/30 tournaments. I will teach chess to Ahyan and any other kid who wants to learn and play chess. So if you want your son or daughter to learn chess, then please feel free to contact me. You may forward this email to your friends who you think might get interested. Teaching one kid and one dozen kids are almost same amount of time involvement from my side.

Because chess is my passion and not profession, I won't charge any money. My return will be a bunch of kids who play chess in many bay area tournaments in near future. If you have ever worked on a volunteer organization, you will know what this means!

I want to start it immediately before I loose my drive to teach chess. I know once I start, I will continue it for a good amount of time, at least next few years. But if I don't start now, I will never get to the point to start it again.

Regarding the logistics, let's start once a week in my house. I have got proposals to host it in my friend's houses in rotation as well and we will evaluate that option. But for now, let's gather together every evening in my house.

Depending on the level of students, I will batch them in 2 different groups. One who doesn't know chess at all and want to learn from the scratch (I guess most of them will be like that including my son Ahyan). I guess there will be a few (I know a couple of them) who already knows chess at basic level and want to advance a bit so that they can play in the tournaments competitively. I guess the first batch will catch up with these guys in 6 months or so. I will spend one hour (or more) with the regular kids and some extra time with the couple of advanced kids that I am expecting.

Regarding timing, I would prefer Thursday evening. So let's start from next week's Thursday at my house. We may use Saturday night in case I get busy in office in a particular Thursday but in general, I will leave the weekend free to go out of town for traveling and let you do the same. I will use demonstration board, chess sets and laptop computer but I expect every kid's parents will arrange one standard chess set and will have access to internet at home. I plan to use this chess blog for home work (if any). It's okay if the parents want to stay with the kids during the session or want to leave them and finish some shopping.

If you are interested, then please reply me to this email with your phone number, your son and daughter's name and age and if he/she already knows the move at ashikuzzaman@gmail.com . I plan to start at 13th October (Thursday) 7 PM at my Fremont house.

Update: I already started teaching chess to 6 kids since 13th October. The very first session I showed them the famous Opera Game by Paul Morphy to use it as a frame of reference for my next sessions. I used chess demonstration board and the kids looked interested. Let's see how the next few sessions go.

Stearman vs Ashik, 4th Game (G/60), Pleasanton

2011-09-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

Ashik: Josiah P Stearman (1772)
Black: Ashik Uzzaman (1808)
Tournament: Super Swiss G/60 at Pleasanton Hilton
Date: 08/20/2011
Result: 1 - 0
Opening: Sicillian

Ashik vs Pranav, 3rd Game (G/60), Pleasanton

2011-09-27T22:43:00.000-07:00

White: Ashik Uzzaman (1808)
Black: Pranav Srihari (1700)
Tournament: Super Swiss G/60 at Pleasanton Hilton
Date: 08/20/2011
Result: 0 - 1
Opening: Sicillian Dragon

Ashik vs Charles Tang, 2nd Game (G/60), Pleasanton

2011-09-27T22:22:00.000-07:00

White: Ashik Uzzaman (1808)
Black: Charles Tang (1690)
Tournament: Super Swiss G/60 at Pleasanton Hilton
Date: 08/20/2011
Result: 0 - 1
Opening: Sicillian Dragon

Jack Li vs Ashik Uzzaman, 1st Game, Pleasanton (G/60)

2011-09-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

White: Jack Li (1485)Black: Ashik Uzzaman (1808)
Tournament: Super Swiss G/60 at Pleasanton Hilton
Date: 08/20/2011
Result: 0 - 1
Opening: Queens Pawn

Shakil Became IM, Liza WIM and Zia Moves For World Chess Championship

2011-03-30T02:39:00.000-07:00

Great news! My playing partner and gentle younger brother-like chess friend Abu Sufian Shakil has become International Master. Liza also became Women International Master, second only after WIM Rani Hamid. Moreover, Ziaur Rahman winning the 3.2 Zonal tournament will play the next cycle for World Chess Championship representing this zone.

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=179668

Shamima Akhter Liza became country's second Women International Master (WIM) after Rani Hamid, who won it in 1985, as she earned seven points from nine games in Asian Chess Zone 3.2 Championship in Sri Lanka yesterday.

Liza and Ranasinghe of Sri Lanka earned equal seven points but the latter finished top by virue of a tie breaker. Liza had earned her first WIM norm last year during Six Seasons Women's International Rating Chess in Cox's Bazar.

Apart from Liza, FIDE master Abu Sufian Shakil also earned his third and final norm of International Master from the championship as Shakil secured 6.5 points from nine matches to finish third in the men's section where GM Ziaur Rahman finished top to qualify for the World Chess Championship.

Shakil had earned his first IM norm back in 2009 from the National Chess Championship and then secured the second one from a competition in Indian state Orissa last year, according to information provided by Bangladesh Chess Federation.

http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2011-03-30/news/142789

বাংলাদেশের দাবায় একটা ভালো দিন গেল পরশু। এশিয়ান জোনাল চ্যাম্পিয়নশিপের ৩.২ অঞ্চলের খেলায় চ্যাম্পিয়ন হয়ে আগেই বিশ্বকাপ দাবায় খেলার সুযোগ মিলেছে গ্র্যান্ডমাস্টার জিয়াউর রহমান ও শামীমা আক্তারের (লিজা)। কাল পাওয়া গেল আরও একটি সুসংবাদ।
এশিয়ান জোনাল চ্যাম্পিয়নশিপে তৃতীয় হওয়া আবু সুফিয়ান (শাকিল) পেলেন আন্তর্জাতিক মাস্টারের খেতাব। এর আগে দুটো নর্ম পূরণ করা আবু সুফিয়ানের তৃতীয় নর্ম পূরণ হয়েছে শ্রীলঙ্কায়। সুফিয়ানের সঙ্গে শামীমা আক্তার হয়েছেন মহিলা আন্তর্জাতিক মাস্টার। রানী হামিদের পর দ্বিতীয় মহিলা দাবাড়ু হিসেবে এমন অর্জন শামীমার।

Ziaur Rahman Only half point behind Champion Areshchenko in 9th Parsvnath International Chess Tournament

2011-03-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

Areshchenko clinches title in a tie-break with 9 points while GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh scores 8.5 points.

Top seed Ukrainian Grandmaster Alexnader Areshchenko ensured a thrilling end to the 8th Parsvnath International Chess Tournament by setting for a draw with fellow Ukrainian Grandmaster Yuriy Kuzubov in the eleventh and final round at Ludlow Castle Sports Complex here on Sunday. Areshchenko tied for the top spot along with national champion Parimarjan Negi, Yuriy Kuzubov, Austrian Grandmaster Ragger Markus and highly regarded Chinese Grandmaster Ni Hua with 9 points each but better tie break score helped Areshchenko to take the Winners trophy and pocketed a shared cash prize of 1.51 lakh rupees while Negi finished second and Kuzubov satisfied with third spot finish. Markus and Ni Hua finished fourth and fifth respectively.

In the final round encounters Negi overcame CRG Krishna while Markus defeated Grandmaster Hanens Stefansson of Iceland and Ni Hua beat former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta to catch up with Areshchenko for the pole position.

Shri. V P Agarwal, Chairman Airport Authority of India; Shri Suneet Sachar, Vice President Parsvnath Developers; Shri Dhiraj Raghuvanshi, President Uttaranchal Chess Association give away the prizes in presence of Shri. Bharat Singh, President Delhi Chess Association.

Final Standings :-

(1) GM Alexander Areshchenko of Ukraine with 9 points
(2) GM Parimarjan Negi of India with 9 points
(3) GM Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine with 9 points
(4) GM Markus Ragger of Austria with 9 points
(5) GM Ni Hua of China with 9 points
(6) GM Lenic Luka of Slovenia with 8.5 points
(7) GM Mikhailo Oleksienko of Ukriane with 8.5 points
(8) GM Henrik Danielsen of Iceland with 8.5 points
(9) GM Postny Evgeny of Israel with 8.5 points
(10) IM Nabaty Tamir of Israel with 8.5 points
.....
.....
.... GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh with 8.5 points

Important Results Round-11 (Indians otherwise specified):- GM Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine (9) drew with GM Alexander Areshchenko of Ukraine (9); GM Abhijeet Gupta (8) lost to GM Ni Hua of China (9); GM Hannes Stefansson of Iceland (8) lost to GM Ragger Markus of Austria (9); GM Mikhailo Oleksienko of Ukraine (8.5) drew with GM Lenic Luka of Slovenia (8.5); Krishna C R G (8) lost to GM Parimarjan Negi (9); GM Henrik Danielsen of Iceland (8.5) drew with GM Evgeny Postny of Israel (8.5); GM Konstantin Chernyshov of Russia (8) drew with IM Karthikeyan P (8); IM Nabaty Tamir of Israel (8.5) beat Arun Karthik R (7.5); Surendran N (7.5) lost to GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh (8.5); Zeng Chongsheng of China (8.5) beat GM Kidambi S (7.5); GM Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan (7.5) drew with IM Shyam Nikil (8)

Source: http://blog.delhichess.com/2011/01/areshchenko-clinches-title-in-tie-break.html

Ossip Bernstein vs Jose Raul Capablanca, Moscow 1914

2011-03-21T18:52:00.001-07:00

Ashik vs Art Zhao, Round 3, Hexes 3 Round Swiss Tournament, Fremont

2011-03-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

White: Ashik Uzzaman (Rating 1797)
Black: Dikr Karagueuzian (Rating 1863)
It was a relatively easy won for me. My opponent simply surrendered to my king side attack in the middle game where I came out a piece up but exchange down. The rest of the game was a routine.

Ashik vs Rahul, 2nd Round, Hexes 3SS, Fremont

2011-03-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

White: Rahul Mohan (Rating 1596)
Black: Ashik Uzzaman (Rating 1797)
This is one of the worst games I played recently. I was completely in a lost position but due to my opponent's mistake was able to equalize and draw the game. I was having a headache all through today and it only went worse during this game and I was not able to think more than a few minutes. In that sense, I am happy with the result

Ashik vs Dikr, Round 1, Hexes 3 Round Swiss Tournament, Fremont

2011-03-15T01:20:00.000-07:00

White: Ashik Uzzaman (Rating 1797)
Black: Dikr Karagueuzian (Rating 2157)
A good game of G/60 which was ultimately drawn as I could not take advatange of my one pawn up position due to a close Rook Ending.

Salesforce.com Chess Tournament Round 4 (Final): Ashik vs Ganesh

2011-03-09T15:45:00.000-08:00

Ganesh and I picked lunched from Oasis Grill across the street and played our fourth round and final game in 15th Floor of our 1 California building. Ganesh played quite an attacking game but I kept the edge after winning the exchange. Finally in a time pressure he found himself a piece down before resigning.

With this win (4 out of 4) I am became the champion of this tournament. Good feeling!

The Immortal Game - Adolph Anderssen vs Lionel Kieseritsky, London 1851

2011-02-27T18:54:00.000-08:00

Opening: King's Gambit
Theme: Combination
Source: 2010: Chess Oddities by Alex Dunne

Mikhail Botvinnink vs Milan Vidmar, Nottingham 1936

2011-02-27T18:34:00.000-08:00

Opening: Queen's Gambit Declined
Theme: Isolated Queen Pawn
Source: 2010: Chess Oddities by Alex Dunne

Frank Marshall vs Jose Capablanca, Game 23, Match 1909

2011-02-27T18:17:00.000-08:00

Opening: Queen's Gambit Declined
Theme: Queen Side Pawn Majority
Source: 2010: Chess Oddities by Alex Dunne

Berthold Englisch vs William Stenitiz, London 1863

2011-02-27T17:54:00.000-08:00

Opening: Ruy Lopez
Theme: Two Bishops
Source: 2010: Chess Oddities by Alex Dunne

37th People's Chess Tournament by Bay Area Chess

2011-02-27T17:29:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I was quite busy with the 37th People's Chess Tournament in Fremont Marriott. As it was a long weekend, I registered it online through www.bayareachess.com after renewing my US Chess Membership.

After a successful World Cup Cricket 2011 opening ceremony in Dhaka where Bryan Adams, Shankar-Ehsan-Loy, Runa Laila, Sabina Yasmin et al perfomred in the midst of mind blowing fireworks, we gathered in Shahriar's house for the India vs Bangladesh opening match of the world cup in 19th February. He arranged lots of people and we had a nice time gossiping together (Ezaz, Amin, Dhanad, Sayeem, Wali Bhai, Sumit Bhai, Mamun Bhai, Dipu Bhai and some others). Although we lost due to a huge score from Sehwag (175) that took India's total to 370/4 in 50 overs, we gave it a fight by scoring 283/9 without being all out.

That meant I didn't get much sleep for the next morning's chess game in the tournament at 11:30 AM.

I won the first game nicely, drew a lost game against Kevin, got a win by forfeit in third round, won playing well in fourth game, drew a completely won game in fifth and finally lost a drawn Rook ending in the final (sixth) round. Despite this, I was in the prize list for my group (AB - 1700 to 1899) winning $66. I was jointly 6th-7th-8th for 4.0 out of 6 games. Look at the link below and check the AB section for my name in red in the prize list! I also gained 30 US Chess rating and my new rating now is 1797. I am planning to participate in short tournaments in future as well. This tournament was a 5 hour each game tournament for 6 rounds (move 30/90 + 60 each) spanning 3 days. My colleague Ganesh came twice during the tournament to watch my games and the final evening Amin, Shusmita, Ahyan and Suhaila came. Ahyan was very happy to see this vast gathering of chess players in Fremont Marriott (200+ participants in several groups).

http://bayareachess.com/events/11/221sp.php

In case you are interested for my games, please check earlier posts in this blog for the game notations to replay yourself.

Seigbert Tarrasch vs Jackson Showlater, Vienna 1898

2011-02-27T17:26:00.000-08:00

Opening: Hungarian Defense
Theme: Space / Mobility
Source: 2010: Chess Oddities by Alex Dunne

Ashik (1767) vs Tendoro Porlares (1897), 4th Round

2011-02-23T12:07:00.000-08:00

Opening: Caro Kann Defence
It was interesting as he was the highest rated player in our AB group. After defeat in this game to me, he withdrew from the rest of the 2 games as he knew he won't be able to make it to the prize list.

In the 3rd round, I got a win by forfeit as my opponent Bryan Ling (1584) could not attend due to illness. I looked for alternate opponents but the tournament directors couldn't find someone interested to play at 1700+ player!

Arnold Hua (1674) vs Ashik (1767), 6th Round

2011-02-23T02:42:00.000-08:00

Opening: Sicillian Defence
I made a very early and common mistake in the opening. However, I was able to hold the position till the very last move, where a one move mistake made the drawn game a lost one for me!

So the tournament standing finally was Kevin and Arnold joint champion with 5 out of 6 while 3 other guys were 4.5 followed by 3 of us 4 points each. So I was jointly 6th to 8th and will get some prize money. Also with this tournament, I gained 30 US Chess rating and my rating now is 1797!

Edward Li (1822) vs Ashik (1767), 5th Round

2011-02-23T01:56:00.000-08:00

Opening: Slav Defence
I made a big blunder in the end game to make a completely winning game to a drawn one.

Kevin (1704) vs Ashik (1767), Round 2

2011-02-20T17:05:00.001-08:00

Opening: Sicillian Defence
Kevin, 10 years old only boy, finally went on to become joint champion in AB group. He was crying with tears after making 2 blunders against me in a completely winning position. Finally when I was winning after his blunders, he offered me a draw as he was not able to think clearly or sit down on the board... I accepted the draw offer.

Ashik (1767) vs Terri (1702), 1st Round, 37th People Tourney, Fremont Marriott

2011-02-20T10:57:00.000-08:00

Opening: Caro Kann Defence

I believe it was a hard fought, complexly calculated long game for me where I went into severe time pressure but could hold the strings together till end. And hence the victory brought satisfaction!

Anatoly Karpov vs Viktor Korchnoi, 3rd game, 1978

2011-02-17T08:51:00.001-08:00

Bobby Fischer (Black) vs Boris Spassky (White), 3rd Game, Reykjavik 1972

2011-02-17T08:39:00.001-08:00

Tigran Pterosian vs Boris Spassky, 10th Game, 1966

2011-02-17T08:27:00.001-08:00

Mikhail Botvinnik (Black) vs Arnold Denker (White), 1945 Radio Match

2011-02-15T20:41:00.001-08:00

KChess - Chess For Kindle

2011-02-13T20:28:00.000-08:00

Today I found KChess, the chess software for Kindle in Amazon. It's built by Oak Leisure Systems Software and is available for $2.99 only.

It has 10 levels of strength, level 1 being the easiest and 10 the strongest. I was surprised to see how good even Level 1 plays. I have won against that after some accurate play and had to play all through a rook end game to win against Level 2. I am now playing against Level 3 and looks like this is the level where I will be stopped for the moment. The app is surprisingly well designed. I wish I could save the games that I play - that's one thing that can be done as additional feature in future release of this app.

I am so happy to get this. This game itself made me think again - Kindle Rocks!

Alexander Alekhine (Black) vs Richard Reti (White), Baden-Baden 1925

2011-02-12T23:51:00.001-08:00

Also check: http://coxschess.tripod.com/attack9.html

Jose Raul Capablanca (Black) vs Frank Marshall (White), Final Match Game, 1909

2011-02-12T11:06:00.000-08:00

Emanuel Laster vs Jose Raul Capablanca, St Petersburg, 1914

2011-02-12T10:41:00.000-08:00

Dr Emanuel Laster (Black) vs Dr Seigbert Tarrasch (White), Dusseldorf, 1908

2011-02-12T10:29:00.000-08:00

White resigned as he can't escape huge losses in e-file.

Salesforce.com Chess Tournament Round 3: Ashik vs Randy

2011-02-11T16:25:00.000-08:00

I won the third round of the tournament against Randy Sepe. He is a Support Metrics Manager and sits in One California St.

It was a Caro Kann Defence game and as I was writing my moves, Ganesh was also writing our moves. Randy made a dubious opening choice against which i was able to create pressure on him to limit the movement of this pieces substantially. It ended with an attack from which I came out a piece up. The rest of time he defended well, but I was too ahead by then to make any difference in the end result.

Wilhelm Steinitz (Black) vs Adolf Anderssen (White), 13th Game, 1866

2011-02-10T19:07:00.000-08:00

Paul Morphy vs Duke of Brunswick & Count Isouard, Consultation Game in Paris

2011-02-08T21:10:00.000-08:00

This game is famously known as Opera Game - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_game

Paul Morphy (Black) vs Louis Paulsen (White), 6th Game, New York 1857

2011-02-08T21:03:00.000-08:00

Howard Staunton vs Elijah Williams, 8th Match Game, London 1851

2011-02-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

Salesforce.com Chess Tournament Round 2: Ashik vs Ron

2011-01-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

I won the round 2 of chess tournament in Salesforce.com a little earlier playing with black. My opponent was Ron Pragides who sits in seventh floor in the same building as mine. He is Senior Director of Software Engineering. Shishir and Maithili joined me to watch the game. The chess clock we had actually ran out of battery so Ron did an interesting thing. He downloaded a chess clock in his iPhone where we set 20 minutes for each of us. It served the purpose fine!

Ron made the first mistake but I made a follow up mistake too to bring him back in the game. So it went down to Ron to make the final mistake by him through which I was able to mate him. Unlike round 1, this time I was ahead of time.

Salesforce.com Chess Tournament Round 1 - Ashik vs Didier

2011-01-24T18:06:00.000-08:00

I played the first round of the four round chess tournament in Salesforce.com. I won with White, although I felt I am out of touch by a good margin due to the lack of practice. My opponent was Didier Prophete who is PMTS and sits in 3rd floor in the same building as I do. Also I took lot more time than my opponent to move.

However, I will do some practice before next rounds so that I don't make simple miscalculations.

Soon after this, I exchanged the queens to make sure there is nothing left in the board except my Rook and Didier's Bishop while I have a bunch of queens side passed pawns to march for promotion. So he resigned here while I had some 3 minutes left in the clock as opposed to his 9 minutes.

Great Chess Players In History (Non-English)

2011-01-01T12:33:00.000-08:00

I got an email from the following blog owner where he started compiling all the great chess players career brief in short.

http://comentariosdeajedrez.blogspot.com/

While this is great, this is in Spanish or some other language as I have no idea. I wish I would get the English version of it somehow.

Bangladeshi GM Ziaur Rahman To Boost Chess In Malaysia

2010-02-26T16:36:00.000-08:00

After the recent post by Susan Polgar on Niaz Bhai's chess initiative in Bangladesh, today I saw Polgar blogging on Zia's residency in Malaysia to boost chess development there. Wonderful that chess players in Bangladesh are part of news more frequently now alhtough we are far from the mainstream sports news like cricket and football.

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2010/02/resident-gm-in-malaysia.html

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/2/26/lifeliving/5738116&sec=lifeliving

GM Niaz Murshed on Regular Title Tournaments in Bangladesh

2010-02-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

I was very happy to read Bangladeshi Grand Master Niaz Murshed's initiative on promoting chess in Bangladesh and subsequently effecting the chess trends of South Asia by arranging regular title tournaments at different venues in Bangladesh. Susan Polgar posted the entry below on a note by the first GM of South Asia Niaz (remember that Anand was second to him) here -

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2010/02/note-by-gm-niaz-murshed.html

You may also have a quick look at -

http://thefidetrainer.blogspot.com/2010/02/first-saturday-type-tournaments-in.html

Susan Polgar Writes on Rani Hamid

2009-12-28T04:06:00.000-08:00

I was happy to see GM Susan Polgar writing in her blog on Rani Hamid, IWM from Bangladesh here.

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2009/12/grandma-chess-queen.html

I am privileged to have played with her for a while in Bangladesh chess federation in the 90s in different chess tournaments and practice games.

Kasparov Defeated Karpov by 9 - 3

2009-09-25T18:58:00.000-07:00

As I easily predicted, Kasparov defeated Karpov with a good margin 9-3 in the rapid match that finished in Madrid today. Karpov is aged, 58 now, although Kasparov himself is no more young (46). They are planning play another match this December in Paris.

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2009/09/new-match-same-result.html

GM Zia and Enamul Amongst Top Scorers in Kilkata Open

2009-09-05T08:44:00.000-07:00

After fifth round, GM Ziaur Rahman and Enamul Hossain of Bangladesh are jointly in second position with other top GMs like Nigel Short in the Kolkata Open with 4 points each. GM Sandipan is solely leading with 4.5 points.

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2009/09/sandipan-leads-kolkata-open.html

It's so great to see our GMs in the front line of the scorers!

Anand Wins Rapid Match with Leko - Chess.com

2009-06-08T18:31:00.001-07:00

As I predicted, Anand defeated Leko very easily in the Rapid Chess.

Anand Wins Rapid Match with Leko - Chess.com

Shared via AddThis

Topalov Took Early Lead by Defeating Kamsky in 2nd Match

2009-02-18T18:30:00.000-08:00

Topalov came out with good opening surprises for Kamsy both in yesterday's first game with White and today's second game with black. While Kamsky skillfully held himself in first game, he took too much time to respond to Topalov's plan today and eventually lost the game. Topalov is now leading 1-0 in the 8 game challenger deciding match in Bulgeria.

I found an interesting URL today here -

http://activereader.org/mini-games/amazon-chess/

Update: Topalov defeated Kamsky and became the challenger for world championship crown against Anand that will be help next year in 2010!!! I would love to see Anand defeating Topalov.

Happy New Year 2009 Fide Chess Rating

2009-01-01T09:03:00.000-08:00

Fide 2009 January Rating list is topped by Topalov with 2796 closely followed by World Champion Vishy Anand.

FIDE January 2009 Top Players Rating List

Rank	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games	B-Year
1	Topalov, Veselin	g	BUL	2796	8	1975
2	Anand, Viswanathan	g	IND	2791	11	1969
3	Ivanchuk, Vassily	g	UKR	2779	19	1969
4	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2776	17	1990
5	Morozevich, Alexander	g	RUS	2771	20	1977
6	Radjabov, Teimour	g	AZE	2761	27	1987
7	Jakovenko, Dmitry	g	RUS	2760	40	1983
8	Kramnik, Vladimir	g	RUS	2759	20	1975
9	Leko, Peter	g	HUN	2751	23	1979
10	Movsesian, Sergei	g	SVK	2751	16	1978
11	Aronian, Levon	g	ARM	2750	16	1982
12	Shirov, Alexei	g	ESP	2745	19	1972
13	Wang, Yue	g	CHN	2739	28	1987
14	Grischuk, Alexander	g	RUS	2733	28	1983
15	Gelfand, Boris	g	ISR	2733	17	1968
16	Ponomariov, Ruslan	g	UKR	2726	9	1983
17	Kamsky, Gata	g	USA	2725	16	1974
18	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	g	AZE	2724	29	1985
19	Gashimov, Vugar	g	AZE	2723	28	1986
20	Svidler, Peter	g	RUS	2723	27	1976

For Bangladesh Chess, 3 of our 5 GMs are over the 2500+ marks after a good Chess Olympiad performance.

Bangladesh (Active players)

#	Name	Title	Fed	Rating	G	B-Year
1	Abdulla, Al-Rakib	g	BAN	2535	9	1980
2	Hossain, Enamul	g	BAN	2513	28	1981
3	Rahman, Ziaur	g	BAN	2509	21	1974
4	Reefat, Bin-Sattar	g	BAN	2480	9	1974
5	Murshed, Niaz	g	BAN	2429	11	1966
6	Abu Sufian, Shakil	f	BAN	2386	24	1980
7	Minhazuddin, Ahmed	f	BAN	2349	36
8	Islam, Kh. Aminul	f	BAN	2324	0	1977
9	Rahman, Md. Taibur	f	BAN	2320	11	1976
10	Ahmed, Sk. Nasir	f	BAN	2281	9	1975
11	Mohammed Abdul, Malek	f	BAN	2280	19	1983
12	Rahman, Syed Mahfuzur	f	BAN	2278	29
13	Hasan, Kayes		BAN	2249	0
14	Hasan, Mehdi	f	BAN	2243	33
15	Mohammad, Ali		BAN	2232	26	1985
16	Gosh, Chanchal Kumar		BAN	2231	0
17	Chatterjee, Debaraj		BAN	2218	38	1980
18	Ahmed, Mahtabuddin		BAN	2199	26
19	Chowdhury, Sohel		BAN	2194	37	1972
19	Ahmed, Shafiq		BAN	2194	11	1976
21	Mohammad, Javed	f	BAN	2188	34
22	Haque, Rezaul	f	BAN	2186	24	1959
23	Ahmed, Mainuddin		BAN	2182	0
24	Uddin, Saif		BAN	2181	0
25	Hossain, Monir		BAN	2180	35	1974
26	Ali, Mohammad Imran		BAN	2156	17	1989
27	Anisuzzaman, Jewel		BAN	2153	9
28	Monir, Arman		BAN	2150	33
29	Hossain, Enayet Mohammed		BAN	2147	0
30	Hossain, Delwar		BAN	2146	20

Ziaur Rahman Drew Magnus Carlsen in 7th Round of Chess Olympiad

2008-11-20T15:09:00.000-08:00

This is my pleasure to state that Bangladesh Men Chess Olympiad team has drew the very strong Norway team in the 7th round in Dresden, Germany yesterday. It's an amazing feat for Bangladesh chess team considering the strength of the opposition in the world chess map. I congratulate the team wholeheartedly. Go to http://www.dresden2008.org/site/de/medien/ausblick08/main.htm and search for Bangladesh to see the results so far for Bangladesh Chess Team. Bangladesh is ranked 55th at the start of the tournament is standing at 37th place after 7 rounds.

From Chess For You

While the whole team is playing very well, it's worth mentioning separately that today GM Ziaur Rahman at top board drew with White against world's 4th top rated (2786) GM Magnus Carlsen who is widely considered as the future World Chess Champion who is looking forward to break Kasparov's record of being the youngest world chess champion of all time unless Anand can refrain him from being so for next four years. Also GM Rakib's current rating performance is an impressive 2646 (4.0 out of 5 games). I wish Bangladesh can end up within a position within the first 40 teams in this tournaments and each of the players gain a very good rating point out of this.

Here is what The Round 7 News by Mark Crowther of ChessCenter mentioned about Zia and his game against Carlsen.

Carlsen (with black) against Ziaur Rahman (a man who plays a LOT of chess, believe me, so is extremely experienced) drew after provoking complications not in his favour from the opening but eventually reached a dead level ending after his opponent went wrong.

You can follow the full game here in chess.com forum.

Bangladesh Chess Olympiad Team 2008

2008-11-10T12:40:00.000-08:00

Chess Olympiad Dresden 2008 has achieved the highest level of registration in history turning it into the biggest Chess Olympiad of all ages. After the final closing of the registration list on September the 19th there were more than 2000 active participants announced. It will be held from November the 12th till November the 25th in Dresden, Germany. A perfect place to play big chess events after a successful world chess championship match in Bonn, Germany last month.

With 152 registered nations Dresden surpasses the previous Olympiad 2006 in Turin with 7 more countries. The participants distribute themselves to 275 teams, therefrom 156 in the main tournament including the second team of Germany and the teams of the deaf, correspondence chess players and blind persons. 119 women teams are starting.

Susan Polgar's Popular Chess blog provided an entry on the Bangladesh Chess Team that left for Germany to participate this big event. I was proud to see Bangladesh's map in that entry. I know most of the players there personally and I wish success to this team whole heaterdly. To see the complete list of all the chess participating nations and players, click this link http://tournaments.chessdom.com/chess-olympiad-2008-teams .

What is Anand's Position Amongst the Crowds of World Champions in Chess History

2008-10-31T16:16:00.000-07:00

I started a poll in this few years back thinking of which world champion is most favorite to us (look at the right side Poll#1 Greatest Chess Player). Susan is running a post on this in her blog today on this same topic.

My own opinion is Kasparov! But he will be closely followed by Capablanca, Morphy and Fischer. After them the other players whom I would rank almost equally would be Karpov, Anand, Botvinnik, Lasker and Alekhine.

Why Anand in this rank? Because of his versatile style of chess. He is one of the most naturally talented chess player (along with Capablanca) who didn't get big chess mentors (like Kasparov got Botvinnik and it's true for other Russian champions as well). Anand is a very sharp player and his raw speed of chess is simply unmatchable by anyone else, not even Kasparov! Also he plays quite well against top Computers although his blindfold may not be the best in the market. Kramnik was a great rival of Anand if we study both of their careers and Anand has repeatedly triumphed over him last few years showing his spirit even better than what Kasparov did against his great rival Karpov. Anand is playing in a time when the gap between top chess players are marginal which I believe only Kasparov had to face amongst the earlier champions. Anand's career is not over and he is already in top best chess players ever to many chess players / fans like me.

Anand Remains World Chess Champsion by Winning the Match Against Kramnik

2008-10-29T13:54:00.003-07:00

From Blogs

The World Chess Championship started this October 14th in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn. The match consisted of twelve games between the defending Champion Anand (FIDE Rating 2783) of India vs the Challenger Kramnik (FIDE Rating 2772) of Russia.

Anand and Kramnik started out peacefully with two interesting draws, after which the Indian player exploded to score three wins - in game 3, game 5, and game 6. Especially difficult for Kramnik were the two loses with black in the same line which basically have decided the outcome of the match in early stage. Although Kramnik managed to pull a win in 10th game and Anand drew 11th game today with white pieces to win the match at a 6.5 - 4.5 margin.

The prize fund of 1.5 million Euro (approximately 2.35 million US Dollars) including taxes and FIDE license fees, and will be split equally between these 2 players. You can get a few more details on the match in the following links -

I have been following the games everyday in BART from my home to San Francisco or early morning at Chessbase, Susan Polgar's Blog, Chessdom, ChessMind and Official WCC Site, Chess Ninja Blog.

Except for today's drawn game the live rating at http://chess.liverating.org shows Anand's current live rating is 2791 (jointly topping the list with Topalov) and Kramnik's 2764. So for this draw I believe Anand may settle down 1 point lower than Topalov in the second position of the list. Here are few news on Anand's victory. So he now needs to prepare for another challenger next year - the winner of Topalov vs Kamsky match.

Anand Defeats Kramnik with Black Pieces in 3rd Game

2008-10-17T14:16:00.001-07:00

Anand had a brilliant tactical game with black pieces to unsettle Kramnik in their 3rd game of World Chess Championship match 2008 in Germany. I wishAnand defend his title in this match successfully.

http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=337745
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4963
http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=621714

Anand Defeats Kramnik with Black Pieces in 3rd Game

2008-10-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

Anand had a brilliant tractical game to unsettle Kramnik their 3rd gmae of World Chess Championship match 2008 in Germany.

http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=621714

Anand vs Kramnik World Championship 2008 First Game Drawn

2008-10-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

Anand held Kramnik to an easy draw with black at the first game of World Chess Championship match 2008 today. This 12 game match between these 2 great chess players is going on in Bonn, Germany and I heartfully expect Anand to beat Kramnik in this match.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4958

Tomorrow Anand will have White pieces and hence I am expecting a good chance for him to take lead in the match.

Interestingly, I came out to this new of child chess player in my city (Fremont) a little earlier.

http://www.calchess.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=113000

Another Good Tournament Performance from Zia

2008-05-20T02:22:00.000-07:00

Zia became 3rd among the five 9 point earners in tie breaking score in Kolkata Mayors Cup 1st International Chess. Krasenkow was 1st and Koneru Humpy 2nd in the tournament. Another great result from Zia.

And by the way, Anand won the Chess Oscar 2007, this is his 5th time! Congrats to both Zia and Anand!!

* http://bangladeshchess.blogspot.com/2008/05/mayors-cup-1st-international-open-chess.html
* http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=37329
* http://www.cpai.in/news87.htm#Mumbai%20Mayors%20International%20Chess%20Tournament%20:Thejkumar%20Gets%20GM%20Norm,%20Kransenow%20Assured%20of%20Title

Bangladesh Got It's 5th GM: Enamul Hossain Rajib

2008-05-05T17:06:00.001-07:00

I knew it was only a matter of time for Rajib to be Grand Master. And he did it in the 2008 Bangladesh National Championshiop securing 10 points out of 12 gaining the 3rd GM norm required and being runner up of the event behind GM Ziaur Rahman who secured 11 points. Razib's excellent performance of beating Pavel Eljanov last November in World Chess Cup 2007 (Russia) convinved me that the third GM norm for him is no far.

It's also good to know that Shakil and Sagor got their 1st IM norm from this national championship with 9 points. So now Bangladesh has 5 GMs, 1 IWM and several FMs in Chess which is a good achievement considering the overall sports performance in other sectors.

Reference:

Anand crossed 2800 mark again and Zia 5th in Kolkata Open

2008-04-02T16:22:00.001-07:00

Anand again touched his career highest rating of 2803 in April 2008 rating list. Please see the top 20 players list at the table below.

In the meantime, GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh played another good tournament securing 5th place (jointly 4th to 10th) in 3rd Kolkata tournament to win 50000 Rs prize money. Here are the result deatails.

http://alekhinechessclub.com/3kolkatafinal.html

FIDE April 2008 Rating List

Rank	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games	B-Year
1	Anand, Viswanathan	g	IND	2803	27	1969
2	Kramnik, Vladimir	g	RUS	2788	13	1975
3	Morozevich, Alexander	g	RUS	2774	11	1977
4	Topalov, Veselin	g	BUL	2767	27	1975
5	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2765	27	1990
6	Aronian, Levon	g	ARM	2763	27	1982
7	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	g	AZE	2752	13	1985
8	Radjabov, Teimour	g	AZE	2751	27	1987
9	Svidler, Peter	g	RUS	2746	11	1976
10	Leko, Peter	g	HUN	2741	27	1979
11	Ivanchuk, Vassily	g	UKR	2740	35	1969
12	Shirov, Alexei	g	ESP	2740	14	1972
13	Karjakin, Sergey	g	UKR	2732	0	1990
14	Adams, Michael	g	ENG	2729	13	1971
15	Kamsky, Gata	g	USA	2726	0	1974
16	Gelfand, Boris	g	ISR	2723	13	1968
17	Ponomariov, Ruslan	g	UKR	2719	0	1983
18	Grischuk, Alexander	g	RUS	2716	11	1983
19	Jakovenko, Dmitry	g	RUS	2711	11	1983
20	Alekseev, Evgeny	g	RUS	2711	0	1985

Rakib 5.5 of 9 in Moscow Open 2008

2008-02-13T22:48:00.000-08:00

The Fourth International Open Chess Festival Moscow Open 2008 took place in the Russian State Social University (RSSU) from the 2nd to the 10th of February 2008. The Festival consisted of four tournaments: Open A, Tournament B, the Women's Open C and a Children Tournament D. Each of these tournaments was a nine-round Swiss. The total guaranteed prize fund was 5,000,000 rubels = US $205,760. Russian GM Timofeev Artyom (2664) became champion scoring 7.5 points.

In A group, Bangladesh's GM Abdulla Al-Rakib (2506), IM Enamul Hossain Razib (2522) and FM Shekh Nasir Ahmed (2379) participated. Rakib scored 5.5 out of 9 rounds in this strong tournament which is not a bad result. He secured 45th to 87th place jointly amongst more than 300 players in this group. Enamul scored 4.5 and Nasir scored 4 points.

Strongest Chess Tournament of All Time

2008-02-13T09:41:00.000-08:00

All on a sudden morning today, I started thinking the following things. I will try to figure those out and let you all know. But if one of my readers can share some information on this, I would really appreciate.

1. The strongest tournament of 18th century.
2. The strongest tournament of 19th century.
3. The strongest tournament of 20th century before ELO rating systems started.
4. The strongest tournament of 20th century after ELO rating systems started. Please mention if there was any Category 22 tournament ever. Also may be we can get a list of Category 21 tournaments ever played.

I found last year Mexico Chess world championship's average rating was 2751.75 where Anand won and became world champion. But 1996 Las Palmas (that Kasparov won) was the highest with 2757 average rating according to this discussion - http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2008/02/strongest-tournament-of-year.html . This thread suggests that after that this week's Linares-Moreila 2008 will be second highest rated tournament with average rating of 2756.

For those who want to know a subjective evaluation of who was the greatest chess player of all time and which one performance is the best of all the tournament performances by any player, you might consider the following Chessbase article series.

Update: Anand won Moreila Linares 2008, the second strongest rated tournament of all time with a minimum margin over Carlsen. Hurrah! This will give him a confident world championship match ahead against Kramnik. It has been one of the most fighting tournaments of recent times with a very high number of decisive games.

http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/2008/03/anand_wins_linares_2008.htm
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4493

GM Ziaur Rahman 3rd in 6th Parsvnath Intl Open in New Delhi

2008-01-31T16:32:00.000-08:00

Bangladeshi GM Ziaur Rahman emerged 3rd in 6th Parsvnath International Open Chess Tournament 2008 held in New Delhi. It was a 10 round swiss leage where Zia scored 8 with a rating performance of 2545 to gain 11 rating points out of it. GM (in-waiting) Abhijeet Gupta won the title and 2.24 lakh rupees scoring 9 while GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly scored 8.5 to be runner up. The other Bangladeshis FM Taibur Rahman scored 7 and IM Enamual Hossain scored 6.5. Hats off to Zia for his good show. Here are the top scorers list.

Rank	SNo.		Name	Rtg	FED	Pts	BH.
1	12	IM	Gupta Abhijeet	2495	IND	9	65½
2	2	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	2579	IND	8½	70
3	39	IM	Prakash G B	2341	IND	8	70½
4	7	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	2527	UZB	8	69½
5	3	GM	Kurnosov Igor	2577	RUS	8	69
6	6	GM	Solodovnichenko Yuri	2541	UKR	8	67½
7	14	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2492	BAN	8	67
8	24	IM	Rathnakaran K	2437	IND	8	65½
9	75		Praveen Kumar C	2255	IND	8	59

Here are the full final standings result.

Source: http://www.hindu.com/2008/01/21/stories/2008012155561900.htm

Anand 3rd in Wijk Aan Zee 2008 being half a point behind winners Carslen and Aronian

2008-01-31T16:26:00.000-08:00

Anand is half a point behind the winners Carslen(8.0) and Aronian(8.0) to secure the 3rd place along with Radjabov in Wijk Aan Zee 2008. The good news is that Anand(7.5) is 1 point ahead of Kramnik(6.5) and 1.5 ahead of Topalov(6.0) who I count as more dangerous opponents for him.

Source: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4417

Bobby Fischer Passed Away

2008-01-20T09:11:00.001-08:00

Legendary Chess Champion R J Fischer aka Bobby Fischer has passed aways 18th Jan 2008 in Iceland due to kidney failure. This on-the-board great player is regarded by many as one the greatest chess players of all time. As of my poll in this site in the right navigation panel, he got 30% vote out of 115 to date being closely followed by Kasparov(28%) while Capablanca and Paul Morphy are at distant third with 9% each.

Here is the news of his death.

Kamsky wins World Cup 2007 to challenge Topalov

2007-12-20T18:04:00.000-08:00

I believe except Anand and Kramnik, the only 2 other players who can really have a chance against Topalov are Ivanchuk and Kamsky. Chuky is out already, so Kamsky is the one who should win the cup and challenge Topalov. And this is exactly what happened. This way, we will get a great competition between Topalov and America's hope Kamsky while we already have the greatest match after Kasparov-Karpov era waiting for us - World Chess Championship 2008 between Anand and Kramnik. I believe people will like to see a Anand-Topalov, Anand-Ivanchuk and Anand-Kamsky match in future as opposed to anyone else you name it - Shirov? Nah, he already lost to Anand 3.5.0.5 big time earlier. Aronian, not enough to be the top of the world yet. Carlsen, count for him in future, not now. Kamsky was particularly tough for Anand in past while Topalov can beat anyone any day. Ivanchuk is in his career peak now and can pose trouble to any of Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Kamsky. Lets see how it goes.

Anand Runner Up in World Blitz Championship

2007-11-23T01:51:00.000-08:00

Anand became runner up after a costly blunder in the last round against Ivanchuk in the 2 days 38 round world blitz championship. Despite a very bad 1st day, Anand showed a great come back in second day by winning games in row and catch up Ivanchuk by round 29. In the last round decider game, both Anand and Ivanchuk had 24.5 points with 1.5 points ahead of the nearest trailer. Anand was completely winning the game but overlooked a night fork by Ivanchuk , proving anything can happen in a 4 minutes plus 2 seconds increment blitz game. Anand is the classical and rapid world chess champion and world bliz runner up.

Final Standings (38 rounds)

Place SNo. Name Fed. FIDE Total S.B. Wins
1 16 Ivanchuk, Vassily UKR 2787 25.5 480 19
2 4 Anand, Viswanathan IND 2801 24.5 437 18
3 3 Grischuk, Alexander RUS 2715 23.5 430.5 14
4 7 Kamsky, Gata USA 2714 23.5 429 16
5 8 Kramnik, Vladimir RUS 2785 21.5 393.75 13
6 1 Leko, Peter HUN 2755 21.5 392.5 13
7 9 Rublevsky, Sergei RUS 2676 21.5 385.75 16
8 18 Morozevich, Alexander RUS 2755 21 378.5 16
9 17 Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2714 20.5 352 15
10 13 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE 2752 18.5 344.75 13
11 20 Adams, Michael ENG 2729 18.5 337.25 13
12 11 Ponomariov, Ruslan UKR 2705 18 339.5 15
13 5 Kasimdzhanov, Rustam UZB 2690 17.5 319.75 11
14 2 Dreev, Alexey RUS 2607 17 313.5 12
15 14 Gelfand, Boris ISR 2736 17 310.75 10
16 6 Savchenko, Boris RUS 2583 17 291.5 13
17 19 Shirov, Alexei ESP 2739 16 298.75 11
18 12 Karpov, Anatoly RUS 2670 14 252 8
19 10 Bacrot, Etienne FRA 2695 12 235 9
20 15 Korotylev, Alexey RUS 2600 11.5 205.25 7

Vishy Anand is the new World Chess Champion

2007-09-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

At last my wait for this day finished. Anand played a super double round robin tournament in Mexico to come out clear winnerof the tournament and new World Chess Champion scoring 9 our fo 13 with 4 wins and 10 draws. He is the only undefeated player in the tournament. He played great chess here showing his deep preparation and spirit and defending nicely at bad times throughout this championship.

Gelfand played a very nice tournament trailing Anand by a point at the finish but a last round victory by Kramnik ensured the equal 8 points for both of him and Kramnik and hence Kramnik became runner up in baclose score calculation.

Its fun time now to enjoy for Indians. They have recently won the Tewnty20 World Cricket Championship and now the world chess championship.

Congratulations to Anand! Enjoy the success.

World Chess Championship 2007 Starts Tomorrow

2007-09-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

After a long wait, I will be able to follow a great encounter amongst the 8 strongest chess players in the world now. Yes, Mexico World Chess Champinship 2007 starts tomorrow. It will be category 21 double round-robin tournament. Here is a table that details the participants.

Player Nat. Rtn Birth

Vishwanathan Anand IND 2792 1969

Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2769 1975

Alexander Morozevich RUS 2758 1977

Peter Leko HUN 2751 1979

Levon Aronian ARM 2750 1982

Peter Svidler RUS 2735 1976

Boris Gelfand ISR 2733 1968

Alexander Grischuk RUS 2726 1983

Well, I have been waiting to see Anand to be the champion of the chess world. However in recent years the championship has been captured by Kramnik and Topalov instead. This show is the best and probably one of the last few chances of Anand, considering his age, to prove his supremecy once again. The various online polls show Anand as top favorite closely followed by Kramnik. In fact, in a recent interview kasparov nominated Anand as the clear favorite. However, Kramnik is in great shape and Aronian is the other contender for the crown with a good result against both Anand and Kramnik. The other five participants are also capable of making good results in any event. It will be a memorable battle amongst all of them.

Courtesy to Susan Polgar's Blog, here is the official link to watch the games live in action.

http://partidas.chessmexico.com

Here are a few more articles on this.

http://story.mexicostar.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/4b980140662cfc90/id/281684/cs/1/
http://affairsofchess-wydarzenia.blogspot.com/2007/09/anand-top-seed-in-chess-world.html
http://midaschess.blogspot.com/2007/09/mexico-are-you-ready-for-show.html

Anand won Mainz Rapid World Chess Championship for 10th Time

2007-08-20T22:09:00.001-07:00

Yes, Anand is still the best rapid chess player. He has won the final against Aronian with a black piece win in the 4th game to take revenge of the loss in Chess960 final against him just a few days back. Now all the eyes on Mexico Classical World Chess Championship. Go Anand, go!

Here is what Anand remembers about his Rapid World Championship Titles during last one and half decade.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/26/stories/2007082656011800.htm

Fide Candidates Match 2007 Round 1

2007-06-04T23:03:00.000-07:00

The Candidates Matches for the 2007 World Chess Championship Tournament was held in Elista, Russia, from May 26 to June 14, 2007. A total of 16 candidates played two rounds of six-game matches to fill four places in the 2007 World Championship in Mexico City. The prize fund was US $40,000 per match, most of the money ($320,000) coming from a personal fund of FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, FIDE ($160,000) and the general sponsor, Rosenergomash.

In the most excitng competition of round 1, Aronian and Carlsen faught head to head until Aronian won the last 2 tie blitz games to score a 7-5 win when the classical games drew at 4 draws and 1 win each. leko outplayed Gurevich the same was as Kamsky demolished Bacrot (3.5 - 0.5). Rublevsky defeated Ponomariov and Bereev defeated Polgar by 3.5 - 2.5 margin while Grishchuk comfortably overcame Malakov (3.5 - 1.5). In the other tie-breaks of Shirov vs Adams and Gelfand vs Kasimdzhanov the outcome was identical 5.5 - 3.5 in favor of Shirov and Gelfand respectively. Now we will be looking forward to Round 2 fights that will decide the rest 4 World Chess Mexico 2007 participants.

Round 2 Pairings:

Aronian vs Shirov - I am expecting a very interesting battle.
Grishchuk vs Rublevsky - I think Grishchuk will win.
Gelfand vs Kamsky - My bet is on Kamsky.
Leko vs Bareev - I am quite sure about Leko.

FIDE press director Peter Rajcsanyi summarized the event so far as follows:

The first round of the candidate matches resulted in many colorful and fire-packed games, a few real blunders (from among which many were made in the longer-time-control games), several good combinations, interesting rook sacrifices, not too many draws and a friendly atmosphere among the players, audience and officials.

The outside temperature was high and on many boards there were heated-up struggles in the main playing hall, too. The overall quality of the games is good and the excitement created by the arrangement of bringing all candidate matches into one place pleased most of the local and Internet spectators. On the Internet, the average number of daily visitors reached the sixty thousand level.

Magnus Carlsen is the hero of the first round – no doubt. He became the chess idol of the young Kalmykian girls who may or may not know chess (as he enjoys the same status in Norway, too) while his stamina as well as consistency has been admired all over the world by chess players. His friendly style, delightful and disarming smile and the candid answers pleased media people in the press center all the time. He successfully used the whole chess armory available for him although finally it was not enough against Aronian now. Next time, who knows…

Voted Anand for Chess Oscar 2006

2007-04-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

I just voted Anand at http://oscar.fide.com/about.asp for Chess Oscar 2006. The interface is non-intuitive and I am surprised with their look and feel choice. Here is whom I voted:

1st: Anand
2nd: Kramnik
3rd: Topalov
4th: Radjabov

Anand is the highest rated chess player now

2007-04-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

Anand deserved it a long time back. But better late than never. Vishy Anand is the highest rated chess player in the world from this April 2007 rating list. He was consistently in the top 3 rated chess player for more than a decade-and-half. Congratualtions to Anand! I hope he will continue to reign for a long time.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3784
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2007/04/its-official-anand-is-king-of-hill.html
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3771
http://specials.rediff.com/sports/2007/apr/02sld1.htm
http://www.reuters.com/news/video/videoStory?videoId=22787

Painting of Great Chess Players by Fernando Arrabal

2007-03-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

Seated: The chess champions Mikhail Tal (1936-1992), José Raúl Capablanca (1888-1942), Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941), Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900), and Bobby Fischer (b. 1943). Standing: Boris Spassky (b. 1937), the playwright Arrabal (b.1932), and Alexander Alekhine (1892–1946). On the right-hand side: Paul Morphy (1837-1884), François-André Philidor (1726-1795) and Ruy López de Segura (1530-1580). In photos on the left-hand side: Vasily Smyslov (b. 1921), Machgielis (Max) Euwe (1901–1981), Anatoli Karpov (b. 1951), Judit Polgár (b. 1976), Tigran Petrosian (1929-1984), and Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-1995). Click picture to enlarge.

A wonderful Chess Painting that I found on the net today.

Source:
Chessbase - http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3456
Susan's Blog - http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2007/03/chess-painting.html

Chess Enlightenment: A Nice Webcomic

2007-03-07T09:57:00.000-08:00

Source: http://xkcd.com/c232.html

Anand Leading Linares

2007-02-22T16:03:00.000-08:00

The traditional Linares tournament, which since 2006 has been split in two halves, started 17th February at the state theatre in Morelia, Mexico. Eight participants are Topalov (2783), Ivanchuk (2750), Leko (2749), Morozevich (2741), Svidler (2728), Carlsen (2690), Anand (2779) and Aronian (2744). The official web site is so slow that I opted out for ICC Chess.fm live broadcast and analysis as well follow-ups on Chessbase, Chess Ninja, Susan's blog, Chessvibes and blog on Carlsen.

I am particularly happy to see Anand coming back with great spirit showing his class after last 2 consecutive wins against Morozevich and Carlsen. I wish Radjabov would play the tournament although Ivanchuk is no less attractive replacement to him. As of my writing now, round 5 is going in full swing where Topalov seems to have tied down Carlsen strongly.

Standings After Round 4:

Update: After 7 rounds that conclude the first half in Moreila, Anand and Carlsen are leading with 4.5 points each.
Update: Until 9th round Anand was leading with Carlsen and then today at 10th round Anand again defeated Carlsen with a brilliant knight sacrifice, which folks there were not sure whether really winning. However Carlsen understood better and refused to take the knight and played a series of good defensive but couldn't avoid defeat.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;

Update After Round 12: Anand drew with Aronian to lead the table with 7.5 points. Carlsen is closely following him (7.0) after today's draw with Topalov. Svidler defeated Leko to trail Carlsen with 6.5 points putting Leko in the bottom of the table alone. Morozevich defeated Invanchuk to make the playing ground even for both of them coupled with Topalov at 5.5 points. Chessbase got a new look today.

Final Update: Anand won Linares/Moreila 2007 with 8.5 points, a full point ahead of Carlsen and Morozevich. One good thing is that Anand is going to be the highest rated chess player in April's FIDE rating list. He has been consistently the #2 or #3 player in the world last 10 years following mainly Kasparov and sometimes Kramnik and Topalov. I wish Anand becomes the world champion this year in Mexico. Here is the final standings.

MSA for USCF Members

2007-02-18T22:46:00.000-08:00

USCF has provided an excellent tool for its members to analyze their tournament records. Its a software named MSA that allows you to see your performance chart, number of games against all the players in USCF rated tournaments. Its free for personal use. I downloaded it in my desktop and here is my perrformance chart.

You may download it from here.

Review of Rapid Chess Improvement by Michael de la Maza

2007-02-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

Rapid Chess Improvement (Everyman Chess)

Michael de la Maza

Date: 2002-06-01 — Book

product page read other reviews

Rating:

Last week I bought and skimmed through this book on rapid chess improvement technique that Michael de la Maza introduced. The 3 messages that got reading this book are -

Develop Chess Vision. Its a less discussed topic in chess and Michael did a good job bringing it front. However, he over-emphasized it. I can never imagine finding time to go through the chess vision drills that the author was talking about, because that time can be better utilized in other areas of chess improvement. Well, may be I think so because I am already a strong Class B player. But for someone who has time and is a Class C or D level player (or lower), it may be of use. My opinion for class C or D level players would be to try a few hours with queen and knight and ignore the rest, certainly not 2 or 3 weeks. You better use that time studying end games.
Study and practice chess Tactics as much as possible. Tactics is the heart of chess. I can think of studying chess as learning tactics and learning strategy. Michael emphazied tactics over strategy until someone is an Expert level player. This emphasize is correct to some extent, however, not making someone completely ignorant about Strategy. I thank the author for emphasizing tactics and crticize the author for consdering learning strategy as waste of time. I can't imagine how I would be able to get a complete appreciation of chess without reading a book like Nimzowitch's My System.
Use CT-Art 3.0 to sharpen up your tactics and follow Seven Circles program. Any program that teaches you tactics, gives lot of tactical puzzles will do. In fact, I decided to buy Fritz 10 instead of it. However, as CT-Art is specially focused on this area, its really worth. Now whether you will follow author's unique invention of seven circles or you want to go your own way depending on your schedule, profession, life style is upto you. Seven circles is, no doubt, a good way to go if you dont want to create a schedule yourself. I used to solve chess puzzle books earlier that contained lot of combinations and that also worked well in my early chess endevours. Still, I give credit to Michael to make it straight forward by putting a calculated discipline in this process of learning tactics.

Now about the rest of part of book, its written in an inspirational way which may make bring you back to the chess board even if you gave up playing chess for a while. However, most of them are not fact, these are like opinions, guesses, hopes etc. The way he talks about only to look for next 3 or 5 move possibilities for traps, tactics etc makes me think that every move is a chess math and a player is a chess machine who doesn't know or see larger view of chess as a game. The authot constantly says you dont need to learn anything other than tactics, which is so wrong. About opening, we know that its true, we only need to understand a handful of opening ideas but I can't accept misguiding average chess players to hold them of learning end games and chess strategies. The claim of gaining 200 or more rating points are too much to guarantee follownig Michael's recipe of rapid chess improvement, although its not atypical of weak players gaining rating points quicky as they learn chess more. Studying tactics relligiously will make a player's rating improve a lot but a rate of improvement can't be guaranteed like what Michael is claiming. I think these portions of the book made Silman say in this critical review of this book at http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews_js/js_rapid_chess_improv.htm as criminal and ignorant.

Even though I disagree with Michael's vision to chess as a move by move mathematical puzzle only, I am happy that this book is around. I would give this book 3 stars unless the author would fill soem of the pages with unnecessary contents and some misleading messages other than the emphasize on chess. Its certainly not among the very good chess books, however, for weaker and busy palyers, the re-wording of practice tactics again and again will be really helpful. I can definitely say I didn't learn anything new reading this book accept knowing the name of CT-Art 3.0 as a good tactics trainer which inspired me to decidde that I will buy Fritz 10 soon. After playing around with Fritz for a while if I find Fritz can't be configured to give me tactical puzzles, I will purchase CT-Art 3.0 as well.

A few references for your own exploration.

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles148.pdf
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles150.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_De_La_Maza
http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews_js/js_rapid_chess_improv.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/chess
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/137036/getting_ahead_in_chess.html
http://rapidchessimprovement.blogspot.com/2006/08/critique-of-rapid-chess-improvement.html

Topalov, Radjabov and Aronian Won Corus 2007

2007-01-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

Corus 2007 tournament at Wijk aan Zee took place from January 13 to 28 2007. Topalov, Radjabov and Aronian won group A which had an average rating of 2719 (category 19). Group B was won by P Eljanov while Group C by Polish GM M Krasenkow with whom I played an excellent game almost 10 years earlier in my home country Bangladesh.

Radjabov was leading in the beginning but in the middle the tournament edge shifted back to Topalov. Aronian played consistently and with a last round win he joined to share the title with 8.5/13 each. Kramnik was the only undefeated player in the tournament with balanced play scoring 8. I am upset that Anand lost to both Topalov and Kramnik and couldn't win any game against his last 3 comparatively weaker opponents and resulted in 7.5 that will loose him a few ELO points. I hope he will consolidate himself and will be back in great spirit at mexico world chess championship later this year. I see Shirov and Carlsen in the bottom of the chart at 4.5 each.

Dreev Wins 5th Parsvanth Chess Tournament In New Delhi

2007-01-28T16:40:00.000-08:00

GM Alexey Dreev of Russia wins 5th Parsvanth International Chess Tournament that took place in New Delhi, India between 14th January to 22nd January 2007. There were 13 GMS from India, Bangladesh, Russia, Egypt, Ukrain, Uzbekisthan among the 345 participants. The 18-year-old Hyderabad teenager Gogineni Rohit completed his third and final International Master-norm and maiden Grandmaster norm to secure a runners up position. Dreev, who has an ELO rating of 2658, defeated B Adhiban in the 10th and final round to finish a clear winner with 8.5 out of a possible 10 points to bag the purse of Rs two lakh in the Swiss-league tournament played at Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium. Half a point behind Dreev were seven players (jointly 2nd to 8th) -- Rohit, GM Ahmed Adly of Egypt, GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh, four-time national champion of India Surya Shekhar Ganguly, IM Enamul Hossain and IM Abdulla Al-Rakib of Bangladesh, and IM Vikramaditya Kamble of India. All these players got a little over Rs. 50000 for their efforts. Ahmed Adly finished the second runner up and Rahman and Ganguly were fourth and fifth after the tiebreak was resolved under Bucholz system. First GM of Indian-subcontient, Niaz Murshed of Bangladesh, scored 7 out of 10 to be placed in the 25th position (jointly 18th to 42nd).

My Game Against GM Susan Polgar

2007-01-16T12:03:00.000-08:00

GM Susan Polgar, 4-time Women's World Champion, gave a simultaneous chess in Atlanta, Georgia as part of Kay Umeakunne's Mighty Knights and Lady Bughouse chess camps in June 2005. She was at Stonecrest Mall Borders in Lithonia, Georgia one day earlier giving a lecture, conducting a Q&A, and signing copies of her new book A World Champion's Guide To Chess. The Simultaneous Exhibition was held at the Mountain Park Activity Building, Stone Mountain where we 21 chess players participated in 21 different boards.

I was 1 hour late to arrive the stone mountain as I lost the road in the hill. After taking help from an old man, I could manage a taxi cab and when I reached the Mountain Park Activity Building, I narrowly managed to join the simul providing my entry fee. Among the 21 boards, Kazim's game finished last and all lost except me. I accepted a draw offer from her after 33 moves in a winning position, showing honor to a grand master. Though its not a serious game, but for an average palyer like me, its a good achivement. Here follows the game notation.

Date: 06/24/2005 Atlanta, Georgia
Event: Simultaneous Display By GM Susan Polgar

White: GM Susan Polgar (2570)

Black: Ashik Uzzaman (1642)

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cd5 ed5 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 h6 7. Bf4 O-O 8. Bd3 c6 9. Nge2 Qb6 10. Qc2 Na6 11. a3 Nc7 12. h3 Ne6 13. Bh2 Re8 14. O-O Ng5 15. Kh1 Bd7 16. f4 Nge4 17. Be4 Ne4 18. Ne4 de4 19. Nc3 f5 20. Rg1 Kh7 21. g4 Qd8 22. Rg2 Qc8 23. Rag1 Rg8 24. g5 g6 25. h4 h5 26. d5 Qf8 27. Rd1 Rad8 28. Rgd2 cd5 29. Nd5 Bc6 30. Qc3 Qf7 31. Nf6+ Bf6 32. gf6 Rd3 33. Qc5 here white offers a draw and black accepts (1/2 - 1/2)

Amazon Short - An Evolutionary Theory of Chess

2007-01-15T15:54:00.000-08:00

Review of My Frist Amazon Short - An Evolutionary Theory of Chess

An Evolutionary Theory of Chess

Garry Kasparov

Date: 2006-11-10 — $0.49 — DVD / VHS

product page read other reviews

Rating:

I finished my first Amazon Short today: An Evolutionary Theory of Chess by Garry Kasparov.

I was amazed to see the idea of short electronic-article-like book while surfing Kasparov's My Great Predecessors series in amazon.com in early December 2006. I bought and read all the 5 volumes of Kasparov's My Great Predecssors and was looking for the new arrivals in this series. I came accross this $0.49 book (or should I call it e-article) and purcahsed it in advance as it was not published that time. Last weekend, I thaught to look for whether its already published and found yes - it was. I downloaded a PDF copy to my laptop at that time but today during lunch break I printed it and read. Kasparov talked about the past chess figures and evolution of chess through them as a beginner's game to a master's game in last 150 years and emerging into the computer age of chess as the last evolution in playing chess or chess styles. I liked this short book.

Entering 1800 club in chesslive

2007-01-15T12:36:00.000-08:00

Last week I broke 1800 (and thus entered the category A club) after starting to play chess on chesslive for a few weeks. Right now I see my rating is 1815, and last night it went upto 1827. My USCF standard rating 1767 and rapid rating 1801 justifies my correct chesslive rating well. I also participapted in a rapid tournament there and gained 7 tournament game points. For some reason, last 2/3 days I missed one-move queen-loss or piece-loss in rapid games several times. If I can check those correctly from now on, I believe I can break the 1900 mark soon.

Lets see how it goes.

Google Search Engine Customized For Chess

2007-01-12T16:39:00.000-08:00

I have added in this site a Google search engine customized for chess today. Google Co-op provides facilities to create customized search engine and thus I created one, added around 20 web sites in the engine and plugged in this blog's left navigation panel. Feel free to use it and let me know if you want to include some nice chess web sites, blogs or forums in this engine.

Life's too short for chess

2007-01-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

Life's too short for chess. The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chess-board, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem. … I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists. That was said by Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), French artist.

The Arab traveler Al-Biruni rediscovered chess in Indus valley now in present day Pakistan. He is considered responsible for reintroducing ito the Islamic world, and thence to medieval Europe in tenth century. Archealogists have found artifacts resembling to chess pieces in the ruins of Moenjodaro in Indus valley. It Is believed that the ancient name of the game of chess was Chatrunga and It was played in Indus valley since 1000 BC or more. The centuries old story of "Sessa" the inventor of the game of chess goes some thing like this. Sessa traveled to Persia and presented his invented game to the King. He went to Persia because nobody appreciated his work in India. And Persia was famous those days for art, culture and education. The game was liked by the king so much that he asked Sessa to ask for recompense whatever he wished.

Sessa modestly requested to be given one grain of wheat for the first square of the chess board, two for the second, four for the third and so on doubling each time up to 64th square. Eventually the wise men of the king added the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 etc and found the sum of series to 64 terms or levels and concludeded that was not enough wheat in the kingdom to meet the demand of Sessa. Can you work out that sum?

"Life's too short for chess" is a quote attributed to Henry J. Byron.

Queen Ending

2007-01-06T16:57:00.000-08:00

I won a recent game in ChessLive at 80 moves after a careful queen endgame. I relaized that my many years earlier end game study was helpful to win this. To see the game click on the link or at the final position image.

Queen Ending Against McGolden

New Rating List January 2007 & Review of Chess Year 2006

2007-01-02T14:01:00.000-08:00

Topalov topped recently published FIDE rating list (Jan 2007) followed by Anand and Kramnik despite his lose to Kramnik in the unified world chess championship match.

Last year was another eventful for chess. Other than Topalov-Kramnik match that Kramnik won there was Kramnik Fritz 10 match where Kramnik lost. The other events are -

Corus Wijk aan Zee A Group: =1-2 Anand, Topalov =3-4 Adams, Ivanchuk
Corus Wijk aan Zee B Group: =1-2 Motylev, Carlsen 3 Almasi
Keres Rapid: =1-3 Ivanchuk, Karpov, Kasimdzhanov
Linares/Morelia: 1 Aronian =2-3 Topalov, Radjabov
Cuernavaca Young Masters: =1-2 Ponomariov, Vallejo Pons 3 Nakamura
Amber Rapid (not blindfold): 1 Anand =2-3 Topalov, Aronian
Karpov Poikovsky: 1 Shirov =2-5 Ponomariov, Zvjaginsev, Dreev, Bareev
Bosnia: =1-3 Nisipeanu, Carlsen, Malakhov
MTel Masters: 1 Topalov 2 Kamsky 3 Anand
Aerosvit Foros: 1 Rublevsky 2 Ivanchuk 3 Bologan
Tomsk Izmailov Rapid: 1 Karjakin 2 Rublevsky 3 Kasimdzhanov
Biel: 1 Morozevich =2-3 Carlsen, Radjabov
Leon Rapid: 1 Anand
Sparkassen Dortmund: =1-2 Kramnik, Svidler =3-5 Adams, Leko, Gelfand
Villarobledo Rapid: =1-4 Anand, I Sokolov, Korneev, Ponomariov
Staunton Memorial: 1 I Sokolov, 2-3 Timman, Adams
Rishon FIDE Blitz WCh: 1 Grischuk 2 Svidler =3-4 Radjabov, Anand
Essent Hoogeveen: =1-2 Mamedyarov, J Polgar
Cap d'Agde Rapid: 1 Radjabov 2 Karjakin
Capablanca Elite: 1 Ivanchuk 2 Bareev 3 Miton
Tal Memorial: =1-3 Leko, Ponomariov, Aronian
Russian Ch Superfinal: 1 Alekseev 2 Jakovenko 3 Inarkiev
Torre Memorial: 1 Ivanchuk 2 Bruzon
Pamplona: 1 Morozevich 2 Jakovenko 3 Shirov

I am looking forward to personally visit World Chess Championship 2007 that will be hosted in Mexico city.

Player	Nat.	Rtn	Birth
Vishwanathan Anand	IND	2792	1969
Vladimir Kramnik	RUS	2769	1975
Alexander Morozevich	RUS	2758	1977
Peter Leko	HUN	2751	1979
Levon Aronian	ARM	2750	1982
Peter Svidler	RUS	2735	1976
Boris Gelfand	ISR	2733	1968
Alexander Grischuk	RUS	2726	1983

Chess For You

Four Games of Salahuddin With My Analysis

Chess And Wine

Casual Game between Ashik and Wali

Chess Openings for Black, Explained: A Complete Repertoire By Lev Alburt

Chess Openings for White, Explained: Winning with 1.e4

Played US National G60 and G/30 Tournaments in Santa Clara Hyatt

Nelson vs Ashik, Game 5, US National G/30

Ashik vs Kevin L G, Game 4, US National G/30

Klotz vs Ashik, Game 3, US National G/30

Ashik vs Felix, Game 2, US National G/30

Olavic vs Ashik, Game 1, US National G/30

Ashik vs Delacruz, Game 4, US National G/60

Mihir vs Ashik, Game 3, US National G/60

Colin vs Ashik, Game 2, US National G/60 2011

Ashik vs Siddharth, Game 1, US National G/60 2011

Francisco Anchondo's Game During US National G/30 at Hyatt, Santa Clara

Teching Chess To Kids!

Stearman vs Ashik, 4th Game (G/60), Pleasanton

Ashik vs Pranav, 3rd Game (G/60), Pleasanton

Ashik vs Charles Tang, 2nd Game (G/60), Pleasanton

Jack Li vs Ashik Uzzaman, 1st Game, Pleasanton (G/60)

Shakil Became IM, Liza WIM and Zia Moves For World Chess Championship

Ziaur Rahman Only half point behind Champion Areshchenko in 9th Parsvnath International Chess Tournament

Ossip Bernstein vs Jose Raul Capablanca, Moscow 1914

Ashik vs Art Zhao, Round 3, Hexes 3 Round Swiss Tournament, Fremont

Ashik vs Rahul, 2nd Round, Hexes 3SS, Fremont

Ashik vs Dikr, Round 1, Hexes 3 Round Swiss Tournament, Fremont

Salesforce.com Chess Tournament Round 4 (Final): Ashik vs Ganesh

The Immortal Game - Adolph Anderssen vs Lionel Kieseritsky, London 1851

Mikhail Botvinnink vs Milan Vidmar, Nottingham 1936

Frank Marshall vs Jose Capablanca, Game 23, Match 1909

Berthold Englisch vs William Stenitiz, London 1863

37th People's Chess Tournament by Bay Area Chess

Seigbert Tarrasch vs Jackson Showlater, Vienna 1898

Ashik (1767) vs Tendoro Porlares (1897), 4th Round

Arnold Hua (1674) vs Ashik (1767), 6th Round

Edward Li (1822) vs Ashik (1767), 5th Round

Kevin (1704) vs Ashik (1767), Round 2

Ashik (1767) vs Terri (1702), 1st Round, 37th People Tourney, Fremont Marriott

Anatoly Karpov vs Viktor Korchnoi, 3rd game, 1978

Bobby Fischer (Black) vs Boris Spassky (White), 3rd Game, Reykjavik 1972

Tigran Pterosian vs Boris Spassky, 10th Game, 1966

Mikhail Botvinnik (Black) vs Arnold Denker (White), 1945 Radio Match

KChess - Chess For Kindle

Alexander Alekhine (Black) vs Richard Reti (White), Baden-Baden 1925

Jose Raul Capablanca (Black) vs Frank Marshall (White), Final Match Game, 1909

Emanuel Laster vs Jose Raul Capablanca, St Petersburg, 1914

Dr Emanuel Laster (Black) vs Dr Seigbert Tarrasch (White), Dusseldorf, 1908

Salesforce.com Chess Tournament Round 3: Ashik vs Randy

Wilhelm Steinitz (Black) vs Adolf Anderssen (White), 13th Game, 1866

Paul Morphy vs Duke of Brunswick & Count Isouard, Consultation Game in Paris

Paul Morphy (Black) vs Louis Paulsen (White), 6th Game, New York 1857

Howard Staunton vs Elijah Williams, 8th Match Game, London 1851

Salesforce.com Chess Tournament Round 2: Ashik vs Ron

Salesforce.com Chess Tournament Round 1 - Ashik vs Didier

Great Chess Players In History (Non-English)

Bangladeshi GM Ziaur Rahman To Boost Chess In Malaysia

GM Niaz Murshed on Regular Title Tournaments in Bangladesh

Susan Polgar Writes on Rani Hamid

Kasparov Defeated Karpov by 9 - 3

GM Zia and Enamul Amongst Top Scorers in Kilkata Open

Anand Wins Rapid Match with Leko - Chess.com

Topalov Took Early Lead by Defeating Kamsky in 2nd Match

Happy New Year 2009 Fide Chess Rating

FIDE January 2009 Top Players Rating List

Ziaur Rahman Drew Magnus Carlsen in 7th Round of Chess Olympiad

Bangladesh Chess Olympiad Team 2008

What is Anand's Position Amongst the Crowds of World Champions in Chess History

Anand Remains World Chess Champsion by Winning the Match Against Kramnik

Anand Defeats Kramnik with Black Pieces in 3rd Game

Anand Defeats Kramnik with Black Pieces in 3rd Game

Anand vs Kramnik World Championship 2008 First Game Drawn

Another Good Tournament Performance from Zia

Bangladesh Got It's 5th GM: Enamul Hossain Rajib

Anand crossed 2800 mark again and Zia 5th in Kolkata Open

FIDE April 2008 Rating List

Rakib 5.5 of 9 in Moscow Open 2008

Strongest Chess Tournament of All Time

GM Ziaur Rahman 3rd in 6th Parsvnath Intl Open in New Delhi