The Israeli grandmaster Boris Gelfand celebrated his 45th birthday last Monday (24 June) with outright victory in the Tal Memorial elite super-tournament in Moscow. Given that Gelfand has recently tied first in the Alekhine Memorial in Paris, this means that over a total of 18 games against the world’s best in these two competitions, Gelfand has
Viswanathan Anand, the world champion from Chennai (formerly known as Madras), defends his world title in a $5 million match in his home town in November against Magnus Carlsen. The venue will be the five-star Hyatt Hotel. This week, in my occasional series previewing the championship, I give a fine win by Anand against an
Thessaloniki is said to be named after a half-sister of Alexander the Great. Fidé staged a recent Grand Prix there, with the surprising outcome that it was won by the Cuban grandmaster Lenier Dominguez Perez with 8/11, ahead of such luminaries as Gata Kamsky and Fabiano Caruana on 7½ as well as Hikaru Nakamura, Veselin
World champion Vishy Anand will defend his title against Magnus Carlsen of Norway in November in a $5 million match in the Hyatt hotel in Chennai. Continuing my series on former World Championship matches, this week’s game is one where Vishy came horribly unstuck after forgetting his preparation in a critical line of the Grünfeld
As a result of the London Candidates tournament, Magnus Carlsen will challenge Viswanathan Anand for the World Championship in Chennai in November, with a match budget exceeding $5 million. Between now and then I shall give occasional extracts from heroic deeds from past world title clashes. This week’s game comes from the marathon series of
Magnus Carlsen, the Norwegian chess superstar who will be challenging Viswanathan Anand for the world title later this year, disappointed his home supporters by failing to win the first ever elite tournament to have been played on Norwegian soil. In spite of defeating 23-year-old Sergei Karjakin in their individual game, 22-year-old Magnus Carlsen stumbled at
Sergei Karjakin stormed into an early lead with 4/4 in the elite tournament at Stavanger in Norway, which finishes on Saturday 18 May. Karjakin also triumphed in a blitz tournament (four minutes per player per game) preceding the main event, the results of which were used to determine pairings for the competition proper. Leading scores in
The Alekhine Memorial split between Paris and St Petersburg has been won jointly by Lev Aronian and Boris Gelfand. The final scores (out of 9) were as follows: Aronian and Gelfand 51/2; Anand 5; Vitiugov, Fressinet, Kramnik, Adams and Vachier-Lagrave 41/2; Ding Liren 31/2 and Svidler 3. Britain’s Michael Adams got off to a blazing
As I write, the prestigious Alekhine Memorial tournament is drawing to a close. Brainchild of sponsor Andrei Filatov, this high-powered event is taking place partly in the Louvre in Paris and partly in the Mikhailovsky Palace of the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg, combining Mr Filatov’s twin passions for chess and art. The event
Trust the French to have cuisine in mind when coining their phrase for April Fool. On the front page of the Daily Telegraph of 3 April, I spotted a statistical prediction by my old rival for the British chess championship, Bill Hartston, that Seabass (a horse, not a marine delicacy) would win the Grand National.
Adrian, who died earlier this year, was both an Oxford classicist from Keble College and a Correspondence Chess Grandmaster. One of the outstanding personalities of British chess, he won the UK Correspondence Chess Championship three times, either outright or shared. But his superlative achievement was to win a world title. From 1982 to 1987 he
Magnus Carlsen has qualified from the London Candidates tournament to earn a title match against the incumbent world champion Vishy Anand of India. Final scores were as follows: Carlsen and Kramnik 8½; Svidler and Aronian 8; Grischuk and Gelfand 6½; Ivanchuk 6 and Radjabov 4. Kramnik tied for first and in my opinion played better
This week, further fascinating positions from the world championship qualifier Candidates tournament recently concluded in London. Although there were the regulation number of draws, for such an elite event, the general tenor was one of superb fighting chess, with little quarter asked or given. The theme of many of the games from the second cycle
In the history of suppression of press freedom in the UK, now once again a fierce topic of debate, an honourable role was played by the chessplayer, writer, editor and irrepressible optimist James Mortimer. An officer in the US diplomatic corps, Mortimer was posted to Paris from 1855 to 1860, during which time he was
The Candidates tournament to decide the challenger to world champion Anand is the strongest tournament ever to have graced the capital. As I write, three rounds of fighting chess have produced the following scores: Aronian 2½, Carlsen and Svidler 2, Kramnik Grischuk and Radjabov 1½, Gelfand and Ivanchuk ½. The tournament continues at the IET
The world championship qualifier, known as the Candidates’ tournament, should now be underway in London. (For details see the website worldchess.com/candidates.) The favourite is Magnus Carlsen, who has identified Lev Aronian of Armenia as his most dangerous rival according to an interview in the Guardian with Stephen Moss. If Magnus fails to rise to the
There are two new books about Aron Nimzowitsch, chess strategist and author of My System. Aron Nimzowitsch on the Road to Chess Mastery 1886-1924 by Per Skjoldager and Jorn Erik Nielsen is published by McFarland, while Aron Nimzowitsch 1928-1935 by Rudolf Reinhardt (on which the notes to today’s game are based) is shortly to be
Rudolph Spielmann, a contemporary of Rubinstein, Reti, Alekhine and Capablanca, can be seen as the Romantic equivalent to a further great master of the 1920s, Aron Nimzowitsch. Whereas Nimzowitsch made his literary reputation with his book of chess strategy, My System, Spielmann entrusted his thoughts on the right way to play chess in his parallel
The Bride and the Bachelors is an impressive exhibition of the work of Marcel Duchamp, John Cage and related artists which is on at London’s Barbican Centre until 9 June. Cage learnt chess in order to communicate with Duchamp without asking crass questions. Other artists, notably Max Ernst, Picabia, Calder and Man Ray also took
Any book by the erudite Steve Giddins is an event and he has now produced a valuable guide to the popular Winawer Variation of the French Defence, championed by the eponymous Simon Winawer, as well as Nimzowitsch, Botvinnik, Petrosian and Korchnoi. The Winawer gives up the bishop pair early on in most lines, seeking to
