Ok, I'm aware that it is highly unlikely that I'll be coaching GM Alexei Shirov in a while , but how does this player choose his opening repertoire? I mean, he keeps on playing the Petrov against 1.e4 and the Grünfeld against 1.d4.
How on earth can one of the most imaginative players that has ever lived play the Petrov? it's just shocking! What has happened to this man? I don't understand it, but one thing is for sure: whoever is giving him advice, cannot be called a friend! (I think Shirov
Your Vocabulary Score: B
You have a zealous love for the English language, and many find your vocabulary edifying.
Don't fret that you didn't get every word right, your vocabulary can be easily ameliorated!
How's Your Vocabulary?
http://www.blogthings.com/howsyourvocabularyquiz/
How embarrasing! I didn' know what "fret" meant!
Ivanchuk,V (2750) - Topalov,V (2783) [b90]
XXIV SuperGM Morelia/Linares MEX/ESP (2), 18.02.2007
Maybe he's like Tahl, who rarely had a good tournament start, but watch what happened when Topalov (black) had to make his 40th move before the time control:
40...Qf7?? 41.Qxc4! 1-0
Admitedly, Ivanchuk was a Pawn up already and enjoyed a comfortable advantage.
Another thing Topalov has in common with Tahl is that he usually wins the tournaments he takes part in, regardless of
Cathy Rogers, publicity officer for the Sydney International Open, wrote on Friday: "The biggest disappointment of the tournament has been the dismal showing of top seed, Russian Grandmaster Sergei Shipov, formerly ranked among the best 25 in the world. His world ranking will suffer enormously from this result." She actually wrote this before learning about his dramatic loss in game 8 against Bernardino, from the Philipines, a player rated 2146 (around 450 points below the Russian GM!).
But
Although I had been an Australian resident for aproximately 10 years after my arrival in Sydney back in 1982, I had my visa cancelled after not returning to Australia in the alloted 5 year period that I was given when I moved back to Spain. That was a long time ago...
My mum, sister, brother and nephews all live here (Sydney, I mean) and got their Australian Citizenship long ago. I can speak the language, support myself, and had been offered a job. When I lodged my resident application 2 years
I'm currently adding new links to the links section of this site.
I've created a new section called "Country specific", for I didn't know where else to put all the Australian Links that I know about.
My intention is to create links for other english speaking countries: US, UK, etc. but first things first.
Anyway, one of the Australian Links that I've come across is the one from the Hakoah Chess Club in Sydney, where I played for many years. I even defended their first team on board 1 for
"Learn chess or call me an idiot!!", my free electronic book, has now made it to number 2 on the list of free electronic books at http://www.ebookbillboard.com. The list is updated every week.
Please do me a favour, if you haven't downloaded the book yet, please do so now and make LOCMAI the number 1 book next week!
I was thinking about an old story the other day:
An old lady buys a bottle of wine at the bottleshop. She pays 10 dollars for it and then she leaves. She walks for 10 minutes and then, all of sudden, the following questions enter her mind: "do I really want this wine?, isn't alcohol supposed to be bad for me? Shouldn't I have bought an orange juice instead, which is not only healthier but also a lot cheaper?" So, she turns around and walks back towards the bottle shop.
When she gets ther
It's been a while since a last saw a game which left me with my mouth open .
Norwegian GM Magnus Carlsen has just played one of those games in Mexico against no other than GM Morozevich. Carlsen's 12th move (Nde4) is a Novely and it is a very intereting move indeed. It's not hard to see that if black goes 12... f5 then the g5 square becomes weak, but did you expect white's next move?
17.d7! is a powerful move also. After all the fireworks, Magnus is just one pawn up, but he converts his a
(25) Morozevich,A (2733) - Radjabov,T (2729) [b30]
ACP World Cup Odessa (2), 07.01.2007
Here, one of the strongest players in the World now played b5??, dropping his Rook on c5.
Here's a short game from the same event:
(2) Leko,P (2749) - Sokolov,I (2652) [C64]
ACP World Cup Odessa (1), 05.01.2007
[pgn]1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.c3 f5 5.d4 fxe4 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.Nxe5 Qd5 8.0-0 Nf6 9.Bf4 Bd6 10.c4 Qe6 11.c5 Be7 12.Nc3 Qf5 13.Bg3 Be6 14.f3 exf3 15.Rx
The following game has won the prize for the best game at the Gibraltar Telecom Masters. If you're wondering, personally, I don't like it. Why? I don't think it's anything special, simple tactics and a rudimentary Queen Sac. Surely there must have been better games than this played at Gibraltar! oh well... here it is:
Sulskis,Sarunas (2525) - Quillan,Gary (2354) [A00]
Gibtelecom Masters Gibraltar (1.27), 23.01.2007
[pgn]
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg
If a few months ago someone had asked me who was the player with the most determination of all when at the board, I would not have hesitated: Topalov. Well, that was till yesterday when I saw Morozevich beat Topalov like this:
Morozevich,A (2741) - Topalov,V (2783) [b50]
XXIV SuperGM Morelia/Linares MEX/ESP (13), 09.03.2007
[pgn]1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.c3 Nf6 4.Be2 Bd7 5.d3 e6 6.Nbd2 Be7 7.0-0 0-0 8.a3 Bc6 9.Re1 Nbd7 10.Bf1 Ne5 11.Nxe5 dxe5 12.Nc4 Qc7 13.b4 Rfd8 14.Qb3 b5 15.Na5 Be8 16.f3
Dramatic day for Topalov in Mexico: after 64 moves of fighting chess, he resigned a drawn position, look:
Magnus has just played 64.Qg6 and Topalov sees no defence against Qh7 and Qh8, but there was a rather simple defence! (if you can't see it, download the game with full analysis of the whole game here: carlstopa.cbv )
However, it'd be completely unfair to claim that Carlsen's victory was undeserved. Watch the first diagram, when he's about to play 48.h6!
Or can
A few days ago I wrote a review on Stickies, which is without doubt one of the best electronic sticky notes programs. Version 6 has just come out and guess what? it remains FREE!
Click here to visit Stickies website!
I use a really good personal organizer called "Do-organizer", but if you want something simpler and free, how about one of those electronic sticky notes programs? They're really useful, and this is one is feature rich.
I've tried just about every single one there is and and I can safely say that this is one of the top 3.
Once on screen, stickies will remain where placed until closed, even through reboots
Stickies appearance can be customised; fonts, colours and buttons may be changed, and s
I've just read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald. Here's an extract:
"SYDNEY'S rental crisis hit home yesterday when up to 100 people queued to inspect a single property ( )
The frenzy illustrated the predicament faced by renters, with agents warning the city's lowest rental vacancy rate in 20 years could push up weekly rents by as much as $150 by year's end. "
Another 150$ a week is something like 650$ a month (on top of what the price is already!). Who the hell can afford t
I'm currently still in Spain and yesterday night I was watching the following endgame being played by two local players, one of them from the club which I do coaching at:
White has just played Ke5, which is actually a mistake.
Would you have been able to save this ending as black? are you possitively sure?
Well, if you're not, you can always download my annotations:
oncecas.cbv
Btw, if you're wondering, the "victim" in this game was the player from my team but we stil
In April this year I was in tokyo for a few days and gave a couple of lectures. I also played a simul Exhibition.
One day I'll play an unforgettable game which everyone will remember , till then, here are these 2, I'm white.
[pgn] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bg5 Nbd7 6. e3 O-O 7. Rc1 h6 8. Bh4 c6 9. Bd3 Re8 10. O-O dxc4 11. Bxc4 Nd5 12. Bg3 Bf6 13. Ne4 Be7 14. Bb3 N7f6 15. Nc5 b6 16. Nd3 Bb7 17. Nfe5 Rc8 18. Qf3 c5 19. e4 Nb4 20. Nxf7 Kxf7 21. Ne5 Kf8 22. Bxe6 g5 23. d5
Ok, I know defenders of the two browsers will never reach an agreement on this matter. Personally I use both, but amongst the many advantages that firefox has over IE is... it really loads pages so much faster! I'm talking about a speed difference of something like 50% or more, it's just shocking!
Anyway, I strongly recommend people to use Firefox rather than Internet Explorer. At least give it a try and decide by yourself.
I was taking a quick look at some of the games from the 2006-2007 Australian Open when I noticed a particularly interesting one.
Hu is a young australian player who came close to beating GM Antic (he was a piece up at one stage).
The fun begins after 16... Nxe5!, which white answered with 17.Qh4!, creating some nasty threats against the black King (note that 17.Qf4 is met by 17...Qc2!). Then GM Antic played the unexpected (but wrong) 17...Ng4, which was apparently refuted by Hu's 19th mo
