Javier

This is the popular Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. Thousands of games have been played with it and the conclusion is: it's not easy to play the resulting positions as black! White has very good compensation. In my opinion, your decision to transpose into a caro-kann was not a bad one if that defence is in your repertoire. Perhaps the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit is not entirely sound and with very accurate play, black might be able to hold on to his pawn, but unless you really know how to do that, a safer approach is to avoid it.

Whilst it is true that this was a tournament to forget for Shirov, it is no less true that his only win was a really good game. Why would anybody let Shirov sacrifice on f6 is hard to understand: he's been known to sac even when it doesn't work! :-) Here's the game: Although the position they got out of the opening does look fairly common, it was actually fairly new from move 10 or so.

Ukrainian grandmaster (GM) Vassily Ivanchuck has just won one of the strongest round robin tournaments this year, Tal's Memorial, held in Moscow. After this new achievement, Vassily is number 2 in the non-official world rankings (calculated daily). Although his critical game was against the then tournament leader, Ivan Morovich in round 7, his best game was probably the following:

New defeat by Shirov in Moscow (Tal's memorial). Again, his opening choice was very suspect: 8...Nxd4,then 9...e5 and then the highly dubious 10...f5? Very odd! There are ony 2 rounds left and this is no doubt a tournament which Shirov would like to forget. However, it is quite possible that Shirov will spoil current leader's chances of winning the event when they meet in the last round...

It is well known that Alexander Morozevich is not too fond of modern Opening Theory. He likes to play unexplored positions and takes the first opportunity to play unusual moves. His "novelty" on move 7 in his game against Ponomariov is unlikely to become a main line but this is definitely the most original game of the tournament so far. Watch white's Queen going to e5 on move 11, and then 12. g4!!. Ponomariov was little more than a shadow in this game... GM Morozevich,Alexander(RUS) (2788) - GM Ponomariov,Ruslan(UKR) (2718) [E39] Mikhail Tal Memorial Moscow/Russia (6), 24.08.2008

18.Bc2! is a move that had been played before, but it really is proving to be a tough nut to crack. White gives back his extra pawn to simplify the position into a slightly better endgame with 2 Bishops vs Bishop and Knight. 22... f4 is apparently the "new move". I'm not sure if Leko had seen a previous game where black played 22...Rxe1 first, but it makes little difference: white's a little better with no risk involved. It will be interesting to see if anyone else ventures to play the Marshall again in this event... Here's the game:

Shirov's 3rd round game against Leko was rather strange. He chose a fairly quiet line of the Sicilian (has he given up on the Sveshnikov?) and chose a new idea on move: 16...Rc6 to sacrifice his Rook for white's Bishop. Although he had two pawns for it, the problem was the Shirov was soon left with an awful Bishop and his backward d pawn was still there. Even the Petrov seems more interesting in comparison! Very odd opening preparation by Shirov, if you ask me... Here's the game: Leko,P - Shirov,A Tal Memorial 2008 Moscow (3), 2008 He plays Gelfand next and he's white. For the wrong reasons, the game has caused a lot of expectation.

Alexei Shirov and World Champion Mikhail Tal have more in common than just the fact that both were born in Riga (Latvia): As Tal's, Shirov's playing style is creative in extreme and he feels like fish in water in very complex and unusual positions. Shirov did in fact study with Tal for a while. Something else they share, however, is their bad start in tournaments: Like Shirov, the number of events where Tal lost the first round is pretty large. Losing the first two games, however, was more unusual, but it still happened occasionally. Is Shirov -playing in a tournament that bears his mentor's name- trying too hard to be creative? Is he taking risks which go beyond the "reasonable limit"? Judge for yourself. Here's game two of the Tal Memorial, currently being held in Moscow: (5) Shirov,A (2741) - Kamsky,G (2723) [D15] Tal Memorial Moscow RUS (2), 19.08.2008

I'm preparing a full report on the new version of chessbase but after having tested it for a couple of days, my first conclusion is that the program is BUGGY. The program has crashed every single time I've run it, something which had never happened to me with Chessbase 8 and 9. Another inconvenience: if you have chessbase 9 installed, chessbase 10 will do something to it and you won't be able to use it normally. (Surprisingly, Chessbase 8 will keep working ok). I'm very, very disappointed. More in a few days.

Another article published by Chessbase last week is beginning to cause even more embarrasment: they paid even less than what they paid to the GM, this time the computer also gave 1 pawn + move odds. The choice of players is also a little disconcerting: The GM they chose is 64 and the IM 56. Again, I have to stress that it is perfectly possible to play great chess at any age, but it is known that a chess player reaches his peak between 25 and 32 years of age. The amount of money the players were offered as "fees" was insulting and degrading. Please, Rybka, stop this stupid promotion, it's doing more harm than good!

A few days ago, I was browsing some facebook profiles and bumped into Karpov's profile. His friends list is public, anyone can check who his virtual friends are. I was, however, somewhat surprised to see Kasparov on his list! After all those battles (more than 100!) over the chess board -and sometimes behind-, who says friendship is still not possible? On a side note, finding which of Karpov's different profiles on facebook is the real one is not an easy task, but I believe one of them really is

Last night I was reading about the Rybka 3 - Roman Dzindzichashvili match, and I have to be honest with you: what I read MADE ME SICK. The article, published on the chessbase site, is a pathetic piece of publicity trash. Yes, TRASH. I'm pretty sure Rybka can beat many GMs at rapid chess and even slow chess, I have no doubts about its strength (although potential buyers should remember that any old version of Fritz will beat them, so you really have to question whether you really need the latest versions of these programs, which are not cheap). But this is not the point. First of all, I find some of the things it says a little manipulative: "GM Roman Dzindzichashvili (FIDE 2548, but at one time among the world’s top ten and still extremely strong in blitz and rapid chess" I'm sure Roman is still really good, and I hope I can have a fresh mind like that at his age, but why is it that they "forget" to mention that he's 64 years old?. When you read on, you find this: "The match was broadcast on Playchess.com. It took place at my home in Potomac, Maryland USA (near Washington D.C.). “Dzindzi” received a small fee plus $50 per point scored, so he was playing not only for pride." WHAT??? 50$??? WOW!!! You guys should be ASHAMED of yourself for trying to cash in on Dzindzichashvili's reputation for just... 50 DIRTY DOLLARS??? For God's shake, a copy of the program itself costs more than 100 bucks! How can you say that "he was not only playing for pride". On second thoughts, you are bloody right, he was not playing for pride because if he had any, he probably lost it when you offered that MISERABLE amount. You hear me? MISERABLE AMOUNT. MISERABLE. By the way, Mr. Larry Kaufman, have guts and tell us what the "small fee" was. 100? 200? The truly disgusting point of all this is that the whole thing shows how much you guys think that a GM's name is worth. Sadly, it is not very much...

Please note that Internet Explorer is known to cause some problems with our game viewer. We strongly recommend that you use Firefox instead. Firefox's website. GM Stuart Conquest has just won the British Champisonhip. The even was not particularly strong and the level of the games was not what I, personally, expected. But who am I to judge? judge for yourself! : And here's the second:

Today Í was taking a look at the latest week in chess file (717, can you believe it's been that many weeks around??) and was quite shocked to see that one game had actually lasted 181 moves. I thought these things didn't happen anymore, you know, with the new time controls and everything! It's actually quite an interesting game also, after the initial complications, you'd never expect the game to last that long at all. Look: After seeing that, I thought I'd search some short games to see if anything would catch my attention. There were lots of bad games, but suddenly I cam accross this one, which shows one of those "quietly violent" moves after a sacrifice (16...c6!). White should have played 16.Ka1! instead.

Fritz's small brother, Pocket Fritz version 3, will be released by chessbase in the second half of August. This software runs on Pocket PCs and devices with Microsoft Windows Mobile compatible devices (which include some phones). So, how strong is this device? Very strong indeed. It has already won a tournament in Argentina with a score of 8/9 (Gm norm was 7 points). Here's a game from the tournament: [Event "Mercosur Cup"] [White "Pocket Fritz 3"] [black "Mauricio Flores, Elo 2438"] [Result "1-0"] Link to tournament page here. So what's new since version 2? well, as far as the playing level goes, I guess it has become stronger, but it was already capable of beating any player at blitz. It can also display its own threats, it has some training features and it can also used the Chess Media Format.

Official google statistics, between 2004 and nowadays. Which countries have the most interest in Chess? Ok, perhaps the first one was predictable, as Chess is the most popular sport in Armenia. Norway's 9th place can be explained by the Magnus Carlsen effect, but what about the rest? Please be aware that google measures the number of clicks the word "chess" gets in those countries.

According to google, the interest in chess worldwide is declining since 2004. Here's the official graph which "proves" it: Apparently, what it really means is the number of searches of the word "chess" is declining. However, can we draw the conclusion that the interest in chess is declining or is it perhaps that people simply know where to go when it comes to chess? it's hard to tell, but I searched other tems like "tennis" (it's consistently up and down), "soccer" (level, very consistent, except during the world Cup, when it goes up like a rocket), "sex" (going up), "money" (going up), "love" (going up slightly), "health" (going down), to name just a few. Draw your own conclusions.

CNN has featured a video on GM Maurice Ashley: Link to CNN's site with Ashley's video.

GM Karen Asrian (born 24 April 1980) died from a heart attack on June 9th. He was only 28 years old and one of the best players in his country, Armenia. (As of the October 2006 FIDE rating list, his Elo rating was 2634, tied for the fourth highest rank in Armenia) He won the national Armenian Championship in 1999, 2007, and 2008, and the tournaments of Dubai 2001 and Stepanakert 2004. In 2006, Asrian won the Chess Olympiad in Turin as a member of Armenian team. He was playing on board three. Asrian's style has been quoted as "solid". Here's one of his games. His 22nd move is quite amazing: White: Asrian Black: Jakovenko Yerevan, 2000.

In my opinion, the Reti is just too complex an opening system for someone who hasn't been playing for that long, as it is a rather sophisticated system where complex strategical concepts are fairly common. There isn't a correct answer to your question. It's very much a personal decision. My advice is that you watch some games by a Grandmaster that you like and then choose some opening system from some of the games that he has played. Most Masters and Grandmaster's repertoire are usually the result of many influences: their coaches, Master games that they saw when they were young, books they read... the decision is yours.

Thanks Richard, I'm glad you like it! Happy Christmas to you also!

"In the 1950's and 60's I was a very active chess player. I used to play at least 40 hours per week, was the captain of our strong college chess team and played in quite a few tournaments. Although I was not a particularly strong player, I sure spent a lot of my youth enjoying the game. I am now older, and my interest in chess has subsided. However, I do want to claim my rightful place in chess history as the inventor and first commercial vendor of the digital chess clock. In 1966 I retired from chess and committed my time to a professional career. However, in 1973 I was invited by a neighbor to play in a local tournament in the San Diego (California) area. At that tournament I noticed that every one of the players was still using a mechanical chess clock -- of a design patented in about the year 1900. Since I was at the time involved in electronics, I decided to investigate the possibility of commercializing a digital version of this device. More -- I decided to concurrently dramatically advance the method of time keeping in chess. For the next eight years I focused nearly all my "free" time on this endeavor. In 1975 (together with my electrical engineer Jeff Ponsor, who has passed away about ten years ago) I filed for and received the first patent (Number 4,062,180) on a fully operational (microprocessor based) digital chess clock. An additional patent (USA & European) for a more advanced version with many additional features was awarded in 1981 (4,247,925). My chess clock concept resulted from years of conceptualization and testing and thousands of hours of work. I even published my MBA thesis on this subject -- "Demand Analysis for a New Product (Digital Chess Clock)" -- at San Diego State University, 1978. For this thesis I interviewed and surveyed thousands of chess players from all over the world, and every chess association and identified chess club worldwide. " Read the full article HERE.

"Magnus losing the semi-final against Kamsky is old news of course. I'm sorry about late update of the blog. This is partly priorities, but mainly due to lack of internet connection at the hotel in Khanty-Mansiysk early this week, and the fact that I was out travelling when Magnus returned to Norway on Wednesday. The purpose of this late review of round 6 is to present Magnus own comments and to put his World Cup performance in perspective. Magnus again got white in the first game in his 6th round encounter with Kamsky, and he tried to surprise his opponent by playing the Scotch. He had not expected the unusual bxc6 but knew about the line with Qh4. He thought he had seen a game where Glek scored a convincing win but could not remember the variations. Choosing the not very ambitious Qe2 and Be3, he spent a lot of time on the clock but could not think clearly. It seems that both players assumed black was slightly better in the endgame. Magnus was satisfied to find b4! which forces a draw after cxb4 Rc7 Rc8 Rxc8 Bxc8 Rb1 Rc2 Rb4 with a complete extortion of both sides remaining forces. As black Magnus chose the Petroff as Kamsky seemed to have avoided this opening after his comeback. Magnus made a mistake in the opening, when playing 8...Nc6 instantly, he soon discovered that 9.Nc3 immediately led to position that he had tried to avoid all along (by playing Be7 and Bg4). Neither Bxf3 gxf3 nor Bb4 Nxe4! with a strong initiative for the exchange appealed to Magnus. After a very unusual 40 minutes think he decided to play Bg6 knowing that after Bd2 white would have a long term advantage. Kamsky later went on to develop his initiative efficiently and after some further inaccuracies from Magnus it turned out that the position was nearly hopeless. Pity for Magnus but it must be said that Kamsky with his powerful play no doubt deserved to advance to the final. (Where he is now leading 1,5-0,5 after an impressive demolition of Shirov today.)" Read the full article HERE.

Karjakin had stated recently that younger players of his generation prefer faster time controls. Oddly enough, the first 2 games against Shirov ended in a draw, and it was in the 20 minutes games that Shirov was able to outplay Karjakin, who played very, very, very superficially. Alexei Shirov This is the game that ended it all. Shirov,Alexei (2739) - Karjakin,Sergey (2694) [C89] FIDE World Cup 2007 Khanty-Mansiysk (6.4), 11.12.2007 And here's the first game of the tiebreak. Karjakin,Sergey (2694) - Shirov,Alexei (2739) [b33] FIDE World Cup 2007 Khanty-Mansiysk (6.3), 11.12.2007

There certainly is "more" to the Queen's Gambit than the first 7 moves! :-) If you follow the general opening principles (control of the center, rapid development, castling, rook centralization) that alone will take you something like 10-12 moves. White usually plays in the center and the Queenside. There are many plans to name here but a good idea is to seek "reference games" by the masters of the past. Marshall, Capablanca, Rubinstein, Alekhine... A good book covering a lot of QG ideas is "Logical chess move by move".