Javier

It's a database program. It also includes a database with thousands of games. It hasn't been updated for a while though.

Well, not exactly holidays ,but it must be a seasonal thing, I'm not too "productive" (don't I hate that word!) in September. Anyway, I've been working under the shadows and soon I'll be able to let you know about some interesting changes on this website. As for chess... hmm... How about this 3 minutes victory over a strong GM at playchess.com? The combination wouldn't make any sense if I hadn't seen my 33rd move. Hey, maybe I'm talented player? Nah! Actually, maybe I am!

Three chess Grand Masters from China, including the International Chess Federation (FIDE) women's world champion Xu Yuhua and her countrymen Bu Xiangzi and Wang Yue, have qualified for the men's World Cup against the world's 128 strongest players, FIDE's executive director David Jarrett told Xinhua on Monday. Read the full article

Chess - the ubiquitous game of 64 squares has always fascinated people – old and young alike. People and organisations connected with the game constantly strive to come up with innovations aimed at attracting more people to this game. Taking the lead in this regard is the Chess Association Dakshina Kannada, which under the aegis of the district administration has come up with the idea of a ‘Mini Chess Park’ at Tagore Park here. Prasanna Rao, secretary, CADK, says, “Mini chess parks are already functional in nations such as the United States of America and Bulgaria. While it is the intention of CADK to draw more people to this game, it is also our intention to focus on the children, who seem to be taking up to chess in large numbers across many pockets of the country.” Read the full article

Michael Stean's book has nothing to do with John Emms. (I mean they're completely different books, they obviously have a lot to do with the topic ).

Personally, I'd recommend that you sell all your opening books. Next step would be to select a good strategy book from your library. Unfortunately, you don't have Michael Stean's "Simple chess". So, I'll recommend "My system". Dont just read it, work hard on it, add your own notes, annotate some games, PROVE that you understand what it's all about. That's it. Just one book. It couldn't be simpler! But it's not the book that matters... it's what you do with it.

Today chess is a big-time sport in India and our brightest star Viswanathan Anand is ranked World number one. However, in the seventies, Chess was considered a game for old fogies with little prize money. In that era, very few people would have dared to allow their child to pursue chess. Anand, though, was lucky in that his parents Susheela and Viswanathan not only encouraged him, but also spent time, money and effort to fuel the ambitions of their son. As we all know, Anand went on to win all possible prestigious events not once but many times over, bagged four Chess Oscars, won the World Championship and the World Cups. He is truly a statistician’s delight and all his exploits have been greeted with banner headlines. But very little has been written about his early days and the struggles he had to undergo before he went on to make his mark... In a candid conversation with Manisha Mohite, Anand recalls his struggles and successes and gives us a rare glimpse of how he got to the very top. View the full article

As predicted, China has defeated Russian. The final score: 52.5-47.

(Image based on a photograph by Betsy Dynako) Quoting the Wikipedia: Amon Simutowe (born January 6, 1982) is an International Master from Zambia. His 2421 ELO rating makes him the Zambian #1. He achieved his third Grandmaster norm in August of 2007, being the first sub-Saharan African to do so. He will likely become the first black grandmaster from the sub-Hahara. Simutowe is a graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas which he attended on a chess scholarship. Unfortunately, there's a tendency amongst chess players to cellebrate titles before all the requirements are met. I understand that often it is hard to resist the temptation to do so, particularly when a title can be so meaningful to a whole continent, but in my opinion this doesn't help the player to achieve his goal, on the contrary, it adds more pressure on him. Amon still needs to push his rating to 2500 in order to get his title though. I've checked FIDE's site and this is what his rating graph looks like: The difficulty of this task is explained by the fact that Amon's rating has never reached 2500, the closest he's ever been is 2470 and at present is 2421 and 2470 was 6 years ago. I wish Amon all the best, and getting his title would be fantastic news for African Chess. But let's not belittle the remaining task... I've searched some of Simutowe's old games. Take a look at his 17th move in this game to give you an idea of his talent: Rahls,P (2308) - Simutowe,A (2462) [b22] Bad Woerishofen op 17th Bad Woerishofen (5), 2001

Speelman's column this week features two annotated games. One, a victory by Michael Adams and the other a surprising loss by GM Van Wely against Gawain Jones with the line 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.f4 (Grand Prix attack). Well worth a read. Michael Adams became the winner of the 5th Howard Staunton Memorial Chess Tournament in London's Simpson's-in-the-Strand last Saturday, after withstanding a sustained effort by Ivan Sokolov to catch him. I left you last week with Adams and Loek Van Wely first equal, a point clear of Ivan Sokolov. Chess players are sociable beings and the Dutch reportedly had quite a night of it before the penultimate round last Friday. With the rounds starting at 2pm, this normally wouldn't have mattered and indeed Sokolov ploughed on, inveigling me into time trouble in a very complicated middlegame and then striking ruthlessly when the right moment came. However Van Wely, Black against ... Read the full article

Yes, your 8th move was a major blunder indeed. Generally, the player who is winning the game due to a material adventage will wellcome exchanges. Instead, you should try to complicate the game and avoid exchanges. You will soon be a piece down, but you have some active pieces, use your initiative to create threats. What's your opponent's main weakness? try to exploit it. Welcome to our forums!

At 16 years and 10 months old, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has just won the French Championship. (Etienne Bracot won the National Championship when he was 16 years and 7 months old) I've seen some of his games and he definitely likes compicated positions. The following is a very good example: Fontaine,R (2567) - Vachier Lagrave,M (2595) [A89] Championnat de France 'A' Aix-les-Bains FRA (10), 23.08.2007 ' margin=0 width=584 height=399 marginwidth=1 marginheight=1 name=pgnboard scrolling=no border=0 frameborder=0> Click here to download the games from the tournament.

Untitled played (but with a 2529 rating!) Li Chao has just one the 2007 Malaysia Open. 3 of the first 4 players in the final standins are from China, which is a good indication of their current strength in Asia. 1 6 Li Chao 2529 CHN 9 72 2 22 Wan, Yunguo 2386 CHN 8½ 73 3 7 GM Ziaur Rahman 2522 BAN 8 75 4 9 IM Wang, Rui 2482 CHN 8 74 5 5 GM Nguyen, Anh Dung 2537 VIE 8 71½ 6 18 IM Barlo A Nadera 2402 PHI 7½ 72½ 7 4 GM Dao, Thien Hai 2537 VIE 7½ 72½ 8 25 IM Mas, Hafizulhelmi 2372 MAS 7½ 70 9 14 IM Julio Catalinco C. Sadorra 2421 PHI 7½ 64½ 10 16 WGM Li, Ruofan 2417 SIN 7 78 11 1 GM Zhang, Zhong 2634 SIN 7 75 12 11 IM Irwanto Sadikin 2456 INA 7 72½ 13 24 IM Bancod, Ronald 2373 PHI 7 72 14 12 IM Girinath, P.D.S. 2440 IND 7 70½ 15 8 IM Oliver Dimakiling 2500 PHI 7 69½ 16 29 Wang, Li 2337 CHN 7 69½ 17 21 IM Ginting, Nasib 2393 INA 7 67½ 18 2 GM Adianto, Utut 2583 INA 7 65½ 19 10 Zhou, Weiqi 2469 CHN 6½ 76 20 23 Senador, Emmanuel 2380 PHI 6½ 71½ 21 30 FM Lim, Yee-Weng 2336 MAS 6½ 70½ 22 3 GM Chandler, Murray 2540 ENG 6½ 68½ 23 27 WGM Zhang, Jilin 2338 CHN 6½ 64 24 26 FM Mok, Tze-Meng 2346 MAS 6½ 63½ 25 64 Crowdy, Stephen C 2030 ENG 6½ 61½ 26 13 Hamed G Nouri 2426 PHI 6 75 27 17 IM Lane, Gary W. 2412 AUS 6 71 28 31 Khairul, Aman 2316 INA 6 68 29 20 Rolando, Nolte 2396 PHI 6 68 30 19 IM Richard B Bitoon 2399 PHI 6 68 31 35 FM Sebastian Simanjuntak 2271 INA 6 64 32 39 FM Anas Nazreen Bakri 2230 MAS 6 63½ 33 45 Kojima, Shinya 2156 JPN 6 61½ 34 83 Junaid Pamungkas 0 INA 6 61 35 56 Ramnath Bhuvanesh.R 2080 IND 6 60 36 47 Tan, Khai Boon 2138 MAS 6 56½ 37 36 FM Tindall, Brett 2258 AUS 6 54 38 82 Hakiki, Kaiser Jenius 0 INA 5½ 69½ 39 32 Rhobel Legaspi 2316 PHI 5½ 67½ 40 33 IM Liew, Chee-Meng-Jimmy 2309 MAS 5½ 66½ 41 37 FM Ton That Nhu Tung 2247 VIE 5½ 64 42 38 Wallis, Christopher 2238 AUS 5½ 63½ 43 15 IM Tirto 2418 INA 5½ 62½ 44 40 Zakaria, Fairin 2225 MAS 5½ 62 45 49 Illingworth, Max 2137 AUS 5½ 62 46 28 Shen, Siyuan 2337 CHN 5½ 58½ 47 43 Haessler, Carl 2167 USA 5½ 58 48 44 Nanjo, Ryosuke 2165 JPN 5½ 57½ 49 50 Abang, Mohd Reduan 2136 MAS 5½ 56 50 55 FM Jones, Brian 2084 AUS 5½ 55½ 51 54 WIM Moylan, Laura 2100 AUS 5 66½ 52 48 Yeap, Eng Cheam 2138 MAS 5 62½ 53 57 Chong, Chor Yuen 2067 HKG 5 61½ 54 34 Mehdi Hasan Parag 2280 BAN 5 61 55 42 Sherrie Joy Lomibao 2174 PHI 5 60½ 56 87 Zhang Jing 0 CHN 5 58 57 46 Ismail, Ahmad 2149 MAS 5 57½ 58 67 Viswanath, Sandilya B. 1967 IND 5 51 59 62 WFM Milligan, Helen 2034 SCO 5 48½ 60 70 Evan Timothy Capel 1871 MAS 4½ 58 61 51 Bennett, Hilton 2132 NZL 4½ 56 62 61 Spiller, Paul 2037 NZL 4½ 54 63 68 Schon, Eugene 1963 AUS 4½ 53 64 65 Mohan, Raj 1986 MAS 4½ 53 65 60 Edward Lee Kim Han 2046 MAS 4½ 52½ 66 71 Lee, T H Bryan 1867 HKG 4½ 52 67 66 Thong Yung Chen 1977 MAS 4½ 51½ 68 73 Roland Brockman 1793 AUS 4½ 51½ 69 59 Low, Jun Jian 2057 MAS 4½ 51 70 75 Ahmad, Morsin 1742 MAS 4½ 50½ 71 58 Lim, Kian Hwa 2062 MAS 4½ 47½ 72 52 Dotsenko, Viacheslav 2132 RUS 4 57 73 63 Inoue, Sho 2031 JPN 4 55 74 72 Japeri, Reduan 1831 MAS 4 54 75 76 Fong Wei Chern, Gavin 1632 MAS 4 52 76 53 Ruston, Mark R 2116 ENG 4 50½ 77 78 Abang Azman Draup 1436 MAS 4 47½ 78 74 Taminsyah Aston 1743 INA 3½ 47½ 79 84 Justin Tan 0 AUS 3½ 47 80 81 Chris Marshall 0 ENG 3½ 43 81 79 Christopher Masters 1434 HKG 3½ 42 82 41 Constance, James 2205 ENG 3 52 83 69 S., Balendran 1951 MAS 3 51½ 84 77 Elgin Lee Kah Meng 1469 MAS 3 44½ 85 85 Mark Law 0 HKG 2½ 42½ 86 80 Abang Draup 1213 MAS 2 46 87 86 Tan Kok Han 0 SIN 1 23

Ok, a couple of things: 1 - It's much easier to get support if you actually register at out forums. 2 - I do not offer advice if you're currently playing a game against someone else, it's unethical and unfair on the other person. I can, however, comment on some of the mistakes you've made: your main problem is, in one word, "captures". You have to pay attention to all possible captures after each one of your opponent's moves and each one of your moves (before you make them!). For example, when you played 7.Nd5, you saw that you were attacking c7 with your Knight, which is good, BUT did you see that your pawn on e4 could be taken by the black Queen? I don't think you did... To limit damages, have an internal dialogue with yourself everytime your opponent makes a move: "What is he threatening?". And before your moves: "If I make this move, do I leave anything hanging which he can take with one of his pieces?" Cheers!

White to play and checkmate in 10 moves, BUT, with 2 conditions: a] No pawn moves allowed. b] It must be a knight mate! Your chess engine doesn't help? tough luck! use your brain instead! Solution:

I'd never heard of these awards before. I'm not saying Mig doesn't deserve it, but just take a look at some of the categories they have: Category 10 Best Tournament Report, Any Media John Watson, "Surprises in San Diego" Chess Life, June 2006 HM Ian Rogers, "Akopian Triumphs in Gibraltar" Chess Life, April 2007 Rob Huntington, "Bronze for the Red, White, and Blue" Chess Life, August 2006 Jerry Hanken, "Shulman Shines in 107th U.S. Open" Chess Life, Nov. 2006 Jerry Hanken, "Kamsky Wins, But 'Cat' Makes News" Chess Life, Oct. 2006 er... Chess life?? any media?? there are many other chess magazines all over the world, and not only english speaking ones! Anyway, here's the link to their site.

Regional duel at Malaysia. Gary seemed well prepared and he got the advantage at around move 23 and never let it run away. Possible improvements for black? There are at least two, check the game: [site “Kuala Lumpur MAS”] [Date “2007.08.22″] [Round “6.7″] [White “IM Lane, Gary W”] [black “GM Chandler, Murray”] [Result “1-0″] [WhiteElo “2412″] [blackElo “2540″] [pgn] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Bd3 Bc5 6.Nb3 Be7 7.0-0 Nc6 8.Qg4 Nf6 9.Qxg7 Rg8 10.Qh6 Ne5 11.f3 b5 12.Nc3 Bb7 13.Qe3 Qc7 14.a3 Rg6 15.Ne2 Bd6 16.Nf4 Nxd3 17.cxd3 Bxf4 18.Qxf4 Qc2 19.Nd2 Qxd3 20.Rf2 d6 21.Nf1 e5 22.Qh4 Qb3 [22...Qd1!? Javier: A very interesting paralyzing move. 23.b4 (23.Rd2? Qxf3) 23...Rc8 24.Bb2 Qb3 Javier: And black has achieved something very important as he has prevented the white Bishop from getting to g5.; 22...Rc8 Javier: This is actually very amusing also. 23.Bg5 Rc2! Javier: Very imaginative. The point now is that if white takes the Rook on c2, then his Bishop on g5 will be pinned, as there will be a mate threat on g2. But taking the knight is met by the surprising: 24.Bxf6 Qd4! Javier: And it turns out that white can't defend his Bishop, as his queen is overloaded and the Bishop has nowhere to go. 25.Bh8 is met by 25...Rh6! 26.Qg3 Rg6 with a draw. ] 23.Bg5 Qe6 24.Rc1 Kd7 25.Rfc2 Ne8 26.Ng3 Rc8 27.Rxc8 Bxc8 28.Bd2 Bb7 29.Ba5 Qf6 30.Qxh7 d5 31.Qh3+ Qe6 32.Qh4 Qf6 33.Qxf6 Rxf6 34.exd5 Bxd5 35.Re1 Re6 36.Bc3 f6 37.Nf5 Nd6 38.Nxd6 Rxd6 39.h4 Ke6 40.Kf2 Rd7 41.g4 Bb7 42.Re3 Kf7 43.Kg3 Rd1 44.h5 Rg1+ 45.Kf2 Rd1 46.Kg2 Bc6 47.Kg3 Bb7 48.Kf2 Bc6 49.Ke2 Rh1 50.Kf2 Ra1 51.g5 Rh1 52.gxf6 Rxh5 53.Bxe5 Kg6 54.f4 Bd5 55.Rg3+ Kf5 56.Ke3 a5 57.Kd4 Bc4 58.Rg7 Rh8 59.Rg5+ Ke6 60.f5+ Kf7 61.Rg7+ Kf8 62.Bd6+ Ke8 63.Re7+ Kd8 64.Bc7+ Kc8 65.f7 Line [/pgn]

Javier: The news has been released by Associated press. It's really shocking that things like this should still happen. Chess players usually stay away from politics but this is not politics, this is human rights. A member of an opposition group led by the former chess champion Garry Kasparov was released Monday from a psychiatric clinic after being held against her will for 46 days, a spokeswoman for the group said. Larisa Arap, 48, a member of Kasparov's group in the northern port city of Murmansk, was forcibly hospitalized last month in what opposition activists said was revenge for exposing alleged abuse of children in a local psychiatric hospital. Her case was taken up by human rights defenders, who saw in it echoes of the Soviet-era practice of locking up dissidents in psychiatric hospitals. View the full article

Javier: I.M. Pain has a written an article on the Mainz Chess Tournament which includes an annotated blitz game and a chess960 game played by 2 GMs: The Mainz Chess Classic is designed by founder Hans Walter Schmitt to provide maximum customer entertainment and he is always rewarded with large audiences. The event features both Rapid Chess and Chess960 which is similar to the chess variant known as Fischer Random in which the pieces are jumbled up on the first two ranks at the beginning of the game rendering conventional chess opening theory completely useless. Levon Aronian of Armenia was the winner of the Finet Chess960 Open and was crowned Chess960 World Champion. What I find quite amusing about this kind of chess is just how often the position rapidly starts to resemble a game from a normal opening. Here only ... View the full article

Fourth China vs Russia Match (August 18th - 31st, 2007, in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia) At the time of writing, Russia was going down to China 18-12. True, few of the very top Russian players are taking part in the match, but some of the games are showing that the Asians are just on a different league altogether. As an example, take a look at these 2 games, both featuring the e5-e6 sacrifice. Ni Hua (2681) - Tomashevsky,E (2654) [E15] IV RUS-CHN Match Moscow RUS (1), 20.08.2007 17...c6 Javier: Perhaps this, and then 0-0. ] 18.cxb5 0-0 19.Rhc1 Javier: Black's position is awful. His Queenside is a mess, his pieces are passive and there are weaknesses on e6, c7 and a7. 19...Qb7 20.Qa6 Bd6 21.Ba5 Rc8 22.Nd3 Rf7 23.Rc3 Kf8 24.Rac1 Qxa6 25.bxa6 Ke8 26.f4 Rd7 27.Kf3 Nf7 28.Ne5 Bxe5 29.dxe5 Nd8 30.Bxc7 d4 31.Rc5 Kf7 32.Bd6 Rxc5 33.Rxc5 Kg6 34.Ke4 Nf7 35.Rc6 Not a very nice picture for black! 1-0 ' margin=0 width=584 height=399 marginwidth=1 marginheight=1 name=pgnboard scrolling=no border=0 frameborder=0> Wang Hao (2624) - Timofeev,A (2650) B51 IV RUS-CHN Match Moscow RUS (2), 21.08.2007 ' margin=0 width=584 height=399 marginwidth=1 marginheight=1 name=pgnboard scrolling=no border=0 frameborder=0> Online games here.

A couple of weeks ago I got my jacket stolen. It was a great leather and wool jacket. Not only did the thief get my jacket, he got my mp3 player as well. I'm not sure what he's going to do with it though, as it was purchased overseas and the recharger is not sold in Australia. Anyway, last week I decided that I would get a Sony voice recorder with a basic mp3 player and FM tuner. Here's the beauty: I looked it up at Sony's site and it sells in Australia for 199 Australian Dollars + shipping. Too expensive! I used shopbot.com.au to find better prices, and the best I could get was something like 160 + shipping. So I went to Amazon. The price was less than half!! HOWEVER, and don't ask me why, amazon does not ship electronics to Australia. I did some more research. I found technoweb (based in the US also), with a really fantastic price and international delivery. BUT, although the price was good, the shipping expenses were actually more the product itself!! what a joke! Finally, I came across www.frys.com, also based in the US. The price was excellent and shipping expenses VERY REASONABLE. So, I've actually purchased the voice recorder I was after for half the price I would have had to pay in Australia. (I did check customs.gov.au to make sure about import taxes and stuff, and everything is ok as the imported goods are for personal use and below the 1000$ mark). Now, isn't this a strange world we live in? Buying something thousands of miles away, paying for this product's airfare and everything , it's actually HALF the price than buying it here?? Who are the real thieves in this story, the ones who stole my jacket or the ones who try to sell me this voice recorder for 200$?

HARRISON TWP. Sean McQuade celebrated his 23rd birthday on Aug. 1 "a true celebration of life," wrote his mother, Jody, on her Web site, which chronicles Sean's recuperation. McQuade, who was seriously injured during the April 16 Virginia Tech shootings, faces several more challenges on his road to recovery but is progressing every day, thanks to support from his family, friends and community. He was seriously injured when a bullet entered his cheek, shattering his jawbone into five pieces. In the last month, Sean started his own once-a-week chess club in Mullica Hill, threw the first pitch at a July 27 Phillies game and is steadily gaining weight now that he is able to eat solid foods again. View the full article

The starting lineup for the 2007 World Chess Championship next month in Mexico City includes three of the world's top 5 players : world no.1 Viswanathan Anand, no.3 Vladimir Kramnik, and no.5 Alexander Morozevich. No.4 Vassily Ivanchuk was eliminated from the current cycle when he was knocked out by lower ranked Ivan Cheparinov in the second round of the 2005 World Cup qualifier, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. But where is world no.2 Veselin Topalov? (Javier: Do we care?) View the full article at about.com

If your children come home from school and announce that they played chess that day, don’t worry. They might have learned something anyway. It might have been part of that day’s math lesson. Jerry Nash, the scholastic director of the U.S. Chess Federation, told educators who gathered at Texas Woman’s University on Friday how chess could teach many math skills to young children. “Will chess solve all the problems? No, but it is a tool that enables teachers to do more efficiently what they are required to do,” Nash told the group. “The math and the critical-thinking skills are inherent in the game.” View the full article

One would expect that with the advance of the internet, buying quality software would become easier. In my experience, it is actually the other way around! Choosing good software is surprisingly becoming very time consuming and there's simply too much information to look for. There are literally hundreds of sites with reviews, and it's very hard to tell whether the people who wrote those reviews have any connection with the company who creates the software or they're just home users who have tried the product and are being completely honest. This week I had the need to buy a back up program, and I wanted to get a good one with, apart from all the standards features, at least one other one which I consider essential: incremental/differential back-ups (some people actually quote them as being the same thing but apparently they're not!. I still don't know what the difference is, but basically when you make a back up, if you use the incremental feature, the next back up will only copy the files that have changed, thus saving time and space). Anyway, I spent endless minutes with very little success. Finally I came across this great site: http://software.toptenreviews.com/ What's so good about it? Look what they do with their reviews: Now, I know that this is probably very unfair on some software developers who are releasing some truly excellent software which is never released there, and I'm not even sure what topten reviews gets out of all this, I fear they do get some comission everytime a user hits one of the links to buy software from their site. But guess what? nothing is free in life, and these guys are providing a good service and it's a chaos out there when it comes to choosing software so at least these guys are trying to add a bit of order to this chaos. Tucows? maybe I'm doing something wrong, but have they removed the option to select software according to best ratings? because I think they have! What a waste! Anyway, don't blame me, I just wanted a good back up program...