Anand wins the World Chess Championship once again

Viswanathan Anand of India won the World Chess Championships at Sofia beating Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria 6.5-5.5. Topalov blundered on the 31st move and followed it up with a weak move and lost even though he had the advantage of the White pieces.

Incidentally, this was the first win with the Black pieces in 12 games of this Championship.

Details to follow.

Anand blunders to hand over first game to Topalov

Game 1 Topalov vs Anand. Photo © http://www.europe-echecs.com

Topalov punished an inexcusable error at this level to crush World Champ Anand in the first game of the World Championship match being held at Sofia.

Anand played his moves quickly and reached a complex middle game that was just what Topalov was hoping for. Anand had to defend precisely to emerge unscathed, but he overlooked a knight sacrifice that Topalov did not miss. Topalov polished Anand off in just 30 moves in what was expected to be a thriller of a match.

From Anand's point of view, he has white pieces and is expected to go all out and uncork some novelty since otherwise, he will be in an uncomfortable position.

It is always intriguing to see how top players rattle off early moves but don't know where to stop. Is the pace of the early moves and the home prep counter productive sometimes? Anand tried to shake Topalov with the Grunfeld that he's never used against him, but Topalov seems to be ultra sharp and ready for all Anand's tricks. Anand truly has his task cut out.

Hitler vs Lenin - A game of Chess

And Hitler won by gassing Lennin's king. No really, not a joke, but it is rumored that Adolf Hitler played a game against Vladimir Lenin. And that a sketch depicting this historic moment is being offered at an auction. What is more, the sketch is expected to raise an astounding 40,000 pounds.

Emma Lowenstramm, the Fuhrer's art teacher is rumored to have sketched the piece. The bonus is that the new owner of the art piece will get autographs from both the controversial leaders.

What do you think should be the value of such a piece? Is this kind of art a blot on Chess or can the Chess community pride itself on this?

GM Alexander Grischuk the Rockstar Chess Player

Grischuk is now firmly in the top ten of the World's elite Chess players. Well, at least on the live chess rankings list.
Having started his comeback at the FIDE Grand Prix at Elista a couple of years back and following it up with the famous win at Linares, Grischuk is now set to scale unknown (to him) heights of 2750+ (2758 to be exact at the present moment)

Showing promise even as a teenager, Grischuk rose to the top very early in his career. At the age of just 20, he was rated as high as 2732. And then began the slide. And then his foray into Poker.
Ernesto Grischuk is a famous Spanish Poker player! How weird is that! Now don't tell me the Poker Grischuk plays Chess. Well, let's not get into that.

Let's analyze Grischuk's rating graph from a stock market analyst's perspective. (Yes! since the rating chart also has a psychological element to it, it mirrors movement and can be analyzed like a stock in the stock markets!)

Grischuk experienced a huge breakout at 2600 (even before that, he was leaping of course). After a consolidation at around 2665 levels, he broke out of a range-bound movement to reach the psychological level of 2700.

Briefly moving up and testing the level again, he broke for good towards 2730 only to collapse towards the round figure yet again.

After another period of a triangle like formation, Grischuk broke out to the elite once again and into the 2750 zone, without going back to his favorite 2700 zone, this time consolidating just around 2730 or so.

Prediction
The Grischuk stock is highly volatile with a positive bias. It is expected to stay in the elite zone as long as it remains focused. A move towards the No. 1 position is tough considering the Tigers that lurk around 2800.
Grischuk is expected to remain one of the best blitz players.

Topalov hot on Carlsen's heels

Veselin Topalov is hot on Norway's Magnus Carlsen's heels for the top spot in the World Chess Rankings.

On the live list, Topalov is just 2 points behind Carlsen.

Top Ten List

1 Carlsen 2813
2 Topalov 2811
3 Kramnik 2790
4 Anand 2789
5 Aronian 2781
6 Mamedyarov 2760
7 Grischuk 2758
8 Wang Yue 2751
9 Ivanchuk 2750
10 Svidler 2745

Women leaders among World Class Men

Guess who else is in the leading pack among other leaders including World Class players such as Gata Kamsky, Movsesian, Adams, Bacrot (second pack) Vallejo Pons, Gustafsson, Fressinet, Cheparinov, Fridman?

Well, its none other than Zhukova and Koneru Humpy! Also half a point behind is Javakhishvili and trailing by another half are Stefanova, Cramling, Dzagnidze, Harika, Zatonskih, Krush, and Sedina. Quite amazing! All this action is happening at the Gibtelecom tournament.

Gibraltor

Regional Tournament Update

Regional Tourney update

Colombo International Tourney
Top seed Weerawardane leads after 8 rounds. Jayasoma,Athukorala also on 7/8.

Chennai GM Chess Tourney

Maxim Turov leads with 8.5/9 with a 2803 performance! Junior Lalith Babu and GM Ziaur Rahman Joint 2nd with two others. Another highlight is the welcome return of IM, WGM Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman. She was in the top 20 in the world (women) Other stand out performers - Anwe...sh Upadhyaya(beat IMs and GM), Siddharth (Untitled,beat GMs), and Niranjan Navalgund (beat higher rated players)

Anand extends domination over Kramnik

Anand continued his winning edge against Kramnik by beating him at Wijk aan Zee in the 12th round. Ironically, Kramnik had been displaying sparkling form and had even beaten the current world no. 1, Carlsen. Anand thus beat 2 of the 3 top players at the ongoing tournament.

See full game:


Key moments:
18 ... Bf8 Not losing, but Kramnik could probably just continue with 18. ... Bf5 19 Qe5 Qxe5 20. Nxe5 Bd6 and so on. A draw is not bad with the Petroff against the world champ.
27 .. Nb3? Again, Bf5 or Bc5 will do just fine.
34 .. Qg6? Loses immediately at these levels. Probably plain time pressure. One winning line for example is 35 Qxg6 hxg6 36. Bg4 Rxc4 37 Nf7 Kg8 38 Be6
Anand played the immediate Bg4, probably laying a trap into which Kramnik walked in playing Rxc4. The win was demonstrated with usual technique by Anand.

Anand escapes with a win against Shirov

Poor Shirov's bad luck against Anand continues. He added another loss to his already lopsided tally against him. Worse, he had a chance to beat the reigning World Champion yesterday at the Corus Chess tournament. Under agonizing time pressure, and with just 2 moves to make, Shirov first let Anand slip and then even missed drawing chances to go down in flames (or fire!) Tragic :(

Analyze the following position. What should Shirov have played?


See the full game here:

Kramnik outduels Carlsen

Carlsen has just played 35. Nb6? Show me the win!

Vladimir Kramnik outplayed Magnus Carlsen in the 9th round of the Wijk aan Zee tournament of 2010. In a tournament where the current unified World Champ, Anand cannot show all his skills, this certainly was the game everyone was waiting for.

Kramnik has shown tremendous character after he was crushed by Anand in the World Championship match. He is now very close to joining the 2800+ club. Anand is now ranked 5th in the world. Here's hoping that he has something really special cooked for the World championship match against Topalov.

See the full game here:

Mamedyarov relaunches himself

So, who's the hottest property in the top 10 rakings at the moment? Yeah, we know Carlsen is making waves and the no. 1 tag has that special feel to it. So, what is your other guess?

Yes, its none other than Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan. With is fantastic run in the World Team Championship at Turkey recently, he has jumped into the top ten again.

After the tragic cheating incident at last year's Aeroflot open, where Mamedyarov accused Kurnosov of getting help, his performance had slumped and he even dropped out of the top 20 in the world at one time. After some lacklustre performances, Mamedyarov started his rise from the low 2717 rating and at the WTCC bludgeoned mostly lower rated Grandmasters on the third board and leapt into the top league of the world rankings. He is now rated 2760 live, which was his previous highest rating.

He seems to be more determined this time to reach his goal - the No. 1 ranking (according to his declaration on his website.) We watch his progress keenly.

Here's the top ten for your information:

1 Carlsen off 2810
2 Topalov off 2805
3 Anand off 2790
4 Kramnik off 2788
5 Aronian off 2782
6 Mamedyarov off 2760
7 Grischuk off 2756
8 Wang Yue off 2751
9 Gelfand off 2750
10 Ivanchuk off 2749

Nakamura vs Principled Chess!?

Why is it that Nakamura manages these amazing games even in an age where Chess engines almost prohibit creativity?

Is it that he is imagining ideas that no one does? Is he plain bluffing!? Does he manage to shake his opponents psychologically?

Well, probably all of the above and more. If you observe his games closely, you will notice that he throws the game off balance much more often than the other "principled" top Chess players. Which means that even if Nakamura is making an objectively slightly inferior move, he is constantly forcing his opponents into areas where they are not in the comfort zone. They expect Move A and then bang comes Move P, expect Move B and there comes Move J. Mind you, the supposedly inferior moves cannot be measured in the usual Fritzy way. The value of the move is the accuracy he is giving up vs the complexity he is throwing up! And it is sometimes a good plus, even if it is minus per the engines.

Now, the problem for the bunny GM is that Naka is no pushover, Naka probably knows the "principled move" himself in almost all positions. And he knows how to take advantage of the GM who cannot adjust to the maverick moves constantly and gives Naka an opportunity. So, the trick is to not make moves that are clearly lost at Super GM levels but to shake the opposing GM's brains dry until he capitulates.

What do you think makes Nakamura tick? We'd love to hear from you.

Meanwhile, enjoy his latest sac!

Climbing up the world rankings

At the World Team Championship Chess tourney at Bursa, Turkey we are seeing some very interesting developments.

Nakamura is shooting up the Live Ratings ladder. There are bunch of others making waves, namely Mamedyarov, Onishchuk, Grischuk, Vitiugov, and Sutovsky among others with 2800+ performances.

Now we come to another interesting observation. The top three players after Anand, namely Harikrishna, Ganguly, and Sasikiran are not only making a valiant effort at reaching the top of the standings in the event, but are battling among themselves indirectly against each other to finish second highest after Anand. They have already swapped places a few times just in this event alone. The standout performer is by far Sasikiran, who has wins against Gashimov and hold your breath, Aronian (in a Rook and pawns endgame!!! excuse the exclamations- really!)

Corus Chess participant P Harikrishna

Viswanathan Anand, Carlsen, and Kramnik are Chesshousehold names. But how many of the others invited to this years Corus Chess tournament do we know? We present these talented but relatively lesser known players in a different, interesting way. Be aware that most of them are super stars in their own country/region.

Pentala Harikrishna

Look at this www.chessmetrics.com list.

1 Kramnik, Vladimir 2541
2 Bu Xiangzhi 2520
3 Kundin, Alexander 2494
4 Radjabov, Teimour 2474
5 Leko, Peter 2466
6 Kamsky, Gata 2462
7 Polgar, Judit 2458
8 Ponomariov, Ruslan 2452
9 Bacrot, Etienne 2432
10 Harikrishna, Pentala 2381

According to Jeff Sonas, this is the list of the highest ratings of 14 year olds, ever!
Sure, No. 3 Kundin is not popular, but No. 10 is not a bad ranking to have, especially if you go down the list and find Jakovenko, Aronian, Naiditsch, Short, Kasimdzhanov, and last but not the least Topalov at Nos 12, 13, 17, 30, 44 and 50! i warned you No. 10 is not bad! (Probably No. 11 now that Carlsen is on the scene after that list was lasted updated in 2005)

Harikrishna is the third seed in the tournament after Naiditsch and Nisipeanu and ahead of Ni Hua (Yes the London tourney player!) He has to contend with a host of other strong players such as, Sutovsky, Wesley So, Howell, and Anish Giri among others.

In his career Harikrishna has won age group titles notable ones being the U-10 when he burst onto the Indian scene and the Junior World Championship title. Hari has good wins over Nisipeanu (2004), Mamedyarov, Almasi (2006), and Dominguez (2005). Notable tournament wins include the Cat. 17 Bermuda International, Essent Hoogeveen and the Max Gyorgy Memorial. He has been awarded the prestigious Arjuna Award in India for his solid performances in the international chess scene. Harikrishna is the second highest rated Indian after Anand in India today.

Carlsen shares some Scotch with Kasparov

Now that Carlsen (and Kasparov!) is giving us some breathing time after the fireworks of the year, we go back a bit in time (and a bit more for Kasparov) to look at the Scotch that they now share.

Last year Carlsen beat Leko with a Scotch that had commentators gasping in awe. Working with Kasparov was one thing, but whipping out the Scotch against one of the most durable players in history was another thing. Carlsen beat Leko in an interesting struggle. This win set the tone for his eventual progress towards the No. 1 spot. The surprises and the strength were for all to witness.

We also present the vintage Scotch that Kasparov threw on the young Bacrot back in 2000. The same Scotch that he used against a much deadlier opponent, Karpov.

Spend quality time to sip through the games slowly and tell us what you found interesting.