Shirov wins MTel Chess 2009

Alexei Shirov beat Magnus Carlsen to win the MTel 2009 Chess tournament. In a must win situation for a clear first, Shirov pushed Carlsen to the wall, winning pawn after pawn. Carlsen resigned in a hopeless position in just 30 moves.

Topalov drew his last game.

Topalov vs Ivanchuk

MTel 2009 Chess. Chucky made some elementary errors in a long game and erred in playing 43 ... fxg2. Topalov found the winning move but not the best sequence to finish off Ivanchuk. But, the ending was very interesting. Take a look.

Christiansen (2631) vs Hughes (2293), US Chess Champs 2009

After a long game and fighting well, black has just played 47 ... Rcf8. Is it a blunder?

White to play and win



Solution: 48. Rh1 Rh7 49. Rxh7 Kxh7 50. Bd6 Rf7 51. Re2 Nf5 52. Rxe6 Nxd6 53. Rxd6 and White wins with the material advantage.

GM Christiansen chose another route to the inevitable win from that position.

Junior vs Hiarcs

World Computer Chess Championships.

Junior vs Hiarcs

Black has just played ... 29 .. Rg8. Can you find a win for White?

Shabalov vs Krush

Black has just played 22 ... Rad8. Find the winning move.

White to play and win








Solution: 23. Rb3!

Naka Magic

Nakamura reached into joint lead with this win over Brooks.



Note: 27 ... Rxf6 is a draw by perpetual check.

Computer Chess and Creativity

Is the era of Chess Engine creativity upon us? Or, just because computers can't protest we just pretend that computer Chess is a beast and there is no beauty to it? Fischer and even much before him, Capablanca, had said that Chess was more or less solved. But from recent Super GM and GM comments, it appears that we are seeing a paradigm shift. Computers are now influencing a new approach that is being adopted by an increasing number of players. Even more glaring is the fact that the play at the grassroots level is sharper than ever. Of course, the leader of the move towards this new style of play is none other than who it should be - The World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand, who crushed Vladimir Kramnik with an amazing display of a combination of Computer preparation and also over the board precise play that even computers would find hard to match.

Read the following quotes.

"Something sinister is lurking behind some magnificent chess victories these days. It is getting harder to tell what is actually created by humans and what is spit out by chess computers during preparation" declares Lubomir Kavalek in a Washington post article
"In a sharp Nimzo-Indian variation, which I prepared for Nigel Short to combat Garry Kasparov in the 1993 world championship, black navigates the stormy lines with unusual ease." says Lubomir

Karpov recently made a controversial statement that Anand was playing like a computer and he was not as strong as he was a decade ago!

Add to this, the forfeit by Mamedyarov, who accused Igor Kursonov that he suspected foul play.

So what do you think? Can accuracy ever be beautiful? Or we do we just strive for beauty and abandon the accurate? Remember the violent, blood thirsty age of the romanticists and attacking Chess a couple of hundred years back? Well, it was eventually taken over by the pragmatics. So are we ready to move to the next stage where precise play overrides adventure?

Live Chess Ranking May 01 2009

Live rating list

1 Topalov 2812
2 Anand 2788
3 Aronian 2768
4 Carlsen 2765
5 Kramnik 2759
6 Jakovenko 2757
7 Radjabov 2756
8 Leko 2756
9 Gelfand 2751
10 Morozevich 2751