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A lip-smacking potential encounter between World Champion Anand and Veselin Topalov has been set up. Topalov beat Gata Kamsky 4.5-2.5 in the Challenger's match. Topalov today won the 7th game and sealed up the match one game before the scheduled end. Kamsky missed some promising continuations to even the match score and blundered heavily as he headed to the first time control. Topalov played enterprisingly and managed to keep up the pressure and won easily thereafter.

GM Kateryna Lahno and GM Robert Fontaine are now a married couple! Wish them a happy married life. Robert is a very popular GM known for his Chess reporting on Europe Echecs, the French Chess magazine, while Lahno is an ex-child prodigy and a full GM with many tournament wins from a very young age.

Carlsen beat Anand in the 6th round of the Linares Open tournament, thus breaking his drawing jinx. Anand played provacatively abandoning caution and missed several drawing chances. Carlsen played his steady game to slowly overpower Anand in an endgame that was reduced to a Rook vs Knight one. One gets the feeling that Anand is operating at a much higher risk taking level after the match against Kramnik. In most games, he is managing to frighten his opponents, but when faced with solid play, he tends to slip a bit and hand over the game.

Kamsky blunders to give Topalov an upper hand in the match. We have just 3 more games to go and Topalov clearly has an upper hand. For Kamsky, the only hope is that he has the white pieces in the 6th game. Kamsky played the French Defence, equalized pretty comfortably and sailing on towards a draw, before he committed a shocking blunder. Kamsky needs to strike immediately if he hopes to survive. That will make the match all the more lively.

Mamedyarov resigned and withdrew from the Aeroflot chess tournament after the shocking 21 ... Qd2 find by Kurnosov. He accused Kurnosov of cheating and said that the moves resembled Rybka evaluation. Could it be plain preparation? What do you feel?

Top seed Mamedyarov withdrew from the Aeroflot Chess tournament after accusing his opponent Igor Kurnosov of cheating. Mamedyarov was leading the tournament with +3 at the end of the fifth round and slid back while Kurnosov is in the lead after 6 rounds. What rattled Mamedyarov is probably a combination of things. Imagine a 2602 player refusing an early draw from a 2724 giant! Kurnosov did exactly that. The arbiters though, did not agree. They felt that the moves could be found by a strong GM. Some facts related to this story. -- Some witnesses claim that Kurnosov never went to the bathroom. He was mostly in the smoking area . -- Mamedyarov has slid down to number 21 in the live ratings. He used to be in the top 10 in the recent past -- Kurnosov has been in top form in the last few months, winning Hastings in December comprehensively with 7.5/9 -- Mamedyarov had resigned in an apparently equal game against Magnus Carlsen at Corus 2008, which created a buzz at the time on different foru

Gata Kamsky demonstrated his tenacity by grinding out Topalov and earning a full point in the 4th game of the 8 game match. In a game that represents Kamsky's style best, he did not allow Topalov to create counter chances and won in 73 moves. Kamsky probably brings in about 100 ELO points equivalent of guts to any match. No wonder, he has beaten the likes of Anand and Kramnik earlier. Match experience is Match experience and the result of that can be seen by one and all. The match is now precariously poised and a win gives a massive edge to the first one to do it.

Kamsky played a solid third game with the black pieces masking the disappointment of the previous round. He now has the white pieces tomorrow to try for a win.

World Champion Anand faltered against Aronian in a Meran game. Anand probably used his World Championship preparation, but the complicated middle game meant that both parties had chances. Anand overlooked an exchange sacrifice to give Aronian the advance. The game was a bit comical since at one time Aronian had 6 pawns for a Bishop, which he duly converted to a win. In other games, Grischuk beat Wang Yue of China. The other two games were drawn.

Anand beat Radjabov in a Q+N vs Q+B endgame in the first round of Linares 2009.

Topalov surprised Kamsky by unleashing the relatively lesser used 5... Bc5. Kamsky lost the game on the clock, prefering to play accurate chess than to take chances. Kudos to Topalov for taking risks in such a short match. Credit is even more due since Topalov was also out of his prepartion as early as move 9. Every single game is critical now. Even a draw means a lot, especially to Topalov, although knowing him he'll probably try to shut the door on Kamsky in the next couple of games. A just result considering that Topalov attacked relentlessly over two games.

Gata Kamsky held favorite Veselin Topalov in the first game of the Challenger's match being held in Bulgaria. In an exciting, Grunfeld game, Kamsky forced the aggressive Topalov to go for a draw after 36 moves. The result must be considered to be good for Kamsky's morale since he now has the white pieces tomorrow. Kamsky cooly countered the novelty that Topalov dished out on the 17th move, held on to an extra pawn and made Topalov fight for the initiative. After the novelty, both players played accurate chess to reach an even endgame where a draw was an expected result.

Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria will start the Chess World Championship Challenger's match with the white pieces. A colorful opening ceremony was conducted today. Knowing Topalov, he would like to start with a bang and retain the initiative right till the end, especially since this is an ultra short match. Don't be surprised if he comes up with some spicy home cooked recipe. Kamsky is no slouch either. He is best equipped to handle Topalov's aggressive style. We will cover the important stages of the game live. It is rumored that Kamsky had problems with the lighting arrangement at the venue. GM Georgiev will try to break the Guiness record for the most consecutive Chess games played. The record is currently held by IM Andrew Martin.

We all know Illya Nyzhnyk now.But have you heard about GM Zherebukh, Yaroslav? You are excused if you haven't. He is a 15 year old from the Ukraine. Another young teenager on a Pogo stick, jumping over his seniors. Currently rated 2558. He's played other contemporary and famous prodigies such as Anish Giri and Illya Nyzhnyk and drawing them mostly. He's also beaten and drawn some GMs and played in the Ukranian Championship Finals Looking at the recent trend, we expect Li Chao B to move rapidly towards the 2700 mark. You can't count out Hou Yifan of course, but it may take her a while to get there. Zhou Jianchao is also in the race and is also young and raring to go. Russia and Ukraine are way ahead of the others in the top countries list. If you are looking for some untitled talent, there is a 16 year old named Rui Gao now rated 2500! And guess what? Although Rui faced some rating correction in the last rating period, there were astounding jumps of 259 and 135 in two 3

Anand should be well rested and hopefully ready for the battle ahead. After all, he now needs to show who is the boss! There's always a threat of relaxing a bit too much and the relief after such an intense phase of preparing and winning the World Championship can make one complacent. Let's hope nothing like that happens. Aronian and Carlsen will of course be in the title race, as always. Chucky, will you make us proud just one more time in an elite field? Yue is expected to be fighting in this tournament and I predict a top half finish for him. Wijk Aan Zee was a rude shock to him. But we all know the Chinese, they'll get going sooner or later. Never ones to shirk hard work. Radjabov and Grischuk can never be counted out. Lenier Dominguez will continue delivering surprises and rise further.

Correction - We are sticking our neck out and predicting a 4.5 - 3.5 win for Topalov over Kamsky :-) in the Challenger's match. Pray for Kamsky and me.

We managed to request and get to interview Wesley So of the Philippines on Facebook via chat. Here are some interesting responses from him. imchess.com : Congrats for the amazing performance at Corus Chess. Thanks for giving us your time. The Chess world wants to know more about you. Wesley So : Thank you and thanks for following my games. imchess.com : Your performance was really strong. Which was the toughest game? Wesley So : The toughest game was the opening one against Nijboer. imchess.com : And the most satisfying? Wesley So : The win against Tiger Hillarp Persson of course! Because it guaranteed me the tournament win. Wesley So's famous win against Tiger Persson with the black pieces. imchess.com : Yes, Tiger was hot on your heels. Any disappointments? Wesley So : Too bad that I lost to Holzke. That was hard. After I lost that game, I did not think I would win the tournament. Maybe I relaxed since I was in the lead. imchess : Right, that was tough I guess. Otherwise, it was

The following players will fight for the Linares 2009 Chess title. An elite field participates in this edition. Topalov had to withdraw due to his match against Kamsky. Viswanathan Anand Magnus Carlsen Vassily Ivanchuk Levon Aronian Teimour Radjabov Wang Yue Alexander Grischuk Lenier Dominguez

Have you noticed how many players are tied for the first place these days at major Chess tournaments? Even towards the closing stages? This happened at Corus Wijk Aan Zee and now at Gibraltar. Six players were tied for first before the final round in the Group A of the Corus tournament. Only in the last round did an eventual sole winner emerge. Five players are tied for first before the final round of the Gibtelecom tournament even though Elite GMs such as Svidler, Gashimov, and Nakamura are playing. Is it the worldwide recession and a safe approach by the players? Please leave Nakamura out when you put on your thinking hats:) What do you think is the reason?

Live Chess Ratings End January, 2009 1 Topalov 2809 2 Anand 2791 3 Carlsen 2770 4 Radjabov 2765 5 Aronian 2760 6 Kramnik 2759 7 Jakovenko 2753 8 Leko 2751 9 Ivanchuk 2746 10 Morozevich 2746