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GM Ivanchuk won the 2008 edition of the Bali Benidorm tournament. He finished just half a point ahead of Shirov after being ahead by 2 points at one time. Ivanchuk drew and lost games in the last two rounds. Final Standings after Round 10 1 GM IVANCHUK Vassily UKR 2786 8 2 GM SHIROV Alexei ESP 2726 7,5 3 GM TIVIAKOV Sergei NED 2686 5,5 4 GM LAHNO Kateryna UKR 2488 4,0 5 IM VILA GAZQUEZ Xavier ESP 2422 3,0 6 WGM VEGA GUTIERREZ Sabrina ESP 2278 2,0

The rating favorites won through to the Quarterfinal stage of Cap D'Agde. It's amazing how ratings play a part even in rapid games, nay, even blitz games. Karpov beat 14 year old Hou Yifan to advance to the knock out stage. Update: Karpov beat Caruana to advance to the Semi-finals. The young teen put up stiff resistance and the regular rapid games ended at 1-1 with a win each. Karpov, who is playing a gruelling schedule (yesterday's tie-break games against Yifan and today's games) beat back Caruana challenge in the 3 minutes+2 seconds increment games. Radjabov suffered a tragic loss to Ivanchuk in the Quarterfinals. More details about it after this game. So, Radjabov had a won position with his Queen for Rook and Bishop. But Ivanchuk defended tenaciously to draw the game. Radjabov lost the next two blitz games probably out of the shock of the "silly" draw in a winning position. What a pity! 1/2-1/2 Quarter finals Carlsen vs Xianghzhi Caruana vs Karpov 3.5 - 2...

The 350, 000 Francs World Blitz Chess Championships will be held at Almaty, Kazakhstan. The time control is 5 minutes for the entire game. Morozevich, Radjabov, Svidler, Grischuk, Gelfand, Judit Polgar, Ivanchuk are some of the players participating. More details and Official site....

The Category XXII Super GM Grand Slam Chess Final Masters started at Bilbao. Magnus Carlsen is two points ahead of the field by virtue of his win against Aronian. Usually a 2 point margin is almost a tournament win. But at Bilbao, it is different because 3 points are awarded for a win and 1 point for a draw. The winner gets 150,000 Euros. Anand escaped a clever onslaught by Ivanchuk and finally escaped with a draw. Even the usually volcanic Topalov could not create anything exciting. Elsewhere on the live ratings, Carlsen has once again moved to the 2nd spot. We've had Morozevich running away impossibly in the first half of the Tal Memorial and actually tasting the World No. 1 spot (for a day). Carlsen and Ivanchuk have been close. Its really very interesting to watch. FIDE has to watch out ! Updated ratings once every three months may not be enough anymore !

The Tal Memorial chess tournament took place at Moscow. Ivanchuk won with a point to spare. Morozevich was displaying enormous strength early on but faded towards the close. Ivanchuk capped this tremendous show with a win in the blitz tournament as well. 34 games are played on two days!

Carlsen plays the suffering GM Leinier Dominguez (CUB, 2708) with white today and has another chance to reach for the No. 1 spot in the live chess ratings. The current standings are as follows: 01 V Anand 2798 02 M Carlsen 2795 03 V Ivanchuk 2791.5 04 A Morozevich 2788 05 V Topalov 2777 06 V Kramnik 2772.9 07 P Leko 2746 08 Radjabov 2744 09 S Mamedyarov 2740.8 10 A Shirov 2739.4

World champion Vishy Anand leads after the fifth round of the Morelia Linares chess tournament. Standings after 5th round: 1. Anand, Viswanathan g IND 2799 3½ 2892 2. Aronian, Levon g ARM 2739 3 2836 3. Shirov, Alexei g ESP 2755 2½ 2760 4. Topalov, Veselin g BUL 2780 2½ 2742 5. Carlsen, Magnus g NOR 2733 2½ 2767 6. Radjabov, Teimour g AZE 2735 2 2692 7. Lékó, Peter g HUN 2753 2 2682 8. Ivanchuk, Vassily g UKR 2751 2 2676

Update Kramnik - Van Wely (Draw) Ivanchuk - Polgar (Draw) Adams - Gelfand (Draw, what else) In other interesting games in the other groups, Harikrishna was winning against Short but he seems to have messed up his winning chances. Same with Stellwagen and Li Chao, they both lost significant winning edges against Humpy and Irina Krush respectively. Hou Yifan is putting up a good show against the 2700 Bacrot. A draw is still possible although Bacrot is piling on the pressure now. The other prodigy Negi is almost equal against Sweden's Pontus Carlsson.

Corus mid day live commentary Mamedyarov vs Carlsen Mamedyarov always had a plus and was almost close to a significant plus, but he delayed the f pawn advance. Carlsen then managed to gain equality by move 23. Ivanchuk vs Polgar This queen's indian defence game was always balanced and Polgar has a slight edge in the middle game. Aronian vs Topalov By far one of the most exciting games on display today. Topalov made some amazing moves to bring the white king into the middle. But he missed a promising continuation and the game is drawish. Radjabov vs Anand A Semi-slav game with 5. Bg6 h6 Anand chose to sacrifice his castling rights to gain two pawns but Radjabov gave them back to get a decent edge by the middle game stage. Anand missed the right continuation to achieve balance.

Update: -------------------------------------------- Radjabov won the ACP world rapid chess championship. He beat Grischuk 2.5-1.5 in the final. -------------------------------------------- The semi-finalists in the world cup rapid championships were spotted. Jakovenko beat giant-killer Inarkiev, Radjabov upset Ivanchuk, Grishchuk defeated Svidler and Karjakin eliminated Gelfand. In a tournament graced by ex-world champion Karpov and Judit Polgar, who lost earlier, the youngsters are surely grabbing the limelight. Results of the Quarterfinals: Jakovenko, Dmitry vs Inarkiev, Ernesto 1.5-0.5 Radjabov, Teimour vs Ivanchuk, Vassily 3-2 Svidler, Peter vs Grischuk, Alexander 0.5-1.5 Karjakin, Sergey vs Gelfand, Boris 3-1

The Second ACP World Rapid Chess Cup sponsored by Pivdenny Bank has started. Results so far: Ivanchuk vs Eljanov 1.5 - 0.5 Radjabov vs Drozdovskij 1.5 - 0.5 Jakovenko vs Savchenko 2 - 0 Inarkiev vs Shirov 1.5 - 0.5

The focus will obviously be on the Kramnik - Anand rivarly and now that they are tied for the top spot in the world with exactly the same ELO points, this tournament will more or less serve as a tie-break. Topalov has lost a lot of the headlines to the top two, so he'll probably grab this chance to try and get some. Carlsen, Mamedyarov, and the ever dangerous Judit Polgar are others to watch. The Group A of the Corus Chess Tournaments reads like a Who's who in chess. Here's the list updated with the January 2008 Ratings. Note that Ivanchuk for example, appears second but is ninth in the world because he slipped by the time the Corus tournament was announced and the Ratings list was updated. Same with Leko and Aronian too and so on. Kramnik moved up. World Rank, Name, Country, Rating GM Group A 1 GM Viswanathan Anand India 2799 9 GM Vassily Ivanchuk Ukraine 2751 1 GM Vladimir Kramnik Russia 2799 3 GM Veselin Topalov Bulgaria 2780 8 GM Peter Leko Hungary 2753 6 GM Shakryar Ma...