Chess Satranç ajedrez échecs schaken Schach scacchi escacs xadrez şah шахматы šahmaty

M Jagadish 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...

M Jagadish 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?

M Jagadish 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 experienc...

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

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 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 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.