Chess news

The News from Chessbase: The official World Cup bulletin states: "Two Chinese players, Wang Yue and Li Chao, were late for the second game of the tiebreaks against Vugar Gashimov (AZE) and Etienne Bacrot (FRA) respectively. According to the FIDE regulations the games were forfeited." More about this in the interview below. Apparently both players were in the smoking area after the first rapid chess tiebreak game. The arbiter went to the area and announced that the games would start in three minutes, and then again in one minute. Unfortunately Wang and Li arrived at their boards two minutes after the starting time and ... Read Full Story

Marcel Efroimski, a 13-year-old Israeli chess prodigy, yesterday became the Girls' Under-14 World Chess Champion, but when she won the Gold Medal at the World Youth Chess Championships, the Turkish hosts refused to play her country's - the Israeli national anthem - as is customary for those taking first place. What a shame - I am sure the Islamic apologists can twist this one as well into an acceptable format! The following letter was sent to FIDE, President Kirsan Ilumzhinov and Vice President Israel Gelfer. Dear Mr. President, I write to you with great concern following what seems as a serious incident that occurred. ... Read Full Story

Live commentary of Mtel Masters 2009 The game Magnus Carlsen - Alexei Shirov from the third round of Mtel Masters will be with live commentary on Chessdom.com at 15:00 CET. Magnus Carlsen - Alexei Shirov Round 4 Mtel Masters 2009 Sofia HERE: http://games.chessdom.com/mtel-2009/carlsen-shirov The Mtel Masters live commentary is brought to you thanks to Chess Cube and the Ikaros Chess Festival . The Mtel Masters live commentary is brought to you thanks to Chess Cube and the Ikaros Chess Festival . Good day everyone, welcome to the Chessdom live coverage of the 2009 Mtel Masters! IM Miodrag Perunovic and Goran Urosevic will provide the ... Read Full Story

MADRID (Reuters Life!) - Chess legends Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov reignite one of the greatest rivalries in the history of chess this week with a re-match of their classic 1984 world championship contest. The two Russian grand masters, who are widely considered the greatest chess players ever, will play the first of a 12-game re-match in Valencia, Spain, starting Tuesday, 25 years after the pair first competed for the world title. That epic duel ended in controversy and without a clear winner when the World Chess Federation unexpectedly called off the match after five months of play, citing health concerns for the players ... Read Full Story

I haven't been covering the Tal Memorial (I know ... I know). Anyway, here is a snippet of an interview with Morozevich just before the event: "Q: Turning to the Tal Memorial, how do you assess its strength? A: I personally have no doubt that this is the strongest event in the FIDE calendar, in terms of the quality of the players. Of course, there are some foreign events, which can boast a slightly higher average rating than the Memorial. But in most of them you only get four, maximum six, elite players. But to get a category 21 with ten players, as we ... Read Full Story