Each week, ICC sends a newsletter to its members, featuring the most important
international chess news, in addition to the main ICC online activities.
With Dortmund just finished, we're going to cover the 45th Biel Chess Festival, starting July the 23rd at 8am ICC time. Numero Uno Magnus Carlsen leads the group of amazingly strong players, that makes this event one of the most interesting of the year! American hero Hikaru Nakamura, Russian Alexander Morozevich , Chinese Wang Hao, French Etienne Bacrot and Dutchman Anish Giri will challenge the Norwegian chess genius in an amazing double round robin 10-rounds tournament.
With the Tal Memorial archived, and another win by Numero Uno GM Magnus Carlsen, the 2012 Summer has still some important events to be followed. The Bazna tournament, sadly, has been cancelled due to the economic crisis and the peculiar political situation in Romania. Fortunately the mighty Germany can still afford to sponsor - through the famous bank - one of the most important chess events of the year: The Sparkassen Chess Meeting.
For a limited time, ICC is offering FREE bonus membership for buying or renewing an ICC membership! This is a limited time offer, so take advantage today and grab free months! Offer expires July 1, 2012!
And when you think it's all over, with the young Italian stallion winning his first super-event, an early morning last round turns the tables: Magnus Carlsen wins his game with the "top-seeds-killa" Luke McShane, and Fabiano Caruana loses to Aronian! Nakamura and Radjabov drew their game, et voilá! Magnus grabs the title of the Tal Memorial for the second time in a row.
Join us at the Chess Party! The 7th Tal Memorial starts Friday, June the 8th, and it will be one of the most amazing chess events ever. Last year the young Norwegian numero 1 Magnus Carlsen and the super-strong Armenian Levon Aronian finished on top, with Magnus getting the first place by a narrow tiebreak (most games played with black). This year, the category XXI tournament - 2777 average rating, according to the unofficial rating list - promises to be something no chess lover can afford to miss!
The 41-year old "Tiger of Madras" has been once again able to unsheathe his claws and grab his 5th World Title. After an epic struggle, that led the two contestants to a 6.0/6.0 tie after 12 games, Anand went on to retain his title by winning the tiebreak rapid games. The regular games have been characterized by a show of deep home preparation by Anand and Gelfand, that has somehow paralyzed the play, with the reigning champion and the challenger trying to explore new paths only when the games were clearly equal.
And here we go! US Championship and World Championship Match start this week, and all the chess fans are impatiently longing to witness these much awaited events. ICC Chess.FM will have live broadcast for both events, with its international "dream team" of GMs commenting live on the games: Joel Benjamin, Ronen Har-Zvi, Alex Yermolinsky, Jonathan Speelman, David Smerdon, Larry Christiansen, Jon Ludvig Hammer, Miguel Illescas, Gawain Jones, Ben Finegold and Varuzhan Akobian.
A great week of chess is just over. The interesting and enthralling match between #3 Vladimir Kramnik and #2 Levon Aronian finished with the result of 3.0-3.0. IT was an event that we could call "The semi-Berlin Challenge" instead of "The Zurich Challenge": 3 games out of 6 were indeed played with the Berlin variation of the Ruy Lopez, and two with the QGD semi-Slav.
Here we are, the elite chess season is finally starting! After months of "minor events", Saturday April the 21st Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik start their so-much awaited match. Six games that, given the friendly nature of the match, promise to show fireworks and Bengala lights on the board
Are you ready? The great season is going to start. After months of minor tournaments - mostly opens in Europe - we are now approaching the season of elite events. As a luxurious hors d'oeuvre ICC relayed the top boards from the European Team Championship which, with all the GMs from the home country, plus all the players from the former republics and other nations, is nearly as impressive as an Olympiad. Some of the teams actually have rosters that average over 2700!
After 4 rounds, English GM Gawain Jones - Verdenotte in ICC - was the sole leader of the European Individual Chess Championship, with 4/4. Gawain, playing black in the 4th round, managed to defeat GM Boris Savchenko from Russia - B-Savchenko in ICC, in a popular line of the Sicilian Dragon. The impressive rating performance for the young English talent at that point was 3317!
The picturesque small country called Bulgaria - which has existed for more than 13 centuries in Europe - is famous among chess fans mostly because it is the native land of the great champion Veselin Topalov. This year Bulgaria is going to be home of the European Individual Chess Championship, from March 19 to April 1. Click here for information.
The Reykjavik Open is halfway through, and it's proving to be an interesting tournament. Fabiano Caruana - Adaptation in ICC (currently #6 in the unofficial rating list), David Navara, Robert Hess - RLH2 in ICC, Gawain Jones - VerdeNotte in ICC, Ivan Cheparinov - Inch in ICC, Ivan Sokolov - VegaSicilia in ICC, and the reigning Women World Champion Hou Yifan - Fanny in ICC make this strong Open an intriguing event to follow. ICC is broadcasting the games, with many GMs and IMs commenting and kibitzing (Hikaru Nakamura - CapilanoBridge in ICC and Ronen Har-Zvi - Indiana-Jones in ICC - among others)!
FIDE has published the March Rating list. Three men lead the pack, in the super-exclusive elite group "over 2800". Numero Uno Magnus Carlsen keeps his January rating, after a convincing performance at the Tata Steel, scoring a more than respectable +3.
In the first series of his new show, "Learn how to Win with GM Boris!", GM Alterman illustrates the power of passed pawns. As the great Aron Nimzowitsch said: "A passed pawn is a criminal which should be kept under lock and key. Mild measures, such as police surveillance, are not sufficient."
After the elite events that have kept us glued to the screen in the last few months - Tal Memorial, London and Tata Steel - it's now Open season! We all are waiting for the crucial match that will take place in May, and will give us the new World Chess Champion. Here is info about it (http://www.chessclub.com/finger/WorldChamp12).
After two excellent results in Reggio Emilia and Wijk aan Zee, where he finished as runner-up, we all thought that the young American-Italian stud would have taken a deserved break, enjoying his new amazing position as No 10 in the top unofficial rating list. But "the Fab" Fabiano decided to go from the heaven of elite events to the muddy and slippery ground of the Open tournaments, as he's participating to the 11th Aeroflot Open, in a freezing Moscow.
Reigning Women's World Champion Hou - who faced seven elite grandmasters rated 2700 or over - wowed the chess world with a performance that was pure Polgaresque in itself. As well as wins over chess legends Judit Polgar (the first time Polgar has lost to a woman since 1992 - to her eldest sister, Susan - when she was just 16) and Alexei ‘Fire on Board' Shirov, she also beat Zoltan Almasi and Le Quang Liem, and drew with Adams and Mamedyarov for a tournament performance rating that went off the Richter scale for a woman at an astonishing 2872.
Will this be the year when the world No.2, Levon Aronian, finally emerges from the shadows of Magnus Carlsen? The Armenian has often been overlooked with the rise of the Norwegian world No.1 - but he's more than made his mark by winning the first major of 2012 at the 74th Tata Steel Chess tournament, in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands.
It's Levon Aronian's tournament to lose! After beating the Dutch no1, Anish Giri, in round 10, the amenable Armenian World no.2 now has an impressive +5 score at the top on 7.5/10, a full point ahead of his nearest rival, Vassily Ivanchuk, who leapfrogged Magnus Carlsen in the standings after beating cellar-dweller David Navara.
A tournament battle between the world nos 1 and 2 have always played a part of historic showdowns in the chess annals, and a modern-day classic is developing at Tata Steel 2012 in Wijk aan Zee, as Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian share the lead on 3/4 at the first rest day of the tournament.
"Supergrandmaster" tournaments don't always deliver the excitement that the name implies, but the tiny hamlet of Wijk aan Zee on the Dutch north coast has always lived up to the billing - and this year the Tata Steel Chess Tournament will be no different than any of the others in the long and storied history of what has always been regarded as the first - and many would argue the most important - major of the year.
When the chess rating system was established in 1971 by Professor Arpad Elo, it contained the names of 600 players. In the January 2012 list that heralds in the new year, the number has grown to over 83,000. Top of the heap on the new list is again Magnus Carlsen of Norway -- and he's been numero uno now since Jan.1 2010.
It's the 12 Days of Giveaways, with FREE ICC apps for download this holiday season! Everyone will be looking to play at the best online chess club as they receive gifts of new iPhones, iPads and Android phones.
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