 Magical Linex!
Spanish champions Linex Magic, led by US No.1 Gata Kamsky, managed to conjure up two timely victories in the closing rounds of the super-strong European Club Cup featuring most of the world's elite players to clinch the title for the first time.
After moving into the sole lead by beating Tomsk-400 in the penultimate round, the Merida-based team went on to win the cup with an emphatic 4-2 final round victory over Economist SGSEU-1 Saratov. Linex Magic, who won six games from seven, and drawing just one, scored 13/14 match points with a tally of 28.5 board points. A point behind in second place on 12/14 was Ural Sverdlovskaya, with shared third place on 11/14 going to Tomsk-400 and top seeds OSC Baden-Baden.
The winning team was a truly cosmopolitan outfit.
Although Kamsky had a bad start, he soon came to the fore in the final rounds for Linex Magic by drawing with Alexander Morozevitch and beating Evgeny Alekseev. Other notable individual performances include: Krishnan Sasikiran (Baden-Baden) with the best score on top board on 6/7 (85.7%) and a TPR of 2806; and veteran Rafael Vaganian (Bank King) scoring the overall highest performance rating of the tournament with 2904 for his unbeaten score of 4.5/5. Also another notable performance came in the women's section, as GM Humpy Koneru led Monte-Carlo to victory with a dominant top-board score of 5.5/6 and a 2800 TPR!
Picture provided by the Turkish Chess Federation.
Visit the official European Club Cup 2007 web site.
East vs West Showdown!
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 US Chess League 2007 - Week 8
 Monday and Wednesday [19:00 EDT | 01:00 CET] 
Follow all the top US stars in action every week at the United States
Chess League, hosted exclusively by the ICC! The USCL, with ICC
favorites such as Hikaru Nakamura (New York Knights), Larry
Christiansen (Boston Blitz) and Joel Benjamin (New Jersey Knockouts)
has just completed its seventh week of the season, and already the
league is a-buzz with who is going to grab those crucial November
playoff spots! The USCL is held every Monday & Wednesday starting
from 19:00 EDT and shown live on ICC.
Get all the latest at the US Chess League web site.
Next week's fixtures on ICC include:
WEEK 8 -
Monday October 15th
- New York Knights vs Queens Pioneers 19:00 ET
Wednesday October 17th
- New Jersey Knockouts vs Boston Blitz 19:00 ET
- Baltimore Kingfishers vs Philadelphia Inventors 19:15 ET
- Miami Sharks vs Tennessee Tempo 20:00 ET
- Carolina Cobras vs San Francisco Mechanics 20:30 ET
- Dallas Destiny vs Seattle Sluggers 21:00 ET
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| EASTERN DIVISION |
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WESTERN DIVISION |
| TEAM |
W |
L |
Points |
| Boston |
5.0 |
2.0 |
17.0/28 |
| Philadelphia |
4.0 |
3.0 |
13.5/28 |
| Baltimore |
3.5 |
3.5 |
14.5/28 |
| New Jersey |
3.5 |
3.5 |
14.0/28 |
| New York |
3.0 |
4.0 |
13.0/28 |
| Queens |
3.0 |
4.0 |
12.5/28 |
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| TEAM |
W |
L |
Points |
| Dallas |
5.0 |
2.0 |
16.5/28 |
| Seattle |
4.5 |
2.5 |
17.0/28 |
| Carolina |
3.5 |
3.5 |
14.0/28 |
| San Francisco |
3.0 |
4.0 |
15.0/28 |
| Miami |
2.5 |
4.5 |
12.0/28 |
| Tennessee |
1.5 |
5.5 |
9.0/28 |
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Ask the Renaissance Man |
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Tune-in for "Ask the Renaissance Man" with National Master Dan Heisman
every Thursday at 21:00 EDT. Click "Play Video" for a free 5 minute
preview of Dan's latest show. To listen to the full show, sign up for
membership now! You send in the questions and Dan provides the
answers every week on his Q&A show. Questions on tournament rules,
opening play, chess books, chess politics, current events, and more!
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GM Joel Benjamin "Game of the Week"
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Game of the Week
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New on ICC Chess.FM! Three-time U.S. Champion GM Joel Benjamin starts
his weekly show every Friday at 15:00 Server Time. Click "Play Video"
for a free 5 minute preview of Joel's latest show. To listen to the
full show, sign up for membership!
Joel is regarded by many as one of the best commentators and
analysts' we have in the game today, and each Friday he will be
giving us his insight and spin with his selection of Game of the Week.
This is a not-to-be-missed 30-minute video is exclusively for ICC
members only -- so if you want to get ahead of the game, get ready to
tune-in! By popular demand and requests from members, ALL of Joel
Benjamin's GOTW videos are available. Enjoy!
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Chess Talk with IM John Watson |
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Tune-in for Chess Talk with IM John Watson on ICC Chess.FM. Click "Play Video" for a free 5 minute preview of John's latest show with GM Jan Timman. To listen to the full show, sign up for membership now!
Nine-time Dutch champion Timman is regarded as one of the leading grandmasters' of his generation. In the 1980s and early 1990s he was considered the best non-Soviet player and known as "The Best of the West". He twice reached the final of the Candidates, losing to Karpov in 1990 and Short in 1992. When Short and Kasparov broke away from FIDE, Timman was promoted to contest the FIDE world championship against Karpov, but he lost 8.5-12.5.
As one of the two highly respected editors-in-chief for New In Chess, Timman's writings on the game are said by many to be precise and conscientious, together with a rare objectivity and obvious desire to get at the truth behind the critical position in each game.
John's guest next week (16th Oct.) will be Howard Goldowsky, author
of the new book Engaging Pieces: Interviews and Prose for the Chess Fan.
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 Crazyhouse (w23) Championships!
 It's time to get crazy! Type "Help Crazyhouse" for more information on this chess variant. From October 19-24, qualifiers will be held for this year's w23 championships!
There will be two sections, 1 0 bullet, and 3 0 blitz. In the bullet section, each qualifier will be 12 rounds long. The top 3 finishers in each qualifier will advance to the finals. In addition, the next 4 finishers in the series who didn't otherwise qualify will be added to the final.
The blitz section will have 7 round qualifiers, with the same rules regarding who advances to the finals. Will anyone be able to dethrone last year's champions, Nitz and SongLo209? Stay tuned to find out!
Weekday Blitz If you've never played in the Weekday Blitz, you don't even know what you're missing! One of ICC's longest running scheduled tourneys, the weekday blitz features two 5 round blitz tourneys with 5 0 time control beginning at 11:30 and 13:00 server time (type "date" to see server time).
A very popular tourney, the weekday attracts up to 100 players and features several titled players every day. Weekly and monthly prizes are awarded to the top finishers and those who played the most games.
Type "Finger Weekday" for more info and type "Finger TomatoWinners" to see the weekday prize winners from last month.
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 Tourney Tip of the Week:
Tiebreaks!
We often get questions about how positions are decided in "tied" tourneys. When two players finish with the same score, the following tiebreaks are used:
- Sum of score of opponents (tiebreak points)
(Can be seen with "tell <bot> grid")
- Average Rating of opponents
- Random number given at start of the tourney.
Most of the time, the first tiebreak is able to settle the issue. Sometimes, it comes down to the second tiebreak. Very rarely does the third tiebreak come into play. So remember to keep an eye on your tiebreak points as the tourney progresses!
 15 0 Standard Championship!
Standard players, it's time for you to shine! Who will be this year's standard champion? We're about to find out!
Qualifiers will be held every day from October 13-18. Each qualifier will be a 6 round swiss tourney, with the top 5 finishers advancing to the final on October 20.
In addition, the three finishers with the most points in all qualifiers, who didn't otherwise qualify, will also advance to the finals.
There will be an open section and an u2000 section.
So come on out and take your best shot! Become an ICC Champion! Look-up qualifier times. |
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Informator 99
Every volume of Chess Informant offers a selection of the best games played by the world's greatest chess players. Over 90% of the games are annotated by the players who played them. The classification code system facilitates the search by openings and variations, and the system of annotation signs and symbols is perfectly understandable to everyone. Read
more
Price $37.95 - Buy
now!
King's Gambit: A son, a father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game - Paul Hoffman
King's Gambit is part memoir and part an insider's look at the obsessive subculture of tournament chess and the crazy behavior that the game brings out in professionals and amateurs alike.
Read
more
Price $23.95 - Buy
now!
Chess Opening Essentials - Djuric and Panteleoni
An accessible primer and opening reference book, providing es sential knowledge on all chess openings. It explains the basic plans and ideas for both black and white. It gives beginners the ability to choose the openings that suit their style and taste, and gives club players the opportunity to test and review their opening repertoire. Chess Opening Essentials gives a flavour of how a particular opening works, with pointers in the right direction if you wish to explore further.
Read
more
Price $28.95 - Buy
now!
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Complete Chess Workout, The - Richard Palliser
In this book, tactics expert Richard Palliser presents the reader with a massive 1200 puzzles, all checked for accuracy by the latest computer engines. There is something for players of all levels here: a huge number of basic tactics - forks, pins, skewers and checkmates - to appeal to beginners and improvers, and several brain-teasers that will tax even the strongest of players.
Read more
Price $27.95 - Buy
now!
Encyclopedia of Chess Openings - Vol. 1
 The 5th edition of Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings C is made up mostly of the games, analysis and assessments of leading Grandmasters. The focus is put on games played recently and published in Chess Informant, as well as, other publications.
Accompanied with the set of following Monographs of Chess Openings: C 05-06, C 18-19, C 42, C 43, C 78, C 80-81, C 82, C 83, C 89, C 92-93 and C 94-95.
Read
more
Price $39.00
- Buy
now!
Chess Praxis - Aron Nimzovitch NEW EDITION
Chess Praxis is a superb collection of Nimzovitch's best games and annotated by the man himself, but it is even more than that. Nimzovitch and his hypermodern ideas had a huge influence on modern chess thinking, views which were first expounded in My Sytem. In this follow up, he demonstrates and explains how his concepts work his own own games.
Read
more
Price $29.95 - Buy
now!
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Michael Adams, 4.5
Sergey Rublevsky, 5.5
Gabriel Sargissian, 4.5
Ivan Cheparinov, 6
Manuel Perez Candelario, 5
