Hunting High and Low...with Magnus

Magnus Carlsen is definitely now the biggest thing to come out of Norway since pop trio A-ha spawned worldwide hits during the mid-1980s. But in a country with next to no formal chess tradition, there definitely seems to be a chess boom brewing among the fjords on the back of Magnus mania.

The Arctic city of Tromsø has now become the favored candidate city to host the 2014 Chess Olympiad. And more tournaments are springing up with sponsors keen to support, not only Carlsen, but also the game in general.

The latest is the Arctic Securities Chess Stars, which runs 28th-30th August, in Kristiansund. It features an impressive cast of Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, Judit Polgar and Jon Ludvig Hammer - who will all do battle in a rapid (20 min + 10 sec), two-stage event, with a double round robin between the quartette followed by the top two going forward to Monday's final.

There's live web-tv coverage of all the action on the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation website http://bit.ly/chessnrk - and ICC will also have live coverage. Play gets underway Saturday and Sunday here on ICC at 8:00am ET and Monday at 8:30am ET.

So join ICC now by clicking here for all the best live action from the Arctic Securities Chess Stars.

USCL 2010 - Week 1

The opening week of the 2010 USCL season brought many surprise results as the underdogs scored well against the top seeds.

HIghlight of the opening week was New Jersey Knockouts getting KO'd by the Philadelphia Inventors, with their talisman scorer, GM Boris Gulko, who previously had a 8-0 record in the competition, going down in one of the most memorable upset defeats in the league's history, at the hands of FM Tom Bartell, who collects for himself the USCL Upset Prize sponsored by Endgame Clothing.

Meanwhile the defending champions, the New York Knights, scored an emphatic 4-0 victory over rivals Boston Blitz - a result that leaves a clear message to others that they intend to repeat their performance in winning the title last year.

All of the week one results can be found below. Go to USCL for all the full analysis, standings and MVP performances. Click on one of the team logos below to go straight to their homepage.

USCL matches are broadcast live only on ICC every Monday and Wednesday, starting from 7pm ET. Some of the top stars you will be able to watch in action throughout the new USCL season include: Hikaru Nakamura, Yury Shulman, Sergey Erenburg, Larry Christiansen, Alexander Stripunsky, Joel Benjamin, Boris Gulko, Alex Lenderman, Pascal Charbonneau, John Fedorowicz, Irina Krush, Alejandro Ramirez, Melikset Khachiyan, Julio Becerra, Patrick Wolff, Josh Friedel, Varuzhan Akobian and Gregory Serper!

So what are you waiting for? Come join ICC now by clicking here for all the best action from the new USCL season.

Monday, August 23rd

1. New York Knights vs Boston Blitz	4-0
2. Philadelphia Inventors vs New Jersey Knockouts	3-1
3. St. Louis Arch Bishops vs Los Angeles Vibe	1.5-2.5
4. Seattle Sluggers vs Chicago Blaze	1.5-2.5

Wednesday, August 25th

5. Manhattan Applesauce vs Carolina Cobras	2.5-1.5
6. New England Nor'easters vs Baltimore Kingfishers	2.5-1.5
7. San Francisco Mechanics vs Dallas Destiny	3.5-0.5
8. Miami Sharks vs Arizona Scorpions	1.5-2.5

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