London's Burning!

London's burning with chess fever right now, as the famous capital city gets set to host the strongest tournament ever to be held in the UK, with the year-ending elite spectacular of the 3rd London Chess Classic running 3-12 December.

The stellar line-up includes world #1 Magnus Carlsen, world champion Vishy Anand, Levon Aronian, and ex-world champion Vladimir Kramnik; also in the mix there's the US #1 Hikaru Nakamura, plus the English quartet of Michael Adams, Nigel Short, Luke McShane, and David Howell.

And coming so soon after the Tal Memorial, there's bound to be scores to settle and reputations to protect in the final elite tournament of 2011. Will Carlsen stay ahead of Aronian at the top of the world rankings? Can Anand and Kramnik stay in the "2800 club"?And after his disastrous cellar-dweller performance in Moscow, will Nakamura storm back to stay in the Top Ten? Or, like McShane last year, will one of the English underdogs rise to the occasion with a shock result?

You can find all the answers to those questions and many more besides here on ICC, as the the Chess.FM team gets ready to bring to you the very best in live commentary action during each round of the London Chess Classic. And to mark the occasion, we'll also be having "Svidler Saturdays" with World Cup winner and six-time Russian Champion, Peter Svidler joining host Yasser Seirawan on the opening Saturday, 3rd December, and on the following Saturday, 10th December - so book those dates in your diary now!

Play gets underway at 9am ICC each round (with the exception of round 4 being at 11am, and the final round at 7am), and the full Chess.FM schedule is listed below.We'll also have the daily live trivia on the show to win prizes of one and 3 months ICC membership, plus the Game of the Day (hosted by GM Suat Atalik) trivia, where each day ICC members have the chance to win a 1-year subscription to New in Chess magazine!

Schedule

Date	Host	Analyst
Sat., 3 Dec	GM Yasser Seirawan OM	GM Peter Svidler p-svidler
Sun., 4 Dec	GM Yasser Seirawan OM	GM Alex Yermolinsky Sweere
Mon., 5 Dec	GM Ronen Har-Zvi Indiana-Jones	GM Joel Benjamin MrHat
Tue., 6 Dec	GM Yasser Seirawan OM	GM Larry Christiansen LarryC
Thu., 8 Dec	GM Yasser Seirawan OM	GM Joel Benjamin MrHat
Fri., 9 Dec	GM Yasser Seirawan OM	GM Jon Speelman Speelman
Sat., 10 Dec	GM Yasser Seirawan OM	GM Peter Svidler p-svidler
Sun., 11 Dec	GM Yasser Seirawan OM	GM Alex Yermolinsky Sweere
Mon., 12 Dec	GM Yasser Seirawan OM	GM Larry Christiansen LarryC

Twitter vs The London 9

The highest level game of chess ever played on Twitter will launch the 3rdLondon Chess Classic at Olympia.The game will begin at 14.45 UK time 09.45 EST on Friday 2 Decemberat the conclusion of the opening press conference.

All Twitter users will be challenged to a game against the nine grandmasters competing in the strongest tournament ever staged in the UK. The London Chess Classic line-up includes the world's top four players; world champion Vishy Anand, world number one Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian ranked three, and former world champion Vladimir Kramnik. Prolific chess 'tweeter' Hikaru Nakamura will be making some moves, as will the four English GMs in the field; Michael Adams, Nigel Short, Luke McShane and David Howell.

The game can be followed on @londonclassic and moves should be sent with #lccvworld.The live board will be viewable at www.londonchessclassic.com/live.lccvworld.htm or http://tinyurl.com/dyqjlww.

GM Akobian's "French Connections" - Episode 1

GM Akobian's "French Connections" - Episode 1

The Holiday season is always a favorite time of the year to watch The French Connection, and here on ICC Chess.FM, we have our own version of the cult classic with a new 5-part series from GM Varuzhan "Popeye" Akobian based on his own ideas and repertoire as a lifelong French Defense maven.

Part one of Akobian's French Connections is free for all to view - join ICC today by clicking here to view the other four videos in this series.

ChessFM Videos

One of the great benefits of ICC (apart from all the top-notch online play and tournaments) in recent years has been the upgrade in our popular Chess.FM service - many members agree that the live Chess.FM commentary plus GOTDs from our elite tournament coverage, and our regular weekly shows alone is worthy of their membership fee.

As a member, you also have access each day throughout the year to our regular weekly shows:

Day	Show	Host
Sunday	Every Russian Schoolboy Knows	GM Alex Yermolinsky
Monday	Ronens Opening Survey	GM Ronen Har-Zvi
Tuesday	Beyond the Opening	IM John Watson
Wednesday	Attack with LarryC	GM Larry Christiansen
Thursday	Gambit Guide	GM Boris Alterman
Friday	Game of the Week	GM Joel Benjamin
Saturday	Improve Your Chess	NM Dan Heisman

Join ICC today to enjoy the entire library of ICC videos.

ICC Network

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ICC has now revamped its Facebook page - and we've had a great response from members and non-members looking to take part in the activities there, where we'll shortly be offering prizes and special membership offers.

On offer will be free Chess.FM video content and ICC membership extensions - and for non-members who have enjoyed in the past free ICC trials that have expired, look to our Facebook page for exclusive extra free trial times! We'll also have all the latest ICC news and tournament results as well as some fun caption competitions. And all coming soon as we continually update our Facebook page!

Go to Facebook now and click on our "like" button now - and what's not to be liked about ICC!

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