Chess news for week ending May 1

[Jack Rabbit]

Sverdlovsk wins Russian Club Championship

The Ural Sverdlovsk team won a narrow victory over TPS Saransk and Tomsk-400 in the Russian Club Championship held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that ended earlier today.

The Sverdlovsk and Saransk teams each scored 17 team points out of a possible 22, but the Sverdlovsk players scored a total of 38 individual points against 37½ for Saransk. The Tomsk team scored 16 team points and 38 individual points. The four place team, Termosteps Samara, scored 14 team points. All four teams earned the right to advance to the European Club Cup later this year.

The Sverdlovsk team was headed by grandmaster Alexander Grischuk on the top board, but it was Alexei Shirov on the second board who was the team's high scorer with 6½ points. Shirov's best game was this effort with Black against Sergei Rublevsky of the Tomsk club.

Saransk was led on the top board by Vassily Ivanchuk, who scored 6½ points to lead those playing for the top board. Ivankchuk turned in this pretty game, featuring a speculative-looking Queen sacrifice, against Tomsk's Levon Aronian.

Evgeny Nojer, who played the third board for Saransk, was the high scorer among all players with 8 points. Nojer's finest game was against Dmitry Jakovenko of Tomsk.

Carlsen and van Wely draw short match in Holland

Magnus Carlsen of Norway, at 15 one of the world's youngest grandmasters, drew a four-game match with Dutch grandmaster Loek van Wely earlier in the week in the Dutch town of Schagen. Van Wely won the first game with the White pieces, but Carlsen bounced back to win the second game. The remaining two games ended in draws.

The best game of the match was Carlsen's second round victory.

Chess Oscar for 2005 goes to Topalov



In an announcement that came as no surprise, FIDE world champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria won the 2005 Chess Oscar, awarded by the Russian magazine 64 to the chess player of the year. Viswanathan Anand of India finished second in the balloting.

In 2005, Topalov finished second in Linares, Spain, to retiring former world champion Garry Kasparov in March, scored a clear victory at a strong international tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria, in May and easily won an tournament featuring eight of the strongest players in the world to claim the FIDE version of the world championship in San Luis, Argentina, in October.

Topalov is scheduled to play match against classical world champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in September in Elista, Russia, in order to reunify the world title for the first time since 1993.

One of Topalov's best games of 2005 is this victory in the Sofia tournament over Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukriane.

Veselin Topalov from ChessBase.com.

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Addendum

Krasnoturyinsk wins women's Russian Club Championship

The ABC Krasnoturyinsk team lead by Bulgarian grandmaster Antoaneta Stefanova easily won the women's division of the Russian Club Championship in Sochi last week with 21 out of 22 team points.



Tatiana Kosintseva

Ms. Stefanova, playing top board, personally scored 6 points, but the team's high scorer was Nadezhda Kosintseva with 9½ points on the third board, while her younger sister, Tatiana Kosintseva, scored 7 points on board 2. Tatiana turned in a beautiful game featuring a Queen sacrifice in the second round against Olga Dolgova of the Vladivostok team.

Tatiana Kosintseva from ChessBase.com.

[Twillig]

2. Good Grief! Ivanchuk is The Pride and Sorrow of Chess!

The guy can lay a smackdown on the best in the world at anytime, (cf. Kasparov and here world #3 Aronian) and fall to pieces (pardon the pun) the next game.


My pitiful database (all downloads from TWIC) says that 15.h3 is a novelty. In the Ruy Lopez! The most played opening in the history of the universe--Analyzed out to moves into the endgame, etc., etc. Chess ain't dead yet.

Oh yeah, on to my quibble. Carlsen--at the moment--is the youngest grandmaster. The second youngest in history. He is Fearsome at blitz, as all young players seem to be (as all of us old patzers will attest) but his 3 1/2-0.5 smackdown of Van Wely in the tie-break and his 2-0 defeat of Vishy Anand(in Reykjavik), of all people, point to something to be reckoned with.

All the great talents were Fearsome at blitz.

He needs to buy a suit with his winnings, though.


'Why must I lose to this idiot?'

:-)

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen was born Novmember 30, 1990. He became a grandmaster at age 13 in 2004.

The youngest grandmaster in history is Sergey Karjakin, who gained the title at the age of 12½. Sergey is now 16.

Kateryna Lahno is the youngest lady to gain the title women's grandmaster (WGM). She was 12. Katja is also now 16.

Judit Polgar is the youngest lady ever to receive an unqualified title of grandmaster. She was 15. At the time she received the title in 1991, she was also the youngest grandmaster in history. Prior to that, the record was held by Bobby Fischer, who was about three months older than Ms. Polgar when he won the title of grandmaster in 1958. I think he's still 15.



Magnus Carlsen vs. Katja Lahno, Class C, Wijk aan Zee, January 2004 (ChessCenter)