It began as a small event but its fame grew steadily, and today it has become an internationally popular chess festival which attracts hundreds of player, many with top rankings. This year there are over fifty GMs, eleven of them rated above 2700 Elo. At the opening there was some special news of philatelists. In round one the top seeds all won their games.

Gibraltar Chess Festival is taking place from Tuesday, 24th January to Thursday, 2nd February 2012 at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The occasion, which is open to all, is the tenth in the series held on the Rock, the second to be support by Tradewise Insurance. The rate of play: 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 20 moves in 50 minutes plus 15 minutes for all enduring moves with 30 seconds per move added from the start.

The festival can be followed online thanks to the scientific back-up of Gibtelecom, Gibraltar’s main telecommunications provider, whose loyal support over ten years has been essential to the festival’s development and success.

The Gibraltar International Chess Festival began as a much smaller event in 2003. Its reputation has grown year on year, and today well over 300 participants, players of all levels, return to the Rock every January, many calling Gibraltar their favourite event on the chess calendar. For eleven days the festival venue is changed into a hive of chess activity. Arriving here from all corners of the world, players can be sure that old friendships will be renewed, and – win or lose – new ones made.

At the opening reception on Monday night Gibraltar Culture and Sports Minister Steven Linares welcomed all the players and thanked them for coming to the Rock to play in the tournament. Tournament director, Stuart Conquest, addressed the familiar faces in the gathering in the main hall by opening with well wishes for a winning competition from the current World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand. It was then up to Miss Gibraltar 2011, Michelle Gillingwater Pedersen, to draw the pairings for the opening top six games.

No.	Title	Name	Rtg	Result	Title	Name	Rtg	No.
1	GM	Svidler Peter	2749	1-0	IM	Houska Jovanka	2414	75
73	IM	Molina Roberto Junio Brito	2415	0-1	GM	Mamedyarov Shakhriyar	2747	2
3	GM	Adams Michael	2724	1-0	GM	Zhukova Natalia	2426	70
69	IM	Aloma Vidal Robert	2431	0-1	GM	Almasi Zoltan	2717	4
5	GM	Le Quang Liem	2714	1-0	IM	Karim Ismael	2405	79
74	IM	Astaneh Lopez Alex	2414	0-1	GM	Polgar Judit	2710	6
7	GM	Shirov Alexei	2710	½-½	IM	Lyrberg Patrik	2435	68
71	GM	Bellon Lopez Juan Manuel	2422	0-1	GM	Laznicka Viktor	2704	8
9	GM	Sutovsky Emil	2703	0-1	IM	Hanley Craig A	2421	72
76	IM	Lund Silas	2414	0-1	GM	Movsesian Sergei	2700	10
11	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	2700	1-0	IM	Quillan Gary	2409	77
78	IM	Getz Nicolai	2408	0-1	GM	Vachier-Lagrave Maxime	2699	12
13	GM	Sargissian Gabriel	2683	1-0	IM	Nezad Husein Aziz	2402	80
81	IM	Alvarez Marquez Johann	2398	0-1	GM	Bologan Viktor	2680	14
15	GM	Short Nigel D	2677	1-0	IM	Melia Salome	2398	82
83	IM	Bosboom Manuel	2394	0-1	GM	Fridman Daniel	2660	16
17	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2652	0-1	FM	Kuipers Stefan	2391	84

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In an amazing finish to the 2011/12 Reggio Emilia competition, Anish Giri’s draw in the final round against Fabiano Caruana was sufficient to earn the title as both Hikaru Nakamura and Alexander Morozevich lost their last games.

Vassily Ivanchuk awoke from his frightening second half of the event to defeat long-time leader Nakamura. It was Nakamura third loss in a row, and all the sweeter for Ivanchuk after his loss to Naka in round five when he could and should have won.

Alexander Morozevich’s creative style, constantly seeking difficult and complicated positions finally backfired when failed to find the right path against Nikita Vitiugov and missed his chance to take success in the event.

So 17 year-old Anish Giri earns a memorable first major competition victory with 16 points, one point ahead of Nakamura, Morozevich and Caruana. It was a remarkably enjoyable tournament, with 70% of board games ending determinedly, and more wins with black than white. In just a week’s time Ivanchuk, Nakamura, Giri and Caruana will feature in the Tata Steel A Group tournament, where Nakamura will be defending the title he won last year.

The final scores in Reggio Emilia:

San Sebastian chess was won by Andrei Volokitin of the Ukraine. This year’s Festival obvious the anniversary of the historic super-tournaments held in San Sebastian in 1911 and 1912.The time control was 2 hours for all moves plus a 30 second increment. In the concluding stages of the contest Volokitin beat Ruslan Ponomariov in the quarter-finals, Leinier Dominguez in the semi-finals, and Viktor Laznika in the final.

In the final Laznika lost due to time pressure in his game with the black pieces and then blundered the exchange with white in the other game. Andrei Volokitin wins €20,000 and a motorbike for his efforts!

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Benefits of Board Games
Along with playing cards, board games are the most general and popular games in almost every culture in the world. Ancient findings in Egypt reveal board games that date back thousands of years. Board games were staple forms of activity in ancient civilizations. The tombs of royal leaders and their families have been found to have early board games believed to be the favorite games of these late families.

Generally, board games became popular only in the late 20th century. The Middle class catapulted board games to another level, and these games became more original, creative and fun. They are also the ones who had time and extra money to spend on board gaming. Modern board gaming today uses the help of technology to further push its ability of entertaining as well as competitiveness among its players. Online board games are slowly gaining in popularity world wide, and you can battle in chess or even play scrabble with a group of people that you haven’t meet individually on other side of the world.

Types:
There are many types of board games, and they are mostly encouraged by true social situations. Take for example Monopoly, where you have play money, and you use this money to acquire assets and properties, and sell other acquisitions. This is a recreation of the business of real estate in an economic backdrop. Chess is the most popular and oldest known strategy game, and is considered as a sport where you expect your opponent’s next move to win the game.

History:
Board games, as defined by the name itself, are games based on carrom boards. Players use boards as a stage and with the aid of other equipments such as dice, timers, and other pieces that would enhance the game. Others would be as complicated as monopoly, where dices and pieces only make up a small part of the game. In addition to this, some games would be a simple as a marker and a dice such as the game of luck in snakes and ladders.

Basically, board games are divided into three types of games: luck, strategy, and knowledge. Board games based on luck are generally controlled by dice. The winner is usually determined by the one who can happily roll the desired number on the dice. Games of plan on the other hand are a game of wits, skills, and logic. People who excel in this type of game truly excel, and a game of chance will not change their skills in any way. There are also games that need the player to be educated on certain topics like quizmasters and scrabble.

There are also board games that do not need only luck but also strategy in all aspects of the game. A classic example of this is monopoly, where a dice is rolled and players try to create an empire within the carrom board. It was only during the 20th century that board games started to be known by everyone, even though they were created even before the birth of Christ. It was after World War II that people became more attracted in the board games that were available at that time. The rise of board game was due to the increasing middle class. People opening to have more time of their own, and they started to look for games that would not require them to sweat.

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Magnus Carlsen of Norway was the favourite on form to win the London Classic Chess after seven rounds; Luke McShane of England had the best tiebreak; but it was the third joint leader Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, who provided the star turn towards the end of the competition. The Russian took a careful draw against Levon Aronian of Armenia in the last round on Monday and logged 16 points to finish clear first.

Hikaru Nakamura of US bounced back in the last round to rout tailender Michael Adams of England in the ninth and last round to gather 15 points for second place while Magnus Carlsen could mix out only a draw after 77 moves against Nigel Short of England and had to be content with the third place. Luke McShane of England (13 points) came fourth with a short draw in opposition to Viswanathan Anand, who completed fifth ahead of Levon Aronian on tiebreak.

Kramnik defeated Luke McShane in a long struggle and surged into sole lead with 15 points, two points clear of Carlsen in second place and three ahead of Hikaru Nakamura of US and Luke McShane. Kramnik was the only one to win in the penultimate round. The Russian finished the English rout when he beat McShane. David Howell finished his quota of eight board games with a draw with Levon Aronian after a long struggle. Aronian tried Pirc defence and could not make any headway after 54 moves though he was a pawn up in a rook and minor piece ending.

Nakamura and Short met in English Opening. The pawns shaped a solid line of defence across the board so that there was no breakthrough for either player. The position did not change much after 90 moves when the game was finally drawn. In the FIDE open that was played alongside the Classic, India enjoyed a good last round as top seed GM Abhijeet Gupta finished first with eight points from nine rounds. IM Sahaj Grover came second with 7.5 points while Arghyadip Das was joint third with seven points.

Classic final placings:
1. Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) 16,
2. Hikaru Nakamura (US) 15,
3. Magnus Carlsen (Norway) 14,
4. Luke McShane (England) 13,
5. Vishy Anand (Ind) 9,
6. Levon Aronian (Armenia) 9,
7. Nigel Short (England) 6,
8. David Howell (England) 4,
9. Michael Adams (England) 3

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Playing with black pieces, Grand Master Koneru Humpy played her second successive draw against defending champion Yifan Hou of China in the second game of the Women’s World Chess championship. Having drawn the first game as white, Humpy ensured that the balance remained unbroken with a further fine piece of preparation.

Interestingly, for the second day running, the Indian was calling the shots as Yifan was totally surprised in the opening and got nothing with her white pieces. The score moved to 1-1 and with eight more board games to come in the 200,000 Euros championship, Humpy appears to have taken the emotional advantage.

The third game will now be played on Wednesday. It was a Petroff defense by Humpy. Yifan concede that she was not ready for such tactics.I didn’t expect Russian defense, so I did not prepare much for it,Yifan said. The Chinese exhausted about eighteen minutes on the ninth move and went for the castling on opposite flanks. However, just a few moves later, Yifan went for the trading of queens which led to a entirely equal endgame.

Further simplifications were important when Humpy rolled down her queenside passed pawns and the Indian gained an unimportant advantage too in the process. Yifan had to make a few correct moves to make sure parity and she did that without much ado. The game was drawn in 42 moves.It was totally equal, white did not get anything from the opening. So I went to the ending that is nothing for White but then I think I played not very well and gave the advantage to the opponent,Yifan admitted after the game.

Humpy was also of the view that there was not much for her.I was trying to press on the queenside but it was more or less equal.The Championship has taken its present – match-format – avatar after a gap of 12-years and according to experts this has been a perfect start for Humpy. The Indian has been high on training and should the trend continue, 17 year old Yifan is likely to face more heat in the coming games.

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