In NH Chess Tournament Round 9 the Rising Stars post a 3-2 win over the Experience team. With a three-point lead and only one round to go the Experience team is close to overall victory. The last round will start on 31 aug at 12.00 o’clock local time.As always, the tournament is a argument between a team of five young Rising Stars and a team of five Experienced grandmasters.

Fabiano Caruana defeated Peter Svidler with the black piece close in on his colleague Rising Star Jan Smeets in the race for the Amber ticket. In the final round a draw will be sufficient for Smeets in his game against Van Wely as he has one complete point more than Caruana, who will face Ljubomir Ljubojevic. The second win for the Rising Stars was score by Daniel Stellwagen, who inflict Loek van Wely’s first loss. Alexander Beliavsky contribute only win for the Experience team by beating Hou Yifan.

With two rounds are their Fabiano Caruana faced the tough task of having to beat the top-seed of the Experience team, Peter Svidler, with the black pieces if he wanted to keep a academic chance to win the Amber ticket. With no wins to his name, that sounded like a tall task for the youthful Italian, but sometimes miracles happen. Afterwards Svidler blamed his loss on his casual time utilization in the opening. To reach the position after 21…Ne6, a place he had already had on the board in a previous game, he spent no less than one hour and ten minutes. Svidler knew that the endgame they reached was risky but he thought he would be in time to create sufficient counterplay. One of his moves that he criticize was 33.hxg5 after Black had pressed 32…g5. With enough time on the clock he force have put up fiercer resistance, now he simply collapsed in time-trouble and had to watch how Caruana invade his position, claim his first win and kept a theoretical chance to qualify for Amber.

This week FIDE available an almost complete list of qualifiers for the 2009 World Cup, planned for November 20-December 15 in Khanty-Maniysk, Russia. The winner cashes USD 120,000 and will be eligible for the Candidates stage of the World Championship cycle 2009-2011. The FIDE World Cup 2009 will be a knockout tournament of 128 players, apprehended from November 20th till December 15th 2009 in Khanty-Maniysk, Russia, just like the preceding two World Cups won by Levon Aronian and Gata Kamsky respectively.

Khanty-Mansiysk is an oil bang town in Russia, the managerial center of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. It is located on the Irtysh River, 15 km as of its confluence with the Ob. In addition the World Cups, Khanty-Mansiysk was the place of the 2003 Biathlon World Championships, and in 2005 the first Mixed Biathlon Relay (4×6 km) took place there.

World Cup format
There will be 6 rounds of matches comprise two 2 games per round, with the winners moving ahead to the next round, plus the final seventh (7th) round comprising of four (4) games.

1. Round 1: there will be 128 players
2. Round 2: there will be 64 players
3. Round 3: there will be 32 players
4. Round 4: there will be 16 players
5. Round 5: there will be 8 players
6. Round 6: there will be 4 players
7. Round 7: there will be 2 players

The time manage will be 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from move one. For the first 6 rounds, each competition will be played over 2 games and the winner of a match shall be the first player to score 1.5 or more points. The final 7th round will be a competition played over 4 games and the winner of the World Cup will be the first performer to score 2.5 or more points.

Filed under: Uncategorized — carromgear August 28, 2009 @ 10:30 am

In Round 6 of the NH Chess Tournament the Experience team maintain a two-point lead in their fight with the Rising Stars. Hikaru Nakamura is unmoving not in good physical shape and lost with White to Ljubomir Ljubojevic but Jan Smeets on the other hand, is close to charming the ticket for Amber 2010 after beating Beliavsky.The heroes of the day were Ljubomir Ljubojevic and Jan Smeets. Ljubojevic, the lowest rate performer on the Experience side scored his third win and now has the same top-score as top-seed Svidler. His casualty was Hikaru Namakura, who is still overwhelmed by health problems. Rising Star Smeets defeated out-of-form Alexander Beliavsky and hold outstanding prospects to win the ticket to the 2010 Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament in Nice. With four round to go the Dutch champ is 1½ points ahead of Caruana and 2 full points ahead of Nakamura.

Tomorrow the players will have one more free day due to festivities in the hotel that would make it firm for the management to guarantee the required peace and quiet for a chess tournament. The Round 7 will be played on Friday.Some of them stay at the hotel for rest and prepare, Peter Svidler (of course) went to watch the cricket match between the Netherlands and Afghanistan in Amstelveen, and four of the grandmasters joined an tour to the Schermer and Beemster polders and the picturesque villages of Volendam and Marken, where they visited a windmill, a cheese factory and various other attractions that are generally seen as typically Dutch.

Today it was production as usual again and at half past two in the afternoon the NH tournament was resumed in the Foyer Room of the Krasnapolsky hotel. The shortest game of the day was between Hou Yifan and Peter Svidler, which took only 18 moves and took for two and a half hours. The Russian champ secured himself with the Pirc Defence, but wasn’t too pleased with the position he ended up in. After these moves White could withdraw her queen to d2, but one more option was what she played, going for a somewhat better ending with 11.Qg5, when Black can’t avoid the queen swap. However, the finish was only somewhat worse for him and with a couple of precise moves he secured the draw, stress afterwards that in this position there were no chances whatsoever to fight on.

Daniel Stellwagen played an amusing game with Peter Heine Nielsen. In the opening, after 10…exd4, the Dutchman discarded the tame 11.Nxd4 with an edge, but opted for the more daring 11.cxd4. An vital move on Black’s side was 12…Bd7, which took the Danish grandmaster 50 minutes, a good asset according to Stellwagen. A few moves later the predictable piece sacrifice on g5 followed. Stellwagen supposed that the resulting endgame was somewhat better for him, but the longer he looked at the position, the more resources he saw for his opponent. When he took stock after 26 moves he completed that there was no advantage left whatsoever, and that he may even be worse, and offered a draw.

The good information of the day for the local fans was the win of Dutch Champion Jan Smeets against Alexander Beliavsky. The Slovenian grandmaster was prepared to play another Philidor but Smeets exchange queens and went for an ending which would not have brought him much if Black had played 12…Nbd7. But Beliavsky chose 12…h6 which resulted in a middlegame with opposite-coloured bishops in which White had an edge appreciation to Black’s vulnerable kingside pawns. According to Smeets his place became technically charming when Black had to push his pawns to g5 and f6. But the game took a spectacular turn when Beliavsky in progress to play for a win and launched an attack on the white king. Suddenly I was almost mated Smeets comment, still in disbelief. Well, in fact he was not and Beliavsky had been improved advise to take a draw by a repetition of moves when the opportunity arose. Instead, he overplayed his hand and only realize what he had complete when it was too late.

The Experience side took a new guide in the fifth round of the NH Chess Tournament in Amsterdam. Svidler beat Nakamura and Beliavsky won his initial game, against Stellwagen. The NH Chess Tournament take place on August 20-31 in hotel Krasnapolsky, in the sympathy of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. As always, the tournament is a argument between a team of five young ‘Rising Stars’ and a team of five ‘Experienced’ grandmasters.

In Round 5 of the NH Chess Tournament the Experience side bounced back with a 3½- 1½ win over the growing Stars. Russian winner Peter Svidler defeated American champ Hikaru Nakamura, while Alexander Beliasvky won his initial game at the cost of Daniel Stellwagen. Halfway from side to side the event the Experience side leads 13½-11½. In the clash for the ticket to the 2010 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament in Nice, Dutch Champion Jan Smeets is leading with 3½ from 5 a full point ahead of runners-up Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura.

The key match of the day was the one between Peter Svidler and Hikaru Nakamura, the best of the Experience team and the growing Stars. For a certain period of time they follow the game they played last month in San Sebastian until the American deviated. Nakamura got a acceptable position, but then the health problems that have been plague him from the begin of the tournament began to play tricks on him. A series of smaller moves was capped by 22…g3 after which the top-seed of the growing Stars was just lost. Svidler was satisfied by his move 24.e6 and though he felt that the change of his advantage had not been perfect he scored an important win after 61 moves. A first-class result earlier than the rest day as he commented on his win.

Peter Heine Nielsen didn’t go for something wild in his match against tactical wizard Hou Yifan, but opted for a strategic battle with a Catalan Opening. The Chinese vice-World champ came well set, improved on an earlier game she had played and reached a relaxed position. Perhaps Black was even a tiny bit improved at some point, but Hou Yifan and her coach Yu Shaoteng opined that the balance had never been broken.Alexander Beliavsky wasn’t amazed that Daniel Stellwagen, who typically plays the Slav Defence, opted for the King’s Indian against him. After all, the Slovenian grandmaster had had an unlucky experience with that defence in his game against Nakamura. From a search in his record he knew that his rival had little or no experience with this variation. However, everything distorted when the Dutchman went badly astray with 22…Nb7. This mistake ran into the strong 23.a3, forcing Black to give up his queen for a rook and a piece. Stellwagen struggle on for another 40(!) moves, but basically there was never any doubt about the outcome. And so on shift 62 Beliavsky made his first win.

Thousands of interested spectators in Zurich Main Station and innumerable Internet users around the world were riveted to jubilee events that marked the 200-year anniversary of the Schachgesellschaft Zürich. No fewer than eleven chess champions participate in the events on 22 and 23 August 2009. Vladimir Kramnik won the champions’ rapid tournament in front of the reign World Champion Anand. The world’s oldest chess club takes great pleasure in having staged a first-class event, whose principal sponsor was Credit Suisse.

In the champions concurrent exhibition on Saturday, 22 August, 2009, 200 amateur chess players battled against eight chess grandmasters: Viswanathan Anand, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Viktor Kortchnoi, Vladimir Kramnik, Boris Spassky, Ruslan Ponomariov and Veselin Topalov showed brilliant skill in their games.

Of the 200 games played, the champions accepted only four wins to their tough challengers; 35 other games ended in a draw. The concurrent event was expected to run through around 6 pm, but Kasparov und Karpov and their opponents duelled through 9 pm. Even that late seven hours after the start both champions were still bounded by many chess enthusiasts. At the start of the event thousands of curious onlookers were watching the champions’ moves.

At the Champions Rapid on Sunday 23 August, 2009, Viswanathan Anand, Werner Hug, Anatoly Karpov, Alexander Khalifman, Vladimir Kramnik, Judit Polgar, Ruslan Ponomariov und Veselin Topalov took on one an added. After seven rounds and some seven hours, the previous World Champion Kramnik pulled in front of Anand. Topalov and Ponomariov common the third place. Countless chess enthusiast followed the games broadcast and live stream pictures on the Internet while in the packed event venue the upbeat mood culminated in the final prize ceremony where the public roared with applause for the champions.

On the heels of the Jubilee-Open 9-15 August, 2009, the revels this weekend brought the 200-year anniversary of the Schachgesellschaft Zürich to an inspiring and first-class finish. According to many audience and to the champions themselves, the events staged in Zurich Main Station will go down in the annals of chess history.