World carrom winner, Nishantha Fernando’s supremacy in the domestic ground came to an end when he suffered a shock 25-21, 25-24 defeat at the hands of NTN Hilmi in the men’s singles quarter-final match of the 45th national carrom contest held at the Sri Lanka Carrom Federation control center in Maharagama yesterday.

The early beat of Sri Lanka’s third best player Mohamed Sherifdeen (11-25, 25-16, 21-14) to Charith Madushanka in the pre-quarter finals hinted of an outlandish Saturday and Fernando’s loss in the quarter-finals made it a day for the underdogs. Nine times national winner Chamil Cooray is now the firm favourite to win the title as he ease his way into the semi-finals with a satisfied victory (25-18, 25-13) over Ajith Chandrasena.

Dimal Senaratne came in facade of Prameda Mendis (25-12, 25-13) and Brindley Wickramasinghe beat Charith Madushanka 25-14, 25-14 to book his semi-final spot. Meanwhile in the women’s section Joseph Roshitha, Yasika Rahubadde, Madushika Kanchanamala and Chalani Lakmali practiced for the semi-finals. The semi-final and final matches will be played at the same place today.

Fight between players having enjoyed World winner status is always excitedly expected and it was no dissimilar when Round 4 of the ongoing London Chess Classic 2012 in development at the Olympia Centre in London had Viswanathan Anand rutted against Vladimir Kramnik.

The NIIT Mind winner Viswanathan Anand had wrested his first standard world title from Vladimir Kramnik in 2008 at Bonn, Germany but the fourth round meet was more a display of solid chess without much excitement and one which ended without a important result.

Meanwhile Magnus Carlsen provided profusion of enthusiasm by defeating Gawain Jones and surpassed the magical Elo 2856 in Live Ratings, the highest ever score logged by Gary Kasparov. Albeit these ratings are not official but nevertheless invoke attention of chess enthusiasts and those maintenance tabs on information.

Carlsen is now the sole leader in this 9 player Round Robin contest with 10 points while Kramnik follows next, with 8 points. A success garners 3 points and one point is awarded for a draw. Wednesday is a rest day for the contest.

Amongst other games Levon Aronian who has been awfully out of form, scored his first profession over a blundering Gawain Jones while Hikaru Nakamura once again toiled without much luck in trying to convert a slightly advantageous position into success against Michael Adams.

Kramnik however stuck to his favorite Berlin Defense, the one which he had extensively and efficiently used to defeat Kasparov in their World Title Match. However well prepared with theory, there were hardly any astonishing moments and both reached a blocked location, preferring to manoeuvre internally. After 40 moves, the packed looking board was blocked and neither player had any mobility to chances to make progress and peace was thus signed.

The Virgin Islands chess team selected up its first team succeeds at the 2012 World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey, on Monday. The USVI topped Sierra Leone, 3-1. Jorge Massana and William Van Rensselaer won their matches, while Michael Smith earned a win by penalty.

It was the sixth day of the 11-day contest and the USVI is presently ranked 151st out of the 157 teams in the opposition. The USVI will meet one of the three host teams from Turkey today, and the contest will conclude Sunday. Their position has gone up and down throughout the contest, said Van Rensselaer’s mother, Corinne Van Rensselaer, who has monitored the team’s development online.Our guys are doing well evaluate to past teams from the USVI who have competed.

Anthony Monticello and Reece Creswell are also members of the USVI team, which has one match point and 8 game points. Other countries the USVI has gone up against in match play include Palau, Libya, Honduras and Scotland. Russia holds a three-point edge over China for first place, followed by Ukraine, Armenia and the U.S. The Caribbean has a strong presence in the resistance as the Dominican Republic (83), Puerto Rico (87) and the Netherlands Antilles (92) are each ranked in the Top 100. Jamaica, Haiti, Aruba, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago are also in action.

The Soccerama champions, Laraza, stay in first place of the USVI Soccer Association’s St. Thomas Region’s League when it defeated Raymix, 2-1, at Lionel Roberts Stadium on Sunday. It was Laraza’s second straight victory to start the season.Laraza’s Wakendol Laurent scored a brace to give his team a 2-0 halftime lead. Early in the second half, Raymix’s Britton Girard scored to slice the lead to 2-1, but Laraza was able to prevent any further goals as the Raymix tried terribly for the equalizer.

In the second match of Sunday’s triple header, last year’s league runners-up, Togetherness, edged Victory for its first win of the season. All the goals came in the second half. The Togetherness lead 2-0 on goals by Eldondane Francis and Shanley Jno Charles before Victory’s Jean Yves Joudy transformed a penalty kick for their consolation goal.

In the battle of the ‘Vibes,’ the Positive Vibes defeated the defending champion New Vibes on Sunday. After the Positive Vibes squandered common opportunities, Orlando Mitcham scored midway through the second half to give his squad the lead. Positive Vibes’ regular goal keeper Jermaine Riley made good use of his chance as a field player and found the net.

Chess is a board game of skill; in fact, it is widely known that one cannot cheat at a game of chess. Since it is a game of deep plan, with moves contemplated well in advance, and an opponent’s move judged and weighed careful, be sufficient it to say a good chess game doesn’t end soon. Keeping this fact in mind, before setting up a chess board, it is important to find a relaxed location.

Step 1:

The first step get ready to play a game of chess is making sure the board is set properly. Look at the square in the lower right-hand corner for each player. This should be a light-colored square. An easy way to keep in mind this rule is the phrase white on right.

Step 2:

Placing the Rooks
Put the rooks — which in most set, look like small towers — in the four corner squares of the board. If your board has coordinates, place the white rooks on the first rank,and the black rooks on the eighth rank.

Step 3:

Placing the Knights
Place the knights next to the rooks of the same color.

Step 4:

Placing the Bishops
The bishops are placed next to the knights of the same color.

Step 5:

Placing the Queens
The queen is usually the second tallest piece in a chess set. It should be placed center square of its color. The white queen is placed on the lighter center square, which the black queen is place on the dark center square. A good way of identification this is queen on color

Step 6:

Placing the Kings
The king is generally the tallest piece in a chess set, and naturally has a cross on its head. Each king should be placed next to the queen of the same color. If your board has coordinates, the kings should be on the e-file.

Step 7:

Placing the Pawns
The pawns are the shortest and most several pieces in a chess set. You should have eight pawns of each color. These pawns should go in each square in the row in front of the other part of the same color. If your board has coordinates, the white pawns should be on the second rank, and the black pawns must be on the seventh rank.

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Hotel Lac Salin won the 2nd International Livigno Chess Open. Volkov led going into the last round, but this was no guarantee, as two players were a half point behind and another three at 1 point.

During the final game, though, it was enough for him to draw against GM Svetushkin Dmitry – Hotel Cervo. Svetushkin was the winner on Thursday evening of the Grand Prix Distillati Mazzetti d’Altavilla, a blitz competition among invited GMs which took place at Hotel Lac Salin.

The blitz competition earned him a valuable crystal chess board, with pieces made of little bottles with liqueur inside.At the main contest, Svetushkin came fourth, preceded by GM Michalik Peter – Garni Baita della Luna in second and GM Timoshenko, Georgy – Hotel Flora in 3rd. The first three players also won a luxury watch each, accessible by Baume Mercier.

Fifth place went to GM Solodovnichenko Yuri – Park Chalet Hotel Village and 6th for another young chess player, Kilpatrick Callum, who got the last norm for his GM title. Among women, 1st prize overall went to FM Arnetta Maria Teresa – Hotel Amerikan followed by WIM Brunello Marina – Hotel Baita Montana.

90 players, representing 24 nations, with 22 GMs and 14 IMs took part in the event in the Plaza Plachéda conference centre in Livigno, one of the main Alpine resorts in the Alps. Among the many sponsors who made this possible there are all the hotels who certain to host and ‘adopt’ a GM each, Valtellina, Banca Popolare di Sondrio as well as Scacchi Randagi, in charge for the live sharing of the matches.

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