Corus round 2

Nakamura wins the best game prize; Robson takes the clear lead in Group C.

Corus Round 1

For the next couple weeks, the eyes of the chess world will be on the Netherlands resort town of Wijk aan Zee.

Hikaru Nakamura and teenager Fabiano Caruana (Italy/Brooklyn) are playing in the A section (Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik, Ivanchuk...)  Two fan favorites won in round one: Loek van Wely (over Nigel Short) and Alexei Shirov (over Peter Leko).

Fabiano Caruana

Varuzhan Akobian is playing in the GM-B section....

Varuzhan Akobian

...and  teenager Ray Robson is playing in the C-section, and won his first-round game.

Ray Robson

Chess is hard for all of us

Black to play and draw
Sasikiran (India)- Aronian (Armenia)

World Team Championships 2010

Levon Aronian is one of the top five players in the world, and one of the world's strongest endgame players.  (You may recall that he beat Magnus Carlsen in a dead-drawn rook ending a couple years ago.)  But Aronian misses the draw in this "easy" (which is to say "very hard") rook and pawn vs. rook ending.

Karsten Müller explains the correct drawing technique on ChessBase.

aesthetically pleasing

Black to move 

NN (966) -Maret Thorpe (988)

Chess.com, January 13, 2010

Evanston Chess Club TD and Secretary of the Illinois Chess Association Maret Thorpe sends us the finish to one of her online two-minute games.  Although White is formally up material (rook + knight + extra pawn > two bishops), the incredible activity of Black's pieces plus the marooned fellow on h8 should mean that White is not long for this world.  And indeed, something simple like 1...Ba3+ is crushing.

But Black found something even stronger.....

answer to birthday self-indulgence

interview with Vugar Gashimov

...in New in Chess 2009.8 (sorry, no online link is available to the interview).  His story is really remarkable: despite having had brain surgery three times, this 23-year-old is ranked number seven in the world on the January 2010 FIDE list.

World Team wrap-up

 
U.S. captain John Donaldson on Chess Life Online:

The many great players who struggled (Gelfand, Gashimov and Morozevich were all below 50 percent) is testimony to how difficult the event was. Russia was a deserving winner with their depth the deciding difference. This was my eleventh time as US captain, and although the teams have been pretty successful (1 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze team medals) I cannot ever recall anything resembling the performances of Hikaru and Alex on boards one and two. They played exceptionally well with Hikaru showing yet again that he is among the best in the world and Alex that he plays like a 2700 player.

Birthday self-indulgence

Too old to play good chess; .too young to stop playing.  (Erik Karklins is my hero!  And he's 42 years older than I am....)

I finished last in this 2009 tournament, but had one decent game:

White to play and win 

Bill Brock - Oliver Koo, Skokie 2009

Cursed Blunders!

White resigned after 21. Qxf7+, and you can hardly blame him/her/it. Moral of the stoy, kids: When you send in that protected queen to mate your opponent, first make sure there isn't another piece that can capture the lady.

Ben Finegold annotates Aronian-Nakamura

From the St. Louis CC site: again, not to be missed.  It's funny that 41...Ng7? may have been Nakamura's losing move, as you don't see shots like 42.Rb6!! every day.  This is an early entry for Best Game of 2010: both players should be proud.

USA takes silver in World Team Championships!

Russia blew out Israel 3-1, and the US and Azeri teams made four draws.  

Congratulations to John Donaldson and the US team, and congratualtions to our own Yury Shulman!

Armenia 2.5 - USA 1.5 :-(

You've got to see the Aronian-Nakamura game. 

Update: link to US Chess Online.  There's a series of amazing & amusing moves after Aronian's 35.Rc6!

In Paul We Trust

Skokie Barracuda

Not the tournament leader

Sevan Muradian engages in blatant self-promotion via Chess Life Online (which I seem to be linking to a lot lately!)

USA 2.5, Greece 1.5!

And I think Armenia is beating Russia!  (All games in progress in that match, so who knows....)

Here are Nakamura's own notes to his game against Gelfand, again from Chess Life Online.

2nd UPDATE: Armenia  2 - Russia 2.  Chess Life Online coverage is here.

Malcolm Pein annotates Nakamura-Gelfand

Hikaru Nakamura

© John Saunders

At The Week in Chess.

The Greatest Story Ever Told?

(Some PG-13 romance in the above clip.)

Love and chess (and class struggle and self-realization of the oppressed) in the same film? Jouer, c'est jouir! Reviews of the new movie Joueuse and links to YouTube clips on ChessBase.  Kevin Kline does the French!  Strangely, the trailer has no scene of the inevitable lovers' quarrel when New in Chess 2009.8 arrives in the mailbox.

(With respect to the title of this post, please credit this chess nerd with a sense of irony.  Much as I loved the Nabokov novel, I hated The Luzhin Defense.)

P.S. It was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival as Queen to Play.

Miracle save by Jon Burgess

Adamson-Burgess, Skokie 2010

Black to play

White may be winning, but can you find the move that offers maximum resistance?  The first move isn't that hard, but the follow-up is harder to spot.

Here's the game with light notes.  Hat tip to super organizer Sevan Muradian. Look for a full report on the first five rounds of the 24th North American Masters on Chess Life Online and this blog.

World Team: Standings after Round 6

Rank after round 6
Rank	Team	Gam.	+	=	-	MP	Pts.	Res.	SB.
1	RUSSIA	6	5	0	1	10	15½	2	56,50
2	UNITED STATES	6	5	0	1	10	15½	0	49,50
3	AZERBAIJAN	6	3	1	2	7	13½	0	34,50
4	ARMENIA	6	3	1	2	7	13	2	34,25
5	ISRAEL	6	3	1	2	7	13	0	37,75
6	INDIA	6	3	1	2	7	12½	0	39,00
7	GREECE	6	3	0	3	6	13	0	37,50
8	EGYPT	6	1	1	4	3	9	0	16,00
9	BRAZIL	6	1	0	5	2	9	0	9,00
10	TURKIYE	6	0	1	5	1	6	0	4,50

As you can see, the US and Russia are tied for first in match points. The first tiebreak is game points: USA and Russia are tied in that, too. The second tiebreak is face-to-face: Russia would win that.

Russia's remaining pairings:

• Armenia (super-tough) 
• Egypt (easy) 
• Israel (super-tough) 

 USA's remaining pairings

• Greece (on a hot streak) 
• Armenia (super-tough) 
• Azerbaijan (super-tough) 

Even if Armenia (which will face Russia, USA, & Egypt) wins out, it would be not guaranteed a tie for first based on match points, even if tiebreaks were favorable. Azerbaijan (facing Brazil, Greece, USA) has the easiest schedule, but may already need a miracle to catch up.

So USA is in strong position to grab the silver, with every chance to contend for gold.

USA on a roll!

Big win against Israel 2.5-1.5!

Big win against Brazil 3-1!

And kudos to Jennifer Shadade and Chess Life Online for the excellent coverage....