Gelfand strikes at Tal Memorial

Boris Gelfand was declared sole winner of the Tal Memorial today in Moscow. The Israeli grandmaster had an undefeated performance of +3; two of his wins were achieved with the black pieces. This great run put Gelfand back in the top-10 at the live ratings list; he is 9th after gaining 18 points in this event. Defending champion Magnus Carlsen recovered from his loss against Caruana in the third round to finish sole second with 5.5/9 points.

The best Russian in the competition ended up being the lowest-rated, Dmitry Andreikin. The national champion drew eight of his games and defeated Vladimir Kramnik. Andreikin shared 3rd-5th places with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Fabiano Caruana. The young Italian jumped to third place in the live ratings list, and is four points away from the 2800-mark.

Tata Steel 2013

Anand confirmed for London chess classic

Fresh from yet another successful title defence, World Champion Viswanathan Anand, of India, became the first player to sign-up to play in the 4th London Chess Classic, at Kensington Olympia, 1-10 December, 2012.

It is no secret that London is one of Anand’s favourite cities, and this will be his third successive appearance in the tournament.

For well over a decade now, Anand has been among the world’s top five players, and the first Indian to earn the grandmaster title. He played in his first World Championship match back in 1995 in New York, losing to Garry Kasparov.

In May, he beat challenger Boris Gelfand in Moscow to clinch his fifth world championship title. He has also won the Chess Oscar (Player of the Year award) 6 times.

Viswanathan Anand

Anand is also something of a national hero in India, where in 2007 he won the Padma Vibhushan award, one of India’s most prestigious civilian awards, ahead of several prominent sporting superstars, such as cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.

He has become a great ambassador for the game and his country, with his high-profile success over the 64 squares seeing India developing rapidly from a backward chess nation into one of the strongest in the world.

Invitations for the 4th London Chess Classic have gone out to World Champion Vishy Anand, World No.1 Magnus Carlsen, defending champion Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura, Judit Polgar, Michael Adams,Luke McShane and Gawain Jones.

Radjabov with second victory in Tal Memorial

Teimour Radjabov emerged the sole leader of the 2012 Tal Memorial with 2/2 after beating Luke McShane with black pieces. The Englishman used the interesting move 5.b3 in the Rossolimo Sicilian, following in the footsteps of the World Champion Anand from the recent WCC match.

Mikhail Tal Memorial 2012

The 7th Mikhail Tal Memorial will take place from 7th to 19th June, 2012, in Moscow, Russia.

Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Radjabov Teimour, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana have confirmed the participation. The venue, tournament format and other participants will be announced later.

Update: The field is now complete with Alexander Morozevich, Alexander Grischuk, Evgeny Tomashevsky andwinner of the voting contest Luke McShane. McShane still needs to arrange a leave from his regular job.

The previous edition was held in November 2011, but this time the tournament is moved to June. Last month Ilya Levitov mentioned that RCF is having trouble in planning the calendar as to avoid the clashes with other tournaments and FIDE events.

Mikhail Tal Memorial, winners of the previous editions:2006 – Levon Aronian, Peter Leko, Ruslan Ponomariov – 5½ /92007 – Vladimir Kramnik 6½ /92008 – Vassily Ivanchuk 6 /92009 – Vladimir Kramnik 6½ /92010 – Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov – 5½ /92011 – Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian – 5½ /9

Source:www.chessdom.com

The importance of physical conditioning

Like Bobby Fischer, Magnus Carlsen — the world’s highest-rated player — stresses the importance of physical conditioning.

He particularly likes high-altitude walking in his native Norway or more recently in Switzerland, where he won the Biel International tournament.

“Some of the days I was walking, you know, real fast for a long time, and I could feel it afterward and that it was good for me,” he recounted to Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam of the Dutch magazine New in Chess.

He also welcomes opportunities to play soccer between rounds of tournaments such as Biel.

Magnus is a maximalist. Like Fischer, he tries to win with both the white and black pieces and is willing to continue, often for hours, in theoretically equal but challenging positions in which his opponent might falter.

Physical fitness and an eagerness to fight are therefore essential for his success. If he fulfills those conditions, he said, he expects to win.

Long, fatiguing games are, of course, risky even to a well-conditioned 21-year-old.

“If you are going to play long games,” he said, “you are going to make mistakes.”


Source: Susanpolgar.blogspot.in

Magnus and Judit at the Top!

Rank	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games	B-Year
1	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2835	13	1990
2	Aronian, Levon	g	ARM	2820	13	1982
3	Kramnik, Vladimir	g	RUS	2801	0	1975
4	Anand, Viswanathan	g	IND	2799	0	1969
5	Radjabov, Teimour	g	AZE	2784	13	1987
6	Nakamura, Hikaru	g	USA	2771	23	1987
7	Caruana, Fabiano	g	ITA	2767	32	1992
8	Karjakin, Sergey	g	RUS	2766	13	1990
9	Morozevich, Alexander	g	RUS	2765	10	1977
10	Ivanchuk, Vassily	g	UKR	2764	23	1969
11	Grischuk, Alexander	g	RUS	2761	0	1983
12	Topalov, Veselin	g	BUL	2752	13	1975
13	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	g	AZE	2752	10	1985
14	Gashimov, Vugar	g	AZE	2745	13	1986
15	Svidler, Peter	g	RUS	2744	10	1976
16	Kamsky, Gata	g	USA	2741	13	1974
17	Tomashevsky, Evgeny	g	RUS	2736	9	1987
18	Adams, Michael	g	ENG	2735	10	1971
19	Wang, Hao	g	CHN	2733	0	1989
20	Dominguez Perez, Leinier	g	CUB	2730	0	1983
21	Jakovenko, Dmitry	g	RUS	2729	0	1983
22	Gelfand, Boris	g	ISR	2727	13	1968
23	Ponomariov, Ruslan	g	UKR	2727	0	1983
24	Leko, Peter	g	HUN	2720	0	1979
25	Almasi, Zoltan	g	HUN	2719	10	1976
26	Nepomniachtchi, Ian	g	RUS	2718	9	1990
27	Giri, Anish	g	NED	2717	23	1994
28	Riazantsev, Alexander	g	RUS	2710	0	1985
29	Polgar, Judit	g	HUN	2709	10	1976
30	Vitiugov, Nikita	g	RUS	2709	10	1987
31	Jobava, Baadur	g	GEO	2706	9	1983
32	Bacrot, Etienne	g	FRA	2706	8	1983
33	Moiseenko, Alexander	g	UKR	2706	0	1980
34	Wojtaszek, Radoslaw	g	POL	2706	0	1987
35	Grachev, Boris	g	RUS	2705	14	1986
36	Malakhov, Vladimir	g	RUS	2705	0	1980
37	Eljanov, Pavel	g	UKR	2704	9	1983
38	Sasikiran, Krishnan	g	IND	2703	19	1981
39	Li, Chao b	g	CHN	2703	16	1989
40	Laznicka, Viktor	g	CZE	2702	10	1988
41	Movsesian, Sergei	g	ARM	2702	10	1978
42	Wang, Yue	g	CHN	2702	9	1987
43	Naiditsch, Arkadij	g	GER	2702	0	1985
44	Shirov, Alexei	g	LAT	2701	10	1972
45	Navara, David	g	CZE	2700	13	1985
46	Sutovsky, Emil	g	ISR	2700	9	1977
47	Le, Quang Liem	g	VIE	2698	19	1991
48	Dreev, Aleksey	g	RUS	2698	0	1969
49	Short, Nigel D	g	ENG	2697	10	1965
50	Inarkiev, Ernesto	g	RUS	2695	9	1985

Top women

Rank	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games	B-Year
1	Polgar, Judit	g	HUN	2709	10	1976
2	Hou, Yifan	g	CHN	2639	10	1994
3	Koneru, Humpy	g	IND	2589	10	1987
4	Muzychuk, Anna	m	SLO	2583	10	1990
5	Dzagnidze, Nana	g	GEO	2559	15	1987
6	Ju, Wenjun	wg	CHN	2557	9	1991
7	Lahno, Kateryna	g	UKR	2546	13	1989
8	Zhao, Xue	g	CHN	2543	9	1985
9	Kosintseva, Nadezhda	g	RUS	2535	10	1985
10	Stefanova, Antoaneta	g	BUL	2531	10	1979
11	Kosintseva, Tatiana	g	RUS	2513	0	1986
12	Sebag, Marie	g	FRA	2512	0	1986
13	Zatonskih, Anna	m	USA	2511	11	1978
14	Gunina, Valentina	m	RUS	2511	9	1989
15	Harika, Dronavalli	g	IND	2501	22	1991
16	Chiburdanidze, Maia	g	GEO	2500	0	1961
17	Cmilyte, Viktorija	g	LTU	2497	13	1983
18	Socko, Monika	g	POL	2493	9	1978
19	Zhu, Chen	g	QAT	2491	10	1976

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