News Archive - 2009 [2010 2008 2007 2006 2005]

 

 

29th December 2009

Magnus Carlsen: The 19-Year-Old King of Chess

At age 13, he was the third youngest grandmaster in history. A few years later, he was already beating the world’s top players. And on Jan 1st, 19-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway will officially become the youngest person in history to achieve chess's No. 1 ranking. TIME caught up with the grandmaster at a tournament in London to probe the mind of a chess genius. Read more ...

 

In December 2009 Carlsen won the London Classic ahead of Kramnik, Nakamura, Short and others. As a result of this victory he will become the first teenaged chessplayer in history to occupy the first place in the official world rankings (to be published on 1st January 2010).

 

28th December 2009

Korchnoi-Spassky match in Elista, 17th-27th Dec

 

The match for a prize fund of US $20,000 had a time control of 90 mins + 30 seconds per move.

 

Photo © Official site

 

The match ended all square at 4-4.

Official site (Russian) Games in PGN

 

 

16th December 2009

London Chess Classic, December 8th-15th, 2009

Winner: Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen won the London Chess Classic after a nail-biting finish against Nigel Short. The game ended in a draw and the single point gained was enough to put him one point clear of Vladimir Kramnik, who drew with Hikaru Nakamura. The other two games ended decisively. David Howell played a superb game with Black to defeat China’s Ni Hua, while Michael Adams outplayed Luke McShane in another close struggle.

 

This is another momentous tournament victory for Magnus Carlsen. As a result of his victory in London, Carlsen will become the first teenaged chessplayer in history to occupy the first place in the official world rankings (to be published on 1st January 2010) - John Saunders, Press Chief, LCC.

 

• Official site • Reports • Photos • Standings and Crosstable • All games in PGN

• Replay: Round 1  Round 2  Round 3  Round 4  Round 5  Round 6  Round 7

 

The €10,000 brilliancy prize was awarded to Luke McShane for his round 5 win over Nakamura.

 

 

 

 

 

15th December 2009

World Cup, Khanty Mansiysk, 20th Nov - 15th Dec 2009

Final report from Chessbase 14th Dec: Gelfand has beaten Ponomariov to win the World Cup. After drawing the regular games they went into the perilous tiebreaks. They won a rapid chess game each and drew two to proceed to the blitz, where again each won a game. Game three and four went to the Israeli, who thus won the World Cup. Gelfand is now part of the eight-player tournament to find a challenger for the World Champion.

 

The FIDE World Chess Cup took place in Khanty-Mansiysk from November 20th to December 15th 2009. It was a seven-round knockout event ... more

 

• Official site • Schedule • LIVE link and photos • Results • Games in PGN

 

30th November 2009

BNbank Blitz 2009 - Nakamura beats Carlsen in the final

A strong field of players competed in the BNbank Blitz 2009 which took place in Oslo on Sat, November 28.

 

Ten players were invited and divided into two groups, insuring that the two designated finalists, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, would meet in the final. And that's exactly what happened!

 

• Official site • Full results with tables • Videos and games in PGN

 

30th November 2009

Preston Congress 2009

Fri 27 - Sun 29 Nov at University of Central Lancashire, Foster Building (Foster 25), PR1 2HE. Five Atticus player competed. Their final scores: Luke Boumphrey 2/5 (Open) Phil Hopkins 3/5 and Vojtech Fiser 1½/5 (Major), Jim Wiseman 1½/5 (Minor) and David Odunaiya 5/5 and sole 1st prize! (Standard).

 

• Official site • LIVE games and further details

 

23rd November 2009

British Rapidplay Championships 2009

This took place at the Halifax Leisure Centre, HX3 6TE - 11 rounds over Sat 21st & Sun 22nd November.

 

Final scores for the leading players: 1st= David Howell and Mark Hebden 9/11; 3rd Peter Wells 8½; 4th Richard Palliser with 8. Over 300 players took part in 4 sections.

 

• Official site • LIVE Games and times • Photos • Reports

 

19th November 2009

World Blitz Championship 2009

Magnus Carlsen lead by 2½ pts with just four rounds left after beating Anand in Round 38. He wrapped up the title a couple of rounds later. Anand was well clear in second place. In addition to his World no.1 spot he is also World Blitz Champion 2009, not bad for an 18yr old.

 

• Official site • Results • VIDEO feed • More links • Games in PGN

 

16th November 2009

Tal Memorial 2009

Vladimir Kramnik has won the Tal Memorial in Moscow. Anand was beaten easily by Aronian, Ponomariov beat Morozevich and Svidler and Gelfand drew. In the last game to finish Magnus Carlsen beat Peter Leko with black and will now be the world’s number one in the live ratings ahead of Veselin Topalov.

 

Final standings: 1st Kramnik RUS 2772 6; 2nd= Ivanchuk UKR 2739, Carlsen NOR 2801 5½; 4th= Aronian ARM 2786, Anand IND 2788 5; 6th Gelfand ISR 2758 4½; 7th Ponomariov UKR 2739 4; 8th Svidler RUS 2754 3½; 9th= Leko HUN 2752, Morozevich RUS 2750 3.

 

• Official site • Games in PGN • Chessbase Rd9 Report • Final Crosstable

 

12th November 2009

Magistral Casino de Barcelona 2009

The Casino GM tournament in Barcelona finished with a surprise win for Spanish IM Daniel Alsina Leal with 6½/9 a point clear of Josep Manuel Lopez Martinez and Jordi Magem Badals.

 

Dreev, Tregubov and Fier all had a bad time the latter having five losses and finishing on a catastrophic 2/9. • Final table • PGN games

 

 

 

 

11th November 2009

World Junior Championship, Puerto Madryn (ARG) 22 Oct - 4 Nov

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has won this title after a dramatic last round in which he caught up with Sergei Zhigalko from Belarus. David Howell finished 10th= with 8/13. Express report from Chessdom.

 

This was a massive 13-round Swiss system event. Results were compiled thankfully by chess-results.com as the official site struggled severely thoughout. David lost to Vachier-Lagrave in Rd9 and to the newest US GM Ray Robson in Rd10 so his chances of a medal were scuppered after that • Official site • Results Boys • Results Girls

 

5th November 2009

4NCL 0910

The new season started over the weekend 24th/25th Oct. Divisions 1&2 took place at De Vere Venues, Sunningdale and Division 3 at Barcelo Hotel, Daventry. LIVE games were broadcast on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th.

 

Click for all results and PGN games. See photos and a short video here.

 

5th November 2009

Karpov v Kasparov, Rapid Match, Dec 2009

Karpov's planned return match with Kasparov in December has been cancelled. Not a bad idea from Karpov's viewpoint given his poor performances. At 58 and with a rating well over 2600 he is still a considerable force in world chess. With some better preparation he will ready for his return and a re-scheduled match in 2010.

 

4th November 2009

Magnificent win at 13th Univé Open, 18th-24th October

Stewart Haslinger (right) from Formby has won the 13th Univé Tournament, Hoogeveen, Netherlands with 7½/9, a clear point ahead the field and with a TPR of 2707.

 

Stewart's event took place alongside the Crown group  which saw Sergei Tiviakov the surprising winner with 3½ ahead of Vassily Ivanchuk, Anish Giri both on 3 and Judit Polgar 2½.  See the official site for all the latest details, crosstables and PGN games.

 

4th November 2009

New ECF Board members

CJ de Mooi (BBC Eggheads fame) is the new ECF President, Nigel Short is the new FIDE delegate and Adam Raoof the new Director for Home Chess. This must be good news for Chess in England.

 

However, the ECF will still have their work cut out following a decision by the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sports) to suspend the annual £60,000 grant until a properly formulated business plan is submitted and they appoint a Finance Director.

 

 

 

 

2nd November 2009

Anand v Karpov, Rapid Match

World Champion Vishy Anand played former World Champion Anatoly Karpov in a rapid match in France. The event took place in Bastia on October 31st and continued in Ajaccio on November 2nd.

 

All games were 15 mins + 3 secs per move. The match was held alongside Corsica Masters, taking place in Bastia. Official site. Karpov was beaten easily finding it hard to equalise against the much sharper and in-form Anand. See the games here.

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1st November 2009

European Team Championships phone incident

In the round 3 Bulgaria v England match Alexander Delchev's cellphone went off just before the start of play. See about 2:40 into the video (courtesy of Europe Echecs). Stuart Conquest was the beneficiary and as Cheparinov lost to McShane on board two, England won the match 2½-1½. Full report on Chessbase.

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1st November 2009

Anand, Kramnik and Carlsen will play in Grandmaster group A of the 2010 Corus Chess Tournament. London Classic competitors, Nakamura and Short will play too and Ni Hua and David Howell will play in the B group. The event is held in the Dutch coastal town of Wijk aan Zee. The event runs from January 15th-31st. Click for full details.

 

21st October 2009

Nanjing: Carlsen wins Pearl Spring with 3002 performance

Already sure of a sole victory, Magnus Carlsen added even more brilliancy to his Pearl Spring victory by defeating Dmitry Jakovenko in the last round. Full story.

 

21st October 2009

Sicilian Najdorf 2.Nf3 without 3.d4: The Moscow Variation

See a recent game in Division 2 between Gary Quillan and Marcus Chard in this increasingly popular line.

 

18th October 2009

New games

Dave Stuttard has sent a collection of 8 entertaining annotated games from last season. Click to play through them move by move.

 

15th October 2009

Atticus on Tour

Martin Blasczyk and FS 98 Chess Club in Dortmund have invited Atticus CC members to visit them for a week (7-10 days) in Sept 2010 ... more

 

25th September 2009

Karpov v Kasparov re-match 22-24 Sept, Valencia

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This match commemorated the 25th anniversary of the first Karpov vs Kasparov World Championship match in 1984-85 in Moscow.

 

There were 12 games, four rapid, played on the Tues and Wed, plus eight blitz games on Thurs. Each round started at 18:00 (GMT).

 

Both players expressed 'surprise' that their match could generate so much publicity but it was obviously intended to be that way. The real-time game coverage was patchy, in particular during the blitz part (eight games with only a 30 min break) but it was nevertheless a spectacular event. They have agreed to meet again for something similar in December.  

 

Official event site (in Spanish). Click to see photos, videos and all games in PGN.

 

20th September 2009

John Littlewood 1931 - 2009. A personal appreciation by John Carleton

 

 

31st August 2009

The new season starts on Monday 7th September. All Atticus fixtures are now posted - with thanks to Dave Hurley. Please check and report any errors.

 

Membership details are also online, please check them too - with thanks to Jim Wiseman for collating the information.

 

No news has been sent regarding the grade threshold for the KA Cup currently set at 129 and below. In light of the new 'inflated' grades recently published for 2009/10, this might change. Update 4th Sept - This has now been confirmed and remains at 129 and below.

 

26th August

Summer Tournament 2009

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17th July 2009

Staunton Memorial 2009

Final match score:

England 26½ - 23½ Netherlands

 

In round 10 - Van Wely 0-1 Short, Smeets 1-0 McShane, L'Ami ½-½ Adams, Sokolov ½-½ Jones & Werle ½-½ Howell.

 

Individual scores:

England: Short 8/10, Adams & Howell 5/10, McShane 4½, Jones 4.

Netherlands: Smeets 6/10, Sokolov 5½, Van Wely 5, L'Ami 4½, Werle 2½

 

Official site • PGN Scheveningen • PGN All Play All • TWIC • Chessbase

 

The event took place at Simpson-in-the-Strand 8-17 August in two player groups, a  double round Scheveningen System match between the UK and the Netherlands and an all play all single round with ten players. Adams, Short, McShane, Howell and Jones played in the top group. Howell arrived slightly late on the first Saturday, travelling from Torquay as the newly crowned British Champion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9th July 2009

British Championships 2009

David Howell became British Champion with 9/11 after drawing his final round game against IM Gary Lane. He also picked up the British U21, U18 and the Tony Miles English Championship titles.

 

The 96th Championships was be held from, 26 July - 8 August at the ultra-modern English Riviera Centre, Torquay.

Located just off the seafront, the Riviera Centre is a purpose built conference and exhibition venue enjoying a wide range of accommodation within walking distance. More information on the official site.

 

20th July 2009

116th Scottish Championships, Edinburgh

This nine round FIDE rated event ran from 11th - 19th July in the splendid City Chambers. Final scores: 1st GM Arun Prasad IND 2556 7½, 2nd GM Jan Markos SLO 2555 7, 3rd GM Mark Hebden ENG 2468 7, 4th GM Magesh Chandran Panchanath IND 2493 6½, 5th GM Aaron Summerscale ENG 2454 6½ ... 88 players. Official site.

 

1st July 2009

Laws of Chess

The latest edition was adopted at the 77th FIDE Congress in Dresden, November 2008, coming into force on 1 July 2009. There are a few notable changes a) to do with start times (page 9) and b) mobile phones (page 14). See full details here.

 

25th June 2009

Eight teams entered this year's event, competing over six rounds.

 

Final scores: Atticus 1 18, Waterloo 17, Aigburth 1 13½, Prescot 13, Atticus II 12½, Liverpool 1 1½ Aigburth II 8 and Atticus III 2½.

 

A big thank you should go to Jim Wiseman for organising our teams, to the Adelphi staff for arranging the rooms and to David Welch arbiter on the night.

 

In lightning chess the rate of play is one move every 10 seconds and each player must move on the time signal or buzzer. Games typically lasted 20-25 mins. Click to see the MCA lightning rules.

 

20th June 2009

Atticus - Widnes dispute

John's report on the dispute between Atticus and Widnes is available here. Please take the time to read it carefully.

 

10th May 2009

	Club Championship 2008/9
		Congratulations to Vojtech who has won last season's championship with 9½ pts. Runner-up was John Carleton and third Phil Hopkins. Details on the championship page. The cup will be presented to Vojtech sometime over the summer and before the start of next season.   Our 2009 summer tournament has now started - click here to see the weekly reports and results.

 

10th May 2009

4NCL

See some photos from rounds 9-11, May 2-4 2009.

 

8th March 2009

 

28th February 2009

Aeroflot 2009

Etienne Bacrot FRA finished on 6½/9 alongside Alexander Moiseenko UKR and takes 1st place (more black piece games). See official site for details. Games in PGN.

 

26th February 2009

Candidates Match, 16 - 28 Feb

Veselin Topalov and Gata Kamsky played their eight-game candidates match from 17-28 Feb in Sofia, Bulgaria. The opening ceremony was held on 16 Feb and Topalov had white in the first game.

 

Rated 2796 and on his home turf, Topalov was hot favourite against Kamsky rated 2725, although he admitted beforehand that the match 'will be very tough'. The prize fund was mouth watering US $250,000. Final Result: Topalov won the match by defeating Kamsky in game 7 after Kamsky got into time trouble in a good position [Click to replay]. Match score 4½-2½. All games in PGN.  Official tournament site. Topalov will now play Anand for the World Championship later in the year but don't hold your breath over that taking place.

 

17th February 2009

'I was there'

Read a nice article by club captain John Carleton on the historic international chess events in Liverpool 2006-8.

 

6th February 2009

Peter Svidler beat Vadim Milov 2-0 in the tie-break for first place and the £15,000 winner's cheque after they finished tied on 8/10. Nana Dzagnidze drew with Golod to secure the £6,000 women's prize. Leading scores: 1-2 P Svidler (RUS, won play-off), V Milov (SUI) 8/10, 3-6 V Gashimov (AZE), H Nakamura (USA), E Berg (SWE), V Akobian (USA) 7½, 7-11 P Harikrishna (IND), N Dzagnidze (GEO), I Sokolov (NED), A Stefanova (BUL), P Cramling (SWE) 7, etc ... more - John Saunders BCM Editor.

 

2nd Feb 2009

Corus 2009 from Wijk aan Zee

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16 Jan - 1 Feb 2009. Games start daily at 13.30 local time, 12:30 GMT. Watch them live on the official site.

 

6th Jan 2009

Hasting Masters 2008/9

Final positions: 1st GM Kurnosov, Igor 2606 RUS 7½, 2nd= GM Berg, Emanuel 2623 SWE 7, GM Neverov, Valeriy 2571 UKR 7, 4th= GM Howell, David W L 2593 ENG 6½, GM Conquest, Stuart C 2526 ENG 6½, GM Hebden, Mark L 2515 ENG 6½ GM Williams, Simon K 2494 ENG 6½, 8th= GM Jones, Gawain C B 2548 ENG 6, GM Pavlovic, Milos 2524 SCG 6, GM Haslinger, Stewart G 2506 ENG 6 ... 104 competitors (performance table).  The event took place between 28th December 2008 - 5th January 2009. Alongside the masters event were several other sections including, Weekender, Open, Major, Minor, Under-100. The congress manager was Stewart Reuben. See the official site www.hastingschess.org.uk for more details. All master games can be downloaded too in PGN.